Blast Victims Decry Tennessee’S Liability Cap Spokane Couple Urges Legislature To Make Changes; Panel Passes Seven Bills

Thu., May 13, 1999

Staff

Tennessee law “gives governments a blank check to maim and kill innocent victims,” Spokane resident Don Wilson told Tennessee lawmakers Wednesday.

Wilson and his wife, Irma, urged legislators to increase the amount Tennessee cities and counties can be made to pay for accidents like the one that nearly killed him and his wife.

The Spokane couple were severely burned by the explosion of a Nashville Electric Service transformer while they vacationed in downtown Nashville on Oct. 10, 1997.

“It was terrifying seeing my wife’s flesh literally frying before my eyes,” said Wilson, who didn’t realize he was on fire, too.

Irma Wilson, who spent several months in a coma after the accident, which burned more than 60 percent of her body, has had repeated surgeries and only now is beginning to feel healthy.

The Wilsons have incurred more than $1.5 million in medical bills, most of which they learned last October would not be paid for by Nashville Electric Service, the company responsible for the faulty transformer.

The state’s Governmental Tort Liability Act caps the amount that Nashville Electric is responsible for to $130,000 per person and $350,000 total for the accident.

“In short, we were left to fend for ourselves by a law that grants immunity to a multimillion-dollar business,” Don Wilson said, noting Nashville Electric makes $600 million in revenue a year.

The Wilsons and Tennessee construction worker Ben Holt are suing Nashville Electric for damages from the explosion, which killed a Clarksville, Tenn., painter in front of Nashville’s NASCAR Cafe.

The Wilsons ran the Don Wilson Insurance Agency in north Spokane until their son Randy took it over before the explosion.

Members of the Tennessee House Judiciary Committee, shown gruesome photos of the Wilsons taken after the accident, agreed it is time to change the law.

Committee members approved seven bills, some raising liability limits and others doing away with them entirely.

One bill would specifically address the Wilsons’ situation, setting up a mechanism allowing NES to pay their medical bills. That legislation is likely to be approved by the full House and Senate. The others face less certain futures.

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