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Refrigeration Tech Awarded $76.7 million For Refrigerant Injuries Suffered at Kroger Store
Thursday, June 19, 2025
(1 Comments)
Posted by: Terry McIver
A lesson in the importance of proactive attention to refrigeration system troubleshooting was learned this week as a jury in Michigan awarded a refrigeration technician working at a Kroger store $76.7 million for the loss of most of his fingers and parts of his hands from a refrigerant-related explosion.
Reports from various outlets differ in the details, however one source said the R-22 refrigerant exploded in the technician's hands as he was responding to a refrigerant leak at the Kroger supermarket in Bloomfield Township, MI in 2020.
Brian Mierendorf, 37, was working at the Kroger supermarket in Bloomfield Township, MI, in 2020 when the explosion occurred.
Mr. Mierendorf’s attorney argued that Kroger had failed to properly maintain the refrigeration system and did not hand over documentation of maintenance, repairs or inspection records. The company was also alleged to have failed to complete an incident report until two years after the accident.
RSES Journal has asked Kroger to provide a statement, and will provide an update as soon as we know more.
It would be nice to know more information of what actually happened beyond the bombastic and sensationalistic news reporting. Was their an OSHA or NIOSH report? A supervisors first report of injury. We need to know what happened so we can devise ways to handle similar incidents going forward. What was he doing when it "Exploded" ? What tools did he have at his disposal. Having suffered a refrigerant burn in school, where there were also some fairly large leak occurrences, a whole 3 ton heat pump in the lab. We evacuated and opened the doors to avoid asphyxiation. We didn't try to cap it as that could lead to severe burns and asphyxiation. Perhaps we should, as an industry, develop low cost easily deployed tools for controlling leaks, similar to tools others who handle liquid leaks use. If we don't learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. They don't mention what Kroger did or didn't do that lead to the failure.
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