BBQ king ‘Big T’ gets $3.2M settlement after pipe caused Richland County car crash
Just after dark and four days before Christmas in 2020, a well-known Lower Richland barbecue restaurateur was driving down a narrow two-lane road when his headlights caught something in his path: a large sewer pipe, 2 feet high, blocking the whole road.
“His vehicle crashed into it,” said a subsequent lawsuit that Larry “Big T” Brown filed against Tom Brigman contractors, which had been hired by Richland County Utilities to lay pipe in the area at the time.
Brown, 77, who operates barbecue restaurants in the Lower Richland area, suffered major injuries and spent months in the hospital, according to his lawsuit. His Chevrolet van, which overturned in the crash on Congaree Road, behind McEntire Joint National Guard Joint Base, was severely damaged.
“I’m glad to be alive,” Brown told The State newspaper Wednesday. “I was in the hospital a long time.”
In late April, in a quiet out-of-court settlement that avoided a trial, Brigman and insurance company BITCO agreed to pay Brown $3.25 million.
Settlement records in the case call it a “compromise settlement.”
Neither Brigman, which is headquartered in Newberry, nor BITCO admitted any liability.
Stuart Mauney, a Greenville lawyer representing Brigman and BITCO, declined to comment.
State Sen. Darrell Jackson, a pastor and a longtime family friend of Brown’s, said Brown “is affectionately known as ‘Big T,’ and is an iconic figure in our community, who very much (gives) back to the community.”
Brown’s two restaurants are legendary for their barbecue, said Jackson, D-Richland, adding that “people come from all over to eat there.”
In the crash, Brown’s van overturned, and he suffered what his lawsuit called “major injuries” that required long-term hospitalization, rehabilitation and extensive medical expenses.
Brown’s lawsuit, filed in Richland County court, alleged that Brigman, as a contractor hired by Richland County Utilities, was negligent because it had a duty to safely maintain and store piping materials. But the pipe that Brown struck “was laid in an unstable position on a leaf-covered embankment,” within 10 feet of the road, the lawsuit said.
Brown attorney’s, state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, said his theory of the case was that over time, vibrations from trains on a neaby stretch of railroad track shook the unsecured pipe loose, causing it to roll into the middle of the road. Harpootlian said his firm hired experts who did experiments that showed vibrations from passing trains was a likely major cause that resulted in the pipe rolling onto the road.
“It’s a heavily-traveled road, and a train had passed only a few minutes before,” said Harpootlian, explaining how Brown’s van came to be the first car to strike the pipe.
In an answer to the lawsuit, Brigman denied any negligence and asserted that on the day of the crash, it had placed a “30-foot long piece of heavy high-density polyethylene ... pipe a number of feet off the edge of the road way of SC-769 (Congaree Road) well out of the path of any oncoming traffic.”
“This settlement will make a huge improvement in the quality of life for Mr. Brown, and hopefully help raise awareness about safety at highway construction sites,” Harpootlian said.
