A man who was permanently disabled after suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning while in a recreational vehicle in Wisconsin has accepted a $2 million settlement, according to The Daily Telegram of Adrian, Mich.
The plaintiff, 60-year-old Larry Brenke of Riga, Mich., will be getting payments from four defendants in the case, which stems from a June 2009 incident. Brenke was rendered unconscious by the potentially lethal gas while in the RV during a trip to Wisconsin, The Daily Telegram reported.
Under the settlement, RV owner Allen Smith and Al Smith Concrete Construction of Blissfield agreed to pay Brenke $1 million, according to The Daily Telegram. Cobra Truck & Fabrication of Ottawa Lake, which built the RV, will also shell out $1 million.
In addition to them, the companies that did the inspection on the RV and put a carbon monoxide detector in it will pay $75,000 in settlement money, The Daily Telegram reported.
In the carbon monoxide incident, Brenke and another man went with Smith to a tractor-pulling contest in Tomah, Wis. But the trip went awry. The morning after the three men arrived in Wisconsin, Smith and Brenke were discovered unconscious in the RV, according to The Daily Telegram.
Brenke didn’t recover from the injury he suffered due to the carbon monoxide, and his wife Jane was named his guardian.
In April Brenke’s lawsuit went through a case evaluation, and a $2 million settlement was suggested, The Daily Telegram reported.
On top of the two $1 million awards, Walter Kidde Portable Equipment of North Carolina paid $50,000. It had distributed a carbon monoxide detector, made in China, that failed to go off in Smith’s RV. And T.R. Arnold & Associates, the Indiana company that inspected the RV, paid $25,000 in settlement money, according to The Daily Telegram.
The newspaper also reported that Cobra Truck & Fabrication made the RV using a trailer chassis, and then put a “gasoline-fueled electric generator under the living quarters without proper exhaust ventilation.”
Smith had put holes in the RV’s floor to install gear, and that’s how the carbon monoxide got into the RV.
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