JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- After Melissa Stephens was killed at work in 2017, her surviving children won a court judgment against the Chinese manufacturer of the machine she was operating when she died.
A Floyd County judge ruled in 2021 that Feilong Nonwoven Machinery Co. Ltd., which built the industrial equipment for her employer, Autoneum North America Inc., was liable under Indiana law for a "design defect" and building and selling a product in a "defective condition." Feilong was ordered after a bench trial to pay $10 million to Stephens' estate, plus annual interest for every year it didn't do so.
But by the time of the ruling, court records show, Feilong had removed its American lawyers in Chicago and Indianapolis from the case and stopped participating in legal proceedings altogether. Stephens' surviving children still are waiting to collect the money they're owed: $10,051,793.87.
That has led the Stephens family lawyers to pursue another option: trying to recover some funds from Autoneum, the Swiss auto parts maker with a plant at the River Ridge Commerce Center, that it has paid Feilong for goods shipped to Indiana.
A sign outside the Autoneum plant in the River Ridge Commerce Center in Jeffersonville, Indiana (WDRB photo).
"Feilong killed Melissa Stephens. That's not my opinion. That was the decision of the court," said David Agnew, a New Albany-based attorney representing Stephens' estate. "And Autoneum has made the business decision to continue doing business, continue sending money to this company that killed its employee, rather than sending that money to that employee's family the way the law is requiring them to do."
Neither Feilong nor Autoneum responded to requests for comment for this story.
The case highlights a longstanding difficulty in an interconnected world of global business. While international agreements let Chinese companies get served with American lawsuits, it's challenging to collect U.S. court judgments against those firms, especially those without assets here.
In fact, judgments in American courts have "virtually no value in China," attorney Dan Harris of the international law firm Harris Bricken wrote in a blog post last year, noting that China and the U.S. don't have a treaty or other reciprocal accord on civil court orders.
"We knew going in that it would be extremely difficult to collect a judgment against a Chinese company if they didn't voluntarily pay it," Agnew said. "However, we're aware that if you are tenacious and creative, a lot of times — sometimes — you can collect through their business affiliations in the United States."
Besides the current effort to garnish money from Autoneum in the Floyd County court, Agnew said he and his co-counsel, Matthew J. Schad and George A. Budd V, are weighing international venues to pursue their case against Feilong that are "a little more sympathetic to U.S. judgments than China is."
'Anchor for our family'
Stephens, 44, was working at Autoneum on October 21, 2017, when she died from injuries sustained from an accident with a machine, according to the Clark County Coroner's Office.
She was the "anchor for our family," her son, Dakota Edwards, said.
His three younger siblings were all 18 years old or younger when Stephens was killed and dependent on their mother, court records show.
Edwards, who filed the lawsuit as the administrator of Stephens' estate, said his mother had worked most of her life as a nurse and home-health aide, but a back injury made it difficult to continue doing that work. After not working for a while, he said, she started at Autoneum.
"She was so happy to have that job," said Edwards, 29. "Because, at the time, she was struggling — we were struggling — just to make bills and stuff like that."
In some ways, he said, Stephens' gratitude for the work at Autoneum "made it a little worse for us" when she died.
Melissa Stephens was killed at her Jeffersonville, Ind., workplace in 2017 (family photo).
The Indiana Department of Labor, which manages the state's workplace safety program, initially fined Autoneum $224,000 after Stephens' death. Those penalties included three "knowing" violations and two "serious" ones.
During their inspection, safety regulators found that Autoneum employees "were not effectively trained to identify and control hazardous energy," such as that from belts and pulleys that created potential hazards. In addition, they noted, the company didn't develop and enact related procedures.
They also initially concluded that Autoneum didn't create a workplace setting that was "reasonably safe and healthful for employees" and that pulleys and belts on the machine exposed workers to hazards.
Autoneum and Indiana's labor agency eventually agreed to a lower penalty — $14,000 — in December 2017, with two of the proposed penalties deleted and two others lowered from "knowing" to "serious."
"Based on a review of the file, it appears those violations were deleted due to a lack of sufficient evidence to support the violations," Indiana Department of Labor spokeswoman Stephanie McFarland said in an email.
One of the deleted penalties addressed "loose clothing" like hooded sweatshirts and suggested that Autoneum adhere to a manual that advises employees to avoid loose-fitting clothes and other accessories that "may be drawn into moving parts."
As part of the settlement, Autoneum agreed to retrain workers using certain machines and confirm that signs were placed in areas that could pose hazards while machines are running.
Lawsuit remains ongoing
The suit filed in July 2019 against Autoneum, Feilong and a number of unnamed defendants made 19 claims in connection with Stephens' death.
Among other arguments, her estate alleged she was using the equipment properly, but that safety mechanisms were either disabled, not working or not present to "prevent a person in the vicinity of the machine from being injured and killed by the machine." It was a "brutal death," the lawsuit says.
Feilong said in its response that the allegations "were all wrong" and that Stephens' death was "due to improper operation of the operator." The company further claimed it did not assemble the machine at the Autoneum plant and challenged the Floyd County court's jurisdiction, arguing it "has not conducted any commercial activities in Indiana as a business entity."
Stephens' estate filed a lawsuit in Floyd County in 2019. It is still pending.
The Stephens estate initially named Autoneum as a defendant in the lawsuit, but later asked that it be dismissed. After Floyd Circuit Court Judge J. Terrence Cody determined the damages owed by Feilong, it sought to collect the money from Autoneum instead.
The strategy involves garnishing money that Autoneum is paying to Feilong, but Autoneum has claimed in court filings that "there is never any money due and owing from Autoneum to Feilong." Instead, Autoneum's lawyers say in legal documents, the company is like a customer buying a product online – it must prepay for the parts it buys from Feilong.
In recent filings, Autoneum accuses the Stephens estate of essentially trying to hold it responsible for the court judgment against Feilong and interfering in its business relationship with the Chinese company.
A hearing updating the case is set for September. Meanwhile, Wednesday marked four years since the lawsuit was filed.
As it tries to collect more than $10 million from Feilong, the family stands to receive $291,751 in workers' compensation death benefits, Agnew said. So far, it has gotten $182,000.
"Whenever this all started I didn't realize the scale that would go into this," Edwards said. "I was just thinking about it the other day. We had passed the anniversary of her passing, and it's been a long time since it's all started."
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