Ann prevails in trial to recover workers’ compensation award

On Friday, August 20, 2010, a Cleveland County jury returned a unanimous verdict for our client, Danny Rhodes. Danny was injured at work in 1992 while working for a long haul trucker for Hersek Express Incorporated. Since Hersek had no workers’ compensation insurance, Danny had to get a judgment from a Superior Court judge. When he tried to collect the judgment in 2002, he learned that Hersek had become a new company – Diamond H Incorporated – and that Diamond H now owned all of the assets. Danny’s former attorney filed a complaint against the companies and their individual owners alleging claims of fraudulent transfer, civil conspiracy and piercing the corporate veil.

We became involved in the case in 2008. We obtained documents from the Department of Motor Vehicles, the companies’ bank and their accountant to show how the companies and its owners moved money and assets around. The jury found that Hersek fraudulently transferred five trucks to the new company; they also found that Diamond H and the owners of the two companies controlled Hersek to the extent that it had no separate corporate identity. Danny is now entitled to collect his judgment from Diamond H and the individual owners as well as from Hersek. Danny was represented by Ann Groninger and Paige Kurtz of Sprouse & Kurtz, PLLC.