$10,000,000 Wrongful Death Settlement for Carbon Monoxide Death from Negligent Furnace Installation

A Georgia-based HVAC company took a homeowner’s money, left the job half-finished, and then — months later — turned the gas on without checking what they had left undone. The mistake cost the life of our clients’ mother.  The family hired Caroline Herrington and Virgil Adams of  Adams, Jordan & Herrington and Matt Kahn of Butler Kahn to pursue the wrongful death and estate claims.  The case settled for ten times the available insurance policy limits. 

Our clients’ mother

Catherine Harris was the matriarch of her family. She had lived in her home in LaGrange, Georgia for thirty years. Her grandchildren grew up in that house. She would wait at the bus stop with them in the mornings, and she made cakes for their bus drivers, because Ms. Harris had a heart for serving people and believed that “a little taste of sweet makes everything better.”

She was known around town as “Granny” and “the cake lady.” She filled holiday orders of up to twenty cakes at a time — sweet potato custard pies were her signature — and gave away as many as she sold. She traveled with a senior group to Braves games, to Hawks games, to plays and concerts. She had just gotten her passport. She was planning a trip out of the country.

She had a particular gift for noticing people who needed something. She gave away clothes. She gave away shoes. She made sure no one in her circle went without a warm coat in the wintertime. She loved her church and her family and her God in roughly that order — though she might tell you the order was the other way around.

She never missed a graduation.

This year, she has missed three. She also missed the birth of her newest great-grandchild. Her family found her two days after she died, slumped over in her living room, covered in vomit, a half-finished bottle of water on the floor next to the chair where she had been sitting.

How the Carbon Monoxide Death Happened

In June 2024, Ms. Harris hired an LaGrange-based HVAC company to replace the furnace at her home. She paid them $2,500. They installed a new unit in the basement.

But the company did not finish the job. The vent pipe — the one that was supposed to carry exhaust gas out of the home and through an exterior wall — was left open-ended in the basement. It just stopped mid-air. There was nothing connecting it to the outside. Nobody from the company ever came back to finish the work.

Months later, on November 22, 2024, the unit was not working when Ms. Harris needed it. She called the company. The owner dispatched an employee to her home to check on the system.

The employee arrived at 5:45 p.m. The doorbell camera captured him walking to the door. He went into the basement. According to the statement he later gave to law enforcement, when he got to the unit, the gas was off. He turned it back on. He did not inspect the vent pipe. He did not check the system for leaks. He left at 6:06 p.m.

By around 9:00 p.m. that night, Ms. Harris was dead.

When law enforcement entered the home two days later, after Ms. Harris had not been heard from, the gas concentration was so high that responding officers had to retreat from the house. Their eyes were burning. The Troup County Fire Department had to ventilate the residence before anyone could conduct an investigation. The propane tank was at thirty percent.

The autopsy showed the cause of death was acute carbon monoxide toxicity. The position of Ms. Harris’s body, the trash can placed next to her chair where she had been throwing up, and the partially drunk bottle of water on the floor left no question that she had suffered before she died.

The Negligence

Our complaint alleged that the HVAC company failed in every way that mattered:

• it failed to complete the installation of the vent pipe;
• it left the vent pipe open-ended, venting directly into the basement instead of through the exterior wall, in violation of building codes and industry standards;
• it turned the gas on, months later, without inspecting whether the venting had been completed; and
• it turned the gas on without checking the unit for leaks.

Any one of those four failures could have killed Ms. Harris. 

The post-incident photographs of the open-ended vent pipe were among the most damning pieces of evidence in the case. The pipe was supposed to extend out through the exterior wall of the home. It did not. It simply stopped.

Settlement

The company had a general liability policy that provided $1,000,000 of coverage. There was no umbrella or excess coverage above that.

A million dollars was nowhere near the value of the case. But it was all the insurance available.  In July 2025, we sent the insurer a time-limited demand offering to settle the case within the policy limits.  The insurer did not accept the offer, so we filed a lawsuit. 

After the lawsuit was filed, we sent a letter outlining the implications of the insurer’s failure to accept the offer with an emphasis on its insured’s exposure to an excess judgment.  Shortly after filing the complaint, we served a Rule 68 offer for $10,000,000. Under Georgia law, a Rule 68 offer is a legal tool designed to encourage parties to settle cases before trial.  In simple terms, one side makes a written settlement offer, and if the other side rejects it and later does worse at trial, there can be financial consequences. For example, if a plaintiff makes a qualifying settlement demand and later obtains a verdict that is at least 125% of the demand, the defendant may be required to pay the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and expenses. Because Rule 68 can significantly increase the financial stakes of litigation, these offers force an insurer to realistically evaluate a case.

After a brief extension, the insurer accepted the offer, resolving the case for $10,000,000.

Nothing about that number replaces Ms. Harris. There is no amount of money in the world that gives her grandchildren their Granny back, and there is no amount of money that erases the way she died. But the settlement does provide a measure of accountability for the company that killed her, and a measure of security for the family she left behind.

Wrapping Up

If your family has lost someone because of the carelessness of an HVAC contractor, a heating and air company, or another business that should have known better, please feel free to call Butler Kahn at 678-940-1444 for a free consultation

Matt Kahn State Bar: #279286

Matt Kahn is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer and a partner at the law firm Butler Kahn. Matt has dedicated his career to fighting for individuals and families who had been harmed by the negligence of others. At Butler Kahn, he has had the honor of helping families who have lost children in motor vehicle accidents and people who were critically injured. He helped a family secure a $45 million settlement to provide lifetime care for their son, who was critically injured in a motorcycle accident, a $40 million settlement in a guardrail case, a $30 million settlement in a pedestrian case, a $3.5 million settlement in a sexual assault case. Matt is a graduate of Emory University School of Law and has been recognized as a Super Lawyers’ Rising Star and by Best Lawyers as One to Watch. He has received an Avvo 10.0 Top Attorney rating. Connect with me on LinkedIn