The Alabama Supreme Court has ordered a new trial in a case where a jury ordered Mobile Gas Service Corp. to pay $3.9 million to the family of an elderly woman who died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The court said in a 6-0 ruling that errors in the trial required the judgment to be set aside.
Rosa Robinson had filed a wrongful death suit against Mobile Gas Service Corp. and other defendants after a carbon monoxide leak in her home in 2004 caused the death of her elderly mother, Harriett Robinson.
The jury in 2007 found that the company had supplied gas to a furnace in the Robinson home in Chickasaw even though company inspectors had tagged the furnace as being defective.
Robinson’s attorney, George Finkbohner, said the Supreme Court found errors in the instructions the judge gave the jury and returned the case for another trial.
A spokesman for Mobile Gas did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Finkbohner called the case “a tragedy.” He said gas should not have been turned on to the home until the defective furnace had been fixed.
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