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Injured Sunoco worker asked $1 million, jury awards $9 million. By Harold Brubaker INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A Philadelphia jury awarded a laborer $9 million this week for injuries sustained when he fell off a ladder at Sunoco's refinery in South Philadelphia. John T. Dooley, the attorney for plaintiff Patrick Brown, said they had originally demanded $3 million in compensation for the Oct. 2002 accident, but negotiated down to $1 million. "The only offer" Sunoco "ever made was $25,000," Dooley said. "They ended up with a $9 million verdict against them." The award would have ranked as the third highest to a single plaintiff in a Pennsylvania civil case last year, according to PaLAW 2005, an annual report on the state's legal profession. The jury in the Court of Common Pleas reached its unanimous verdict Tuesday, according to Michele Rizio, a paralegal in Dooley's Pennsauken office. Sunoco spokesman Jeffrey Peters said yesterday: "We're very disappointed with the award. We plan to appeal." Port Richmond resident Brown, 35, fell while climbing down a ladder between catwalks, banging his head and injuring his back and shoulder in the fall, according to court documents. Brown's injuries included herniated discs, according to documents filed by Dooley. The main factual dispute in the case is whether a safety cage was in place on the ladder when the accident occured.
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