Testimony continues in a Columbiana County Courtroom in the civil case of the family of Lisa Kay Smith versus two Columbiana City electrical workers, Gary Holloway and James Sturgeon.
Smith was 39 years old when she was electrocuted stepping into a puddle of water, as she delivered newspapers on West Park Avenue during a stormy May morning in 2004. "She was our paper lady, delivered our papers in the morning, and she was just a real kind lady," says Columbiana resident James Beach.
Smith's parents filed a wrongful death suit in 2005, dismissed the claim, and then re-filed in 2007. The family and their attorney say Holloway and Sturgeon didn't properly secure a down power line, and their negligence led to Smith's death.
Reports say the employees left the live wire they were working on hanging well above the street on a pulley, where it could conceivably do no harm. But when they came back from changing into dry work clothes, they found Smith's body lying in a puddle next to the wire, and no one witnessed what happened.
The city's expert witness took the stand and defended the workers, saying they did everything they could to do the job right. "The intensity of the storm was such that they needed to get out of there, until they could come back and re-connect it, but they made sure that they had the wire secured before they left," says Craig Kasper, Senior Energy Advisor with Hull & Associates.
Both sides will present closing arguments Thursday morning. Then it's up to a jury of eight men and women to decide whether or not Smith's family should be paid for punitive and compensatory damages.
