Terry & Thweatt attorneys Joe Terry and Lee Thweatt represented a 38-year-old woman born with profound mental and physical disabilities who sustained 2nd and 3rd degree burns over nearly thirty percent of her body when the adult care facility she resided in negligently failed to ensure her safety in a house fire operated by her care facility, Four J’s Community Living Center, Inc. One of the other adult residents of the house, who had a long history of mental instability from decades of documented physical, sexual, and mental abuse – all of which was known to Four J’s, was given a cigarette lighter by Four J’s staff for smoking. Four J’s failed to retrieve the cigarette lighter, and later, while she was unsupervised, she used it to set her mattress on fire in her bedroom when she became upset at a Four J’s staff member. The fire eventually consumed the house and destroyed it, badly burning our client.
The suit was filed in the 269th District Court of Harris County, Texas. The case proceeded to trial in October 2011. Trial evidence demonstrated that the home was not equipped with overhead sprinklers, the Four J’s staff member made no attempt to use a fire extinguisher in the home after the fire started, and did not attempt to rescue our client (who was unable to see or walk because of her prior disabilities) from the fire. Further, one of the designated fire exits in the home was deadbolt locked from the inside, and the staff member on duty did not have a key to unlock it, thereby cutting off one avenue of escape from the fire for the residents of the home. Because of her injuries, our client was hospitalized in a burn trauma unit for over a month and required repeated, painful debridement of her burn wounds, along with several skin graft procedures.
The jury awarded $91,600 for past medical bills and $8,000,000 for her permanent disfigurement, physical pain experienced, and mental anguish. The defendants are appealing the verdict.