From: CHAS membership <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Verdict reduced to $29M for burned HS student, still highest New York payout
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 13:25:59 -0500
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: CF4D514C-18A0-4A56-8CC5-F84F08F400AC**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org


This story is from last November, but flew under the radar of my headlines scanner‰?|

- Ralph

https://nypost.com/2021/11/18/verdict-reduced-to-29m-for-burned-student-still-highest-ny-payout/

An appeals court Thursday cut in half the $60 million jury award for a Beacon High School student who was horribly burned in a since-banned chemistry experiment gone awry ' still making it the largest payout in New York.

Alonzo Yanes was awarded the massive sum in 2019 after jurors heard about his horrific experiencegetting third-degree burns over 30 percent of his body at age 16 after a chemistry teacher was demonstrating the 'Rainbow Experiment' ' which uses highly flammable methanol to light various salts to produce different-colored flames.

Yanes was injured during a botched 'Rainbow Experiment' in his chemistry class in 2014.

Yanes suffered third-degree burns on 30 percent of his body as a result of the experiment gone wrong.

The Appellate Division, First Department Thursday acknowledged that the excruciating burns, recovery, and the struggles ahead for Yanes, as he must live out the rest of his life with disfiguring scars, but still found the jury's award 'excessive.'

The decision laid out that the verdict should be reduced to $12 million for past pain and suffering and another $17 million for the future.

Yanes' family sued the city and teacher Anna Poole over the accident.

'We were hoping for more but we are pleased that this was the largest amount ever allowed by the Appellate Division for pain and suffering in New York,' Yanes' lawyer Ben Rubinowitz told The Post.

Yanes' parents sued the city Department of Education and teacher Anna Poole for the botched experiment in January 2014, claiming they neglected a slew of safety protocols in carrying out the experiment ' which is no longer demonstrated in Big Apple schools.

Poole was pulled from the school after the incident and has been working at a central DOE office since, the city Law Department confirmed.

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