The McPherson Act

Federal Safety Reform in Honor of Matthew Lyle McPherson

Justice for Federal Workers Killed on the Job

My name is Charity McPherson Hauerwas, one of three daughters to Matthew Lyle McPherson, a man who dedicated more than 20 years of his life to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). He wasn’t just a TVA worker, he was a profound fisherman. He loved music, animals, and the beach. He was the father who cheered at our school events, the grandfather who made our children laugh until their bellies hurt, the brother and friend who would drop everything to help someone in need. He was the backbone of our family, and the kind of worker who made TVA stronger every single day he walked through its gates.

On September 1, 2023, our father was killed in a preventable workplace disaster. He was struck by a ruptured gas vent pipe pressurized at 700 psi (more than 1,300 pounds of force) at the Lagoon Creek Combustion Turbine Plant in Brownsville, Tennessee. That morning, he’d left a steak marinating in his refrigerator, expecting to come home.

The vent pipe that killed our dad had been in service since 2001 (more than two decades) without replacement or servicing, despite operating under extreme pressure and despite documented safety concerns. Internal TVA reports, obtained through FOIA and partially redacted, confirm that the vent pipe system had known safety issues, including corrosion, inadequate support, and unauthorized modifications. In fact, the TVA Office of Inspector General (OIG) had formally warned about these deficiencies two years earlier in 2021. Those warnings went unanswered.

Despite the prior warnings, the preventable nature of the accident, and the loss of life:

• No one has been held accountable.

 • We were told we couldn’t sue-because the pipe was ‘more than 10 years old.’

• Workers’ compensation to cover his hospital bills was considered “enough.”

• Tennessee state law caps non-economic damages at $750,000, even for fatal negligence.

Our family was left with no real legal recourse…only grief, silence, and a storage bin containing the few belongings he had at the plant that day.

I would like to propose: The McPherson Act

A federal reform to ensure no other family is failed like ours.

Federal Reform Proposals:

1. Eliminate State Damage Caps in FTCA Claims

FTCA claims should not be limited by restrictive state caps like Tennessee’s $750K ceiling.

2. Extend the Statute of Repose in Fatal Accident Cases 

Families must be able to seek justice even when defective equipment is over 10 years old - especially when, as in my father’s case, the fatal failure involved a pipe that had been in service for 22 years past installation.

3. Reform Federal Workers’ Compensation Death Benefit Laws

Insurance payouts should never replace legal accountability for negligence.

4. Mandate Independent Fatality Reviews at Federal Facilities

Families deserve access to complete, unredacted findings, beyond OSHA or and especially internal agency reports.

5. Create the “McPherson Trigger”

Automatic safety audits whenever a workplace death occurs after prior OIG warnings or documented violations.

Timeline of Events:

• 2001 – GE and subcontractors install vent pipe system at TVA Lagoon Creek.

• 2021 – TVA OIG Report (Evaluation 2021-17257) cites major safety and training failures.

• Sept 1, 2023 – Matthew Lyle McPherson is taken away from us forever when a vent pipe ruptures at 700 psi.

• Sept 2023 – TVA investigates internally; OSHA files report but issues no citations.

• 2024 – Attorneys withdraw due to ‘state immunity’ and ‘statute of repose barriers’ without mentioning any claim on a federal level. 

• Aug 2025 – FTCA SF-95 claim filed by family for $4 million. Meanwhile, TVA’s operating revenue is over $1 billion per month, making the capped compensation seem shockingly small in context.

• Present – Petition launched for The McPherson Act.

Why State Damage Caps Fail Families In Tennessee, the law limits non-economic damages in wrongful death cases to $750,000, even when negligence is proven and life is lost. For TVA, that $750,000 cap is pocket change. TVA brings in over $1 billion per month. Yet that law means my father’s life was valued far less than the cost of a stain on their budget.

My father’s life, and the suffering of those he left behind, was legally valued at no more than this cap. Tennessee is not alone:

• California: $250,000 cap (unchanged since 1975)

• Alaska: $250,000–$400,000 cap

• Wisconsin: $750,000 cap

• West Virginia: $250,000 cap (raised to $500,000 for catastrophic injury) But other states have taken a different path:

• New York, Utah, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Wyoming: No caps at all on wrongful death damages, recognizing that no law should arbitrarily place a dollar limit on human loss.

These caps protect negligent corporations and agencies, NOT families. They make it cheaper to pay for death than to fix unsafe conditions. The McPherson Act would ensure federal wrongful death claims are not bound by outdated or unjust state damage caps, internal audits, and “informal settlements,” because a federal worker’s life should not be worth LESS in Tennessee than it is in New York.

Call to Action

This is about more than our family’s loss, it’s about fixing a broken system that continues to fail federal workers and their families. The system that failed my father didn’t stop with the pipe, it failed in every safeguard that should have protected him. It failed in the investigation. It failed in the laws that closed every door to justice. And unless we change it, it will fail the next family too.

We are calling on Congress and the President to enact The McPherson Act, a comprehensive federal reform to prevent future tragedies, close dangerous legal loopholes, and ensure that accountability is not optional. 

No more loopholes and silence.

Justice for Matthew McPherson and for every federal worker who deserves to come home.