Wrongful death lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart after August accident

Representatives for the worker who died as a result of his injuries in an electrical fire at the new Wal-Mart Supercenter filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company Wednesday in the Monroe County Circuit Court. \nWal-Mart Stores, Inc., the LaSalle Group, Inc. and Duke Energy of Indiana are all named in the tort, which asked for monetary damages and demanded a jury trial on behalf of Scott Shelton of Anderson, who died in Wishard Memorial Hospital Oct. 13 when his heart stopped. This is the second lawsuit filed over the construction accident, which happened Aug. 26.\nShelton, 35, who received burns covering 95 percent of his body in the electrical accident, had been in an induced coma at the Wishard burn center since August. He was moved briefly to the Riley Hospital for Children in an effort to stabilize him in September. His family, including fiancé Tamera Sniegowski, had been preparing to file a lawsuit at the time of his death.\nThe Shelton family attorney, William Emerick, is representing the First Merchants Trust \nCompany of Lafayette, which is overseeing Shelton's estate. The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart is subject to liability for any carelessness that may have contributed to the electrical accident, specifically because the company had assigned an on-site construction supervisor to monitor the construction project's day-to-day operations.\nShelton, an employee of Electromation, Inc. of Muncie, was injured Aug. 26 while running electrical lines through the main breaker box, with two other men, the lawsuit says. During this task, a piece of metal fell and charged the electrical panels inside the room with up to 12,000 volts of electricity. The resulting electrical arc -- which extended six to eight feet and contained 480 volts of electricity -- sparked a fire in the service room, lighting all three workers on fire. The Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in October.\nThe general contractor, LaSalle, as well as Duke Energy, was also named in the suit for breaching its duty of "reasonable care" by failing to provide for the safety of Shelton. The suit asserts that Shelton's injuries were caused by this breach.\nThe suit asked for a jury trial to determine an unnamed amount of damages for lost earnings, medical and funeral expenses, as well as to compensate Shelton's nine-month-old daughter, Mallory. His funeral was held in Alabama last month.\nRobert Eury, 29, of Bloomington and Steve Abbott, 27, of Otterbein, who were also severely burned in the accident, were listed in serious condition at the Wishard burn center Thursday night.\nAbbott and his wife Stephanie filed a similar lawsuit in October asking for monetary damages and a jury trial for the pain and suffering caused by the accident.