THE PLAIN DEALER
November 9, 1982

CEI hit for $750,000 for injuries to farmer

By John Nussbaum

An Ashtabula County farmer won a $750,000 jury verdict yesterday against the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. For injures he suffered when an arc from an electric wire sent 7,000 volts through his body.

However, Common Pleas Judge Ann McManamon will be forced to scale down the award to $500,000, which was all Gary Cotterman sought in his petition.

The accident happened in July 1979 when Cotterman, 25, of Jefferson, delivered a load of slag to a home construction site on Webster Rd. in Lennox Township. He was hauling the slag in his own dump truck for Dart Trucking Co.

According to testimony presented by Cotterman's lawyer, John H. Metz, the truck never touched the overhead wires. As he tilted the bed of the truck to dump his load, Cotterman leaned partly out of his vehicle, with one foot on the ground, to make sure the truck cleared the wires.

It was an extremely humid day, and the slag dust contained metallic particles. An electric arc formed between the wire and the truck, flowing through his body to the ground.

Burns caused him to lose part of his left foot. His parents, Mr. And Mrs. Robert Cotterman, testified that his body had extensive scars and that the accident left him with a stutter.

The elder Cotterman, a Lennox Township trustee, is director of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Tri-County Conservation District covering Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake counties.

CEI lawyer Robin G. Weaver presented a consulting engineer, Frank a. Denbrock of Michigan, who contended the accident described by Cotterman could not have happened. Under questioning, he said his testimony was based on experiments under controlled laboratory conditions.

Russell Hunt, who retired from CEI after 35 years as an engineer, including 15 years as head of CEI's electrical safety committee, testified he had investigated at lest five similar accidents.

He said that the poles on Webster Rd., some erected in the 1930s, permitted too much slack and that the uninsulated wires at the site were too low for safety.

Since his 1971 retirement from CEI, Hunt has been a North Royalton councilman and worked five years as an electrical expert for the Municipal Light Plant.

The 6-to2 verdict by the eight jurors came after a five-day trial before McManamon.