A West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals judge has dissented from a ruling that overturned a jury trial verdict in a case involving a mill worker who crouched under a barricade and yellow caution tape to inspect a piece of equipment and ended up falling two stories.

On Jan. 22, 2013, a 23-year mill worker with First Energy L.L.C. suffered permanent injuries when he fell about 14 feet and landed on a concrete floor while attempting to inspect a rotary flyash feeder in a flyash silo at FirstEnergy's Harrison Power Station in Haywood, West Virginia. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against FirstEnergy to recover damages for his injuries. James J. Muto and Carol Muto v. FirstEnergy Generation L.L.C. was tried before a Harrison County, West Virginia, jury in April 2016 with the jury ruling in favor of the injured worker, awarding him and his wife a total of $1.1 million.

The Court of Appeals reversed the ruling Thursday, finding that the injured worker failed to show that his injury was caused by his employer’s knowledge that he was entering an unsafe facility, which hinged on the fact that he entered an area that had been cordoned off and failed to communicate with others as to why the area was deemed unsafe, according to court documents on the “deliberate intention” claim made by the worker.

One judge filed dissent paperwork Thursday.

“The opinion glosses over the evidence of record and ignores conflicting testimony that is best assessed by the group of citizens who sat through some six days of trial and went to the FirstEnergy Harrison Power Station for a site view,” the dissenting judge said. “It is the function of the jury to weigh the evidence, determine credibility and evaluate conflicts in testimony. When properly instructed on the law, the jury is the best evaluator of the evidence and for determining the existence of liability. An appellate court should not substitute its cold paper record view of the evidence for that of the jury.”

Attempts to contact attorneys for both parties were unsuccessful.