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MIAMI - A circuit court jury awarded $104-million in compensatory damages Friday to a family whose teenage son was left in a permanent vegetative state by a swimming pool accident.
Lorenzo Peterson, who turns 18 today, was swimming in a Miami pool in June 2000 when he was pulled to the bottom and trapped because the cover of the pool drain had been left off. Despite efforts of six adults to pull him free, he was released only when a responding police officer turned off the power to the pump.
The jury agreed with the family's attorneys that the pool pump had product defects and ordered its maker, Sta-Rite Industries Inc., to pay $104-million in damages.
A coming phase of the trial will determine whether the company also must pay punitive damages.