By: Mara H. Gottfried
Source: Pioneer Press (TNS)
After a 61-year-old worker was fatally struck by a dump truck operator at a construction site in downtown St. Paul, a law firm found the operator was under the influence of drugs and safety protocols had not been followed, they announced Wednesday.
The widow of Pete M. Davis has reached an $8.5 million settlement with the concrete company that employed the truck’s operator, court documents show.
Davis, of Stillwater, worked for St. Paul Regional Water Services for more than 40 years before he retired at the end of July 2022 and went to work in the private sector.
On Sept. 28, 2022, he was working for a contracting company. The 23-year-old operator of a loaded dump truck, owned by another company, Ti-Zack Concrete Inc., was backing up at a construction site on Wabasha Street just south of East Seventh Street. Davis was crushed by the truck and died at the scene.
Kristi Davis filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Ti-Zack Concrete Inc. in Ramsey County District Court in April 2023. An attorney for Ti-Zack Concrete, which is based in Le Center, Minn., said Wednesday that they have no comment.
Lawsuit cited training and backup alarm
The lawsuit alleged that Ti-Zack Concrete didn’t adequately train the driver, developed no written backup plan, didn’t use a spotter and improperly installed a backup alarm. SiebenCarey Personal Injury Law “uncovered a history of backing accidents” that the concrete company didn’t address, the firm said in a statement.
The firm found “serious failures” on the part of the concrete company, including “drug use by the driver of the truck, destruction of evidence and negligence in drug testing and other safety protocols,” said attorney Jeffrey Sieben, who represented Davis’ wife of 35 years, Kristi Davis. “In other words, if the rules would have been followed, Pete would still be here.”
Ramsey County District Judge Mark Ireland wrote in a September order that the truck’s operator was seen using a cellphone immediately after Davis died and that he texted a friend, “I’m f—–.” The operator tested positive that day for cocaine and marijuana.
Kristi Davis addressed the court at a hearing last month about the settlement. She said it couldn’t bring her husband back, but “we hope to begin to move forward in rebuilding our lives around the hole that can never be replaced, as well as to have set into motion improved safety measures by the company to prevent this traumatic event from occurring.”
Driver's cellphone is missing
Davis’ legal team sent a preservation letter to Ti-Zack Concrete in November 2022, saying the operator’s cellphone must be kept and the operator had to be notified. A week after the operator met with his attorneys in June 2023, his cellphone was broken — he said at his deposition that it slipped out of his pocket in a skid loader.
He traded in the cellphone under an insurance plan and “the now ‘broken’ phone” that the operator “was obligated to preserve cannot be found or traced,” Ireland wrote.
“The possible damages for civil liability are very high,” Ireland wrote. For the operator, since he tested positive for drugs and because Davis’ attorneys believed his cellphone “may reveal” he was “actively using the phone and distracted while driving the dump truck,” evidence from the phone “may result in a charge of manslaughter or vehicular homicide as well as the loss of a commercial driver’s license,” Ireland added.
The operator was not criminally charged. St. Paul police noted in a report that officers did not observe signs of impairment, and they didn’t seek drug or alcohol testing.
There are commercial motor vehicle requirements for drug testing and, when the operator was released to his employer, they took him to Regions Hospital for drug testing, Sieben said. That is not a medical review officer, which is the required testing agent, and Sieben said his team couldn’t analyze the drug testing as a result.
Pain a factor under new state law
Part of the settlement included money for the agony suffered by Davis from the moment he was first struck to the time he lost consciousness and died, Sieben said. It stems from a new state law about pain prior to death in wrongful-death cases.
An independent accident scene reconstructionist, who reviewed surveillance video, wrote in an affidavit filed in the case that Davis became aware of the dump truck approaching from behind, and was seen turning his head and raising his arm 1.5 seconds before he was struck. The truck pushed him face first to the ground for 0.5 second, and then crushed him face down from his boots up for 1.2 seconds of consciousness before his death.
The insurance company of Ti-Zack Concrete is responsible for paying the settlement, which will go to Davis’ relatives and attorneys and experts who worked on the case.
The Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Division issued a $40,400 penalty to Ti-Zack Concrete and a $25,000 penalty to SGP Contracting Inc., for whom Davis was working. They were primarily cited for not conducting adequate training for employees on Sept. 28, 2022 — the day that Davis died — about safely working around earthmoving equipment, according to documents from the state division.
Long-time public servant, dad and grandpa
Davis grew up in North St. Paul. The fourth of five siblings, he followed his older brothers to the neighborhood outdoor hockey rink and they played for hours. He was a lifelong hockey player and passed his love of hockey on to his two daughters, whom he coached in North St. Paul.
He and Kristi, whose anniversary was two days before his death, also have three grandchildren.
During his decades at St. Paul Regional Water Services, “he always answered the call with main breaks or anything,” Kristi Davis said. “He was a true public servant.”
“His colleagues and individuals that worked with him over his 40-year career were just shocked when they heard that it was Pete who had been run over by the dump truck because he was so experienced and so familiar with all of the safety protocols,” she said Wednesday.
One of Kristi Davis’ requests in the settlement, which was agreed to, was that Ti-Zack Concrete Inc. hire a new safety director. They also asked that during training for new drivers, they’re shown video of the accident up to the point of the impact.
Pete Davis was a mentor to those he worked with. “When he walked in a room, you knew it,” Kristi Davis said. “We couldn’t take him anywhere where he didn’t know someone, and even if he didn’t, he made fast friends.”
He was passionate about youth sports, clean water, and outdoor and environmental education. Kristi Davis started the Peter M. Davis Foundation to continue his community service, and proceeds from a golf tournament last year went to the Herb Brooks Foundation.
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