By Heather Ratcliffe
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

St. Louis — The maker of an air mask blamed for the death of a St. Louis firefighter must pay $15 million in punitive damages, a jury decided Wednesday, on top of $12 million in actual damages already awarded.

The firefighters union said the findings added credibility to its call for the city to replace that model of self-contained breathing unit, which remains in use departmentwide.

The one-two financial punch is a victory for firefighter safety, said Angela Martin, widow of Derek Martin. His death in a blaze in 2002 was blamed by the jury "100 percent" on a malfunction of his Survivair brand equipment.

"They are not going to be able to walk away and do business as usual," said Angela Martin, who brought the suit in St. Louis Circuit Court. She said she had turned down settlement offers in favor of revealing the truth.

Firefighters from at least half a dozen departments, from Georgia to California, testified in the trial about malfunctions of Survivair gear.

"It was never about the money. It didn't matter to me," Martin said. "What mattered was that Survivair was going to be made responsible."

Officials of Survivair, a California-based subsidiary of the French safety company Bacou-Dalloz, declined to comment Wednesday, citing pending legal issues. They are expected to appeal.

Survivair previously paid a settlement, characterized only as from $1 million to $5 million, to the widow of firefighter Robert Morrison, who died separately in the same fire on May 3, 2002. She blamed his death on failure of a Survivair personal distress alarm after he became incapacitated.

Martin died after taking off his Survivair mask to try to deal with a clogged valve, jurors found. He had been rushing into the burning commercial building, in the 2200 block of Gravois Avenue, to try to find the missing Morrison. Both were 38 and worked on Rescue Squad 1.

Survivair denied blame and laid the deaths on faulty fire department procedures.

Setting the stage for the punitive damages, jurors had said with their actual-damages verdict Tuesday that Survivair acted "beyond negligence" when it sold gear it should have known was dangerous.

Plaintiff's attorney Jerry Schlichter had argued that Survivair knew about design flaws when it sold the masks to the St. Louis Fire Department in the late 1990s.

The $12 million is jointly owed to Martin's family by Survivair and its corporate parent. The punitive damages were split $14 million against Survivair and $1 million against Bacou-Dalloz.

By law, at least half the punitive damages go to the state's Tort Victims Compensation Fund, and the rest will be allocated by Circuit Judge Michael Calvin, who presided over the four-week trial. It could go to Martin's family.

Several jurors told a reporter they hope their verdict forces the company to redesign the equipment.

"People are more important," said juror Keith Ebberson, 48. "They need to put out a product that is going to be safe."

City officials said they would meet this week to discuss their options for replacing the equipment. They already asked Survivair for a refund, and said voters would be asked to finance new fire equipment in a bond issue referendum in February.

"I certainly hope that this message is loud and clear," said Chris Molitor, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 73. He said officials should act immediately.

"We've been complaining for years about Survivair and wanting it replaced with something more reliable," Molitor said.

On Wednesday, a financial executive from Bacou-Dalloz was called to court to testify about finances. He said Survivair brought in about $53 million last year, and Bacou-Dalloz had revenue of about $928 million.

Schlichter, the lawyer, had urged punitive damages of $30 million to $90 million, saying, "The punishment must be something they feel."

A Survivair attorney said the $12 million was enough to get the company's attention.

Juror Emmery Jackson, 44, said the panel had picked a figure in the middle.

"We wanted to be fair. But we wanted to see justice," Jackson said. "We wanted them to take heed and do something to help our firemen."

John Ammann, a law professor at St. Louis University, said an appeal was certain, in which the companies might argue that the awards were excessive.

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