BATON ROUGE - A Baton Rouge jury awarded $411 million to a Texas scaffolding contractor who was hit on the head by a heavy metal pipe while working at a Lake Charles refinery, according to The Advocate.

The damages the jury awarded included $109 million for future care, pain and emotional distress and another $154 million for future loss of enjoyment of life.

Jose Valdivia, now 28, said he struggles with memory and cannot take more than a few steps after suffering life-altering spinal cord injuries. He is unable to work for the rest of his life and is being cared for by his sister, according to Valdivia and his attorneys. He worked at a Phillips 66-owned refinery that was contracted by Brock Services in Lake Charles.

The injury happened on Aug. 2, 2022, when, according to witness interviews, one Brock Services worker and potentially one other were manually handling a large pipe that Valdivia had just passed by hand up to them.

One of the workers had the pipe resting on another piece of scaffolding when it slipped and fell back on Valdivia's hard hat, which knocked off his eye goggles and caused his head to shrink into his shoulders, according to under oath interview excerpts.

Brock's contracted occupational physician, Dr. Phillip Conner, deemed the case a minor one that did not require OSHA reporting even though Valdivia had potential triggers for OSHA reporting as he was in the hospital, had to be put on intravenous fluids and lost consciousness.

Conner claimed during the trial that Brock did not provide him with all the documents to assess Valdivia's condition fully.

Brock officials disputed the findings and said the verdict is improper under Louisiana's worker compensation system. The company plans to appeal and said it remains "confident in [their] position."