DETROIT — A Michigan jury awarded more than $75 million in damages to an HVAC technician who suffered severe chemical injuries and lost most of his fingers after defective refrigerant exploded in a Kroger store in 2022, his attorney announced on June 17.
In an attempt to protect nearby customers, Brian Mierendorf was seriously injured when he tried to stop the refrigerant during the incident, his attorney Jon Marko said in a news release. The incident occurred in February 2022 at a Kroger store in Bloomfield Hills, a northern suburb of Detroit, according to a complaint filed in Oakland County Circuit Court.
The explosion released a toxic chemical — called R-22 — which is a type of refrigerant that was used in various applications, including residential air conditioning systems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency began phasing out the chemical in 2010, and then banned its production and import in 2020, according to manufacturing company Trane.
Mierendorf's hands were injected with toxic R-22 refrigerant, the news release states. Since February 2022, Mierendorf has undergone 25 surgeries to try and save his hands, Marko said in the release.
An Oakland County jury awarded Mierendorf and his wife, Heather, on June 17 in what Marko called a "record-breaking verdict" against Kroger Co. of Michigan. The jury awarded the couple economic and non-economic losses from the time of the incident through the years into the future, according to the verdict form.
