A jury in Milwaukee County on Thursday found a Sheboygan County firm was mainly responsible for a 2010 accident that killed a 15-year-old boy and injured two others. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the panel awarded $39 million in damages to them and Milwaukee County. Jurors also found that the company, Advance Cast Stone, intentionally concealed and misrepresented a defect or deficiency in its installation of 13-ton panels concrete panels at the county-owned O’Donnell Park parking garage.
Jared Kellner was killed when one of the panels fell. Amy Wosinski and her then-15-year-old son Eric were injured. Testimony during the five week trial was focused on the way a panel was attached by the Advance Cast Stone, with two rather than the prescribed four steel connecting rods, and other deviations.
Jared’s mother, Dawn Kellner, spoke briefly following the verdicts. “Thank you to the community for remembering Jared, thank you to the people who stood up now so this never happens to anyone else or any other family,” she said.
Advance Cast Stone did not comment on the jury’s ruling but insisted throughout the trial that others involved in the project had signed off on the alternate methods its workers used to install the panel that failed, the Journel Sentinel said.