CHARLESTON - A Cabell County man has filed a lawsuit against Marshall University after he claims he was injured by glass that covered a fire hose on campus.
Brady Settle filed the suit July 9 in Kanawha Circuit Court against the university's Board of Governors and Larsen's Manufacturing, the company that made the fire hose and valve cabinet.
Settle was a student during the Fall 2007 semester and was studying on the lower floor of the Science Building on the Huntington campus.
The suit says Larsen's fire hose and valve cabinets are located in several hallways and public access areas around the building. They typically consist of a metal frame and a large glass door.
According to the suit, safety glass should be used in the doors to prevent the glass from shattering in an unpredictable and uncontrollable manner. However, the glass in the doors was not always safety glass, the suit alleges.
On Nov. 26, 2007, Settle was walking down the hallway when he says he fell, stuck his hand out and made contact with the cabinet.
"Because it was non-safety glass, it exploded into shards, daggers and razor sharp pieces of glass," the suit says.
According to the suit, the glass impaled, stabbed, slashed, cut and sliced its way through the tendons of Settle's hand, causing bleeding, permanent disfigurement, scarring and the inability to fully use it.
Settle claims the BOG owed him a legal duty to clean, inspect and maintain campus and its contents, specifically the safety glass and other non-breakable material on the cabinet into which Settle fell.
The suit also claims Larsen's negligently manufactured, designed, sold and installed the cabinet.
Settle seeks general and specific damages and other punitive damages.
Attorney Mark Underwood is representing Settle. The case has been assigned to Judge Louis Bloom.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 08-C-1323