News

Verdict in wall collapse suit likely made state history

Emergency crews in 2021. responded to the Hajoca business on Spartanburg Highway after a wall collapsed on masonry workers. The accident killed one man and seriously injured three others.

By Amy McCraw, Published: May 23, 2026

A Henderson County jury likely made state history when it returned a $101 million verdict against the Hajoca corporation last week, according to attorneys representing plaintiffs in the case.

The lawsuit, which involved a wall that collapsed on four construction workers at the plumbing business on Spartanburg Highway in 2021, eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.
But attorneys representing the workers said their research showed the jury’s verdict, handed down before the settlement was reached, represented the largest personal injury jury award ever recorded in the state.
They credited the strong character of both the jurors and the men injured in the accident with the jury’s decision.
“Defense attorneys say, ‘You can’t get big verdicts from small towns.’ Well, maybe the mantra should be, ‘Hendersonville showed they cared about their people,’” Greenville, N.C., attorney Meredith S. Hinton said of the verdict. “We did learn how great the people of Hendersonville are.”
Hinton was one of four attorneys representing the workers who were trapped under rubble when the retaining wall collapsed.
One man died in the accident and three others were seriously injured.
An attorney representing the Hajoca corporation referred questions about the case to the company.
Hajoca, which is based in Lafayette Hill, Penn., responded to a request for comment in an email to the Lightning.
“Hajoca disagrees with, but respects the jury’s verdict in this case. Rather than endure a lengthy appellate process, we were able to settle the case after verdict, and the terms of that settlement are confidential,” the email said. “Hajoca is happy to conclude this matter after more than five years of ongoing litigation and is eager to continue to serve its customers and the community of Hendersonville.”
Citing privacy concerns, at least two of the lawyers representing plaintiffs in the case asked that the Lightning use only the initials of the victims.
Brian Davis, of Asheville, represented was one of the men injured in the wall collapse.
“We were pleased with the jury’s verdict, very happy for our clients who continue to go through a very difficult situation in their lives,” he said.
His client, with the initials AH, and the other victims in the case fought for years to see justice, Davis said.
“They were finally able to accomplish that.”
Davis said the case was a milestone in his career.
“It’s by far the largest jury trial in 35 years of practicing law,” he said.
He said the $101 million jury verdict for compensatory damages that came before the confidential settlement was reached was more than any other personal injury verdict in the state’s history.
But he said he and the other attorneys representing victims in the wall collapse decided to settle the case after that verdict rather risk the uncertainty of what might happen once the case was appealed.
Davis said he also believed the defendants chose to settle rather than risk what the jury might have awarded once it began considering punitive damages.
Cary attorney John M. McCabe represented one of the injured men with the initials MS.
McCabe said he thinks the jury reached such a large award after learning the facts of the case.
“I think the refusal of people to accept responsibility played a role in it. Physical injuries played a big part in it. The horror of what happened, it was horrific,” Davis said, adding that jurors saw video footage of the accident captured on security cameras. “When that wall fell, it shattered their bodies, and it shattered their lives.”
He said his client and his wife, who was also a party in the suit, are haunted by the accident.
The attorneys said their clients have rebuilt their lives as best they can and have returned to work.
Hinton, who represented one of the injured men with the initials CB, described the men as “very good people and very good workers.”
“Despite the tragedy, they were all such hard workers,” she said. “It was a miracle they were able to go back to work.”
Each attorney representing the workers filed four separate lawsuits in 2022 against the Hajoca Corporation, Andrew Weymouth, W.D Building Rentals and Pinnacle Grading Company, Inc.
The suits were later consolidated for the trial.
The suit involving Pinnacle Grading Company was dismissed before the trial began. W.D. Building Rentals resolved its case with a confidential settlement during the trial.
The estate of the man who died in the accident, identified by the initials MH, settled its wrongful death suit before the trial.
Hinton said the suit involving her client “resolved” during jury selection.
The lawsuits involving the clients of McCabe and Davis were tried in Henderson County Superior Court from April 13 to May 20. The Hajoca corporation and Weymouth, the manager of the company’s store on Spartanburg Highway, were defendants in the case.
The lawsuits described what led up to the wall collapse and how the accident happened.
At the time of the accident, Hajoca leased its building on Spartanburg Highway from W.B. Building Rentals and Weymouth served as the store’s manager.
The Hajoca property shared a 9-ft, 8-inch tall concrete and cinderblock retaining wall with property next door owned by Tina Ward Foster. The wall was 150 feet long.
Hajoca, W.D Building Rentals and Foster were originally jointly responsible for maintaining the wall.
But after a storm in the fall of 2020 damaged a portion of the wall, Foster could not agree with the plumbing company or the building’s owner on how to repair the wall.
“Tina Foster was steadfast that an engineer/structural design analysis be conducted before any repairs commenced, and she also believed that the cost to correctly and safely repair the wall would exceed $200,000,” according to the lawsuits. “In contrast, defendant W.D. Building Rentals, Defendant Hajoca and Defendant Weymouth, ever mindful of his profit-sharing incentives, believed an engineer/structural design analysis was unnecessary, that certain repairs could be skipped and that the retaining wall could be repaired more cheaply, perhaps by as much as 50 percent than what Tina Foster had estimated.”
Foster eventually turned her interest in the property over to the building company at no cost.
After Foster turned the property over, Hajoca, Weymouth and W.D Building rentals began trying to get the wall repaired.
Hajoca served as general contractor for the retaining wall project while Weymouth was the project manager and supervisor in charge of the project. They never hired an engineer for the wall repair.
“Defendant Hajoca and defendant Weymouth never obtained a permit before commencing work on the retaining wall project, even though a permit was required,” according to the lawsuit.
They hired Robert Crawford Masonry to rebuild a portion of the wall damaged in the storm.
The masonry company rebuilt that portion of the wall and had concrete poured into the new blocks to “core the wall.”
Only a few days after the concrete was poured, Hajoca and Weymouth ordered 210 tons of dirt from Pinnacle Grading Company to fill behind the wall.
The defendants should have known the concrete in the wall needed at least 10 days to cure and set before it could sustain the load of the dirt used to fill behind the wall, according to the suit.
A crew from the masonry company arrived to perform minor finishing work in the parking lot of Hajoca on Jan. 13, 2021.
“On Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021 at approximately 9:28 a.m., the entire new section of the retaining wall suddenly snapped from the old footing, toppled over in one giant piece and violently fell down on onto the Robert Crawford Masonry crew, slamming them to the ground, burying them under tons of concrete and dirt and inflicting serious injury to at least two crew members and killing another,” according to the suit.
The men who survived were trapped under the debris, in excruciating pain and screaming for help.
Emergency crews eventually dug them out and sent the survivors to hospitals where they received care for their injuries.
The state Department of Labor spent six months investigating the accident and eventually issued citations to Robert Crawford Masonry, Hajoca and Pinnacle Grading Co. Inc.
Hajoca and Robert Crawford Masonry were each cited for one willful serious violation and one serious violation, drawing fines of $28,000 and $2,800 respectively. Pinnacle was cited for one serious violation
and fined $2,800.
Attorneys involved in the civil lawsuits said the masonry company was not named in their cases because in North Carolina employees cannot sue their employers. Injured workers must resolve their cases through workers compensation.