Articles Tagged with construction accident

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Welcome to the official law blog of Caesar, Napoli & Spivak, premier injury lawyers. In this article, we will discuss a groundbreaking case involving a construction worker who suffered life-changing injuries due to a preventable fall while on the job. The worker was recently awarded a staggering $53.5 million in damages after a Brooklyn jury found the contracting company liable for their failure to provide adequate safety measures.

The Incident: On August 8, 2017, tragedy struck when a construction worker was working on a Brooklyn construction project for a contracting company. He was tasked with installing an air conditioner condenser on a rooftop when he fell from a height of 10 feet, landing on the rooftop below. The fall caused severe fractures to his spine, necessitating immediate emergency surgery. Tragically, the worker’s spinal cord was damaged in the fall, resulting in permanent paralysis from the waist down. His life was forever altered, and he now requires constant medical care and assistance with everyday activities.

The Verdict: After a comprehensive trial, a Brooklyn jury delivered a landmark verdict on April 21. The jury unanimously found the defendant responsible for failing to ensure the worker’s safety at the time of the incident. As a result of this negligence, they awarded the worker an unprecedented $53.5 million in damages. This substantial compensation aims to address the worker’s extensive medical expenses, loss of earnings, pain and suffering, and the significant impact the accident has had on his quality of life.

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A large crane on a high-rise building caught fire and partially collapsed in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, July 26, 2023; resulting in multiple injuries and caused debris to plummet to the ground. With numerous construction sites spanning across New York City, it is important to know all the legal remedies available, if you ever find yourself injured as a result of a construction accident.

The unfortunate accident of this morning is very sad, but it is not a new one. At Caesar, Napoli & Spivak PLLC, we have seen events like this a multitude of times throughout our over 30 years of practice. When contractors ignore repeated warnings of dangers and put the lives of workers and pedestrians at risk. As a worker on a construction site, you have the right to a safe and secured workplace. If you are injured while working at a construction site, you have a right to claim workers’ compensation from your employer which will pay for medical coverage regardless of fault and lost wages. Section 240 of New York’s labor law enables construction workers to recover compensation for injuries suffered in falls from scaffolds, ladders and other elevated positions. The law makes several parties potentially liable for damages should an accident occur, including the property owner, construction company and scaffold owner.

Our team of construction accident lawyers have represented seriously injured victims for decades, and we are familiar with how certain injuries affect one’s abilities to work and function on a day-to-day basis. When a worker is injured on a construction site, they may be able to pursue a claim for damages, in order to help recover lost wages, obtain compensation for medical costs, pain and suffering, and other losses.

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When he turned 18, Fernando Vanegaz immigrated from his home country of Ecuador to the United States. His parents had made the move years earlier for work, so when Fernando arrived there was a home in Queens waiting for him. He was eager for financial independence, and quickly found a job with a Brooklyn-based construction company. 

The work was dangerous. Fernando would often frighten his mother with accounts of close calls on the job. One such incident occurred at a construction site at 656 Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, when a retaining wall nearly toppled over. 

A little under a month later, there was another incident with the retaining wall. This time, it collapsed entirely. Fernando was working underneath the wall at the time. He was killed less than a year into his new life in the US.

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Construction work is one of the most dangerous professions in New York City. As we detailed in our last blog, in New York City alone, 31 construction workers were killed on the job in the last two years. 29 of those deaths occurred on non-union work sites. This statistic bears out what we commonly see in our law practice: non-union workers risk their life and limb every time they step on a work site.

Though insurance carriers and contractors would like to refer to these injuries as “accidents,” most construction-related injuries are the direct result of a manager’s or company’s negligence. Safety violations were found at 90 percent of fatality sites inspected by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2015.
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2015 and 2016 were two of the most devastating years in history for the New York City construction industry. 31 men and women died on the job, meaning that on average, one worker did not come home from a construction site about every three weeks.

The last death of 2016 occurred on December 23rd, when a worker, whose safety belt was not attached to any cable, fell down an elevator shaft. Just weeks prior, another worker, also not wearing a connected safety belt, fell to his death in Brooklyn at the Old Domino Sugar Factory. These two fatalities, heartbreaking in themselves, portray a larger problem: 29 of the 31 deaths happened at non-union sites. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), almost all of the deaths were preventable.
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17 New York City construction workers died last year in work-related incidents. That is, if you ask the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. According to the Department of Buildings, only 12 construction workers lost their lives on the job.

The discrepancy between these two numbers stems from conflicting definitions of a construction-related death, and it is indicative of the absence of clear, consistent data in an industry that has seen both tremendous growth and a surge in preventable deaths over the last 5 years.

The majority of the construction worker fatalities in the last year occurred on non-union sites—the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health identified 15 out of 17 deaths as non-union. However, there is disagreement as to how much of the industry is made up of non-union workers.
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Gurmeet Singh came to the United States on a tourist visa 13 years ago. He was a veteran of the Indian Army, and though he was already well into his 40s, he was looking for a fresh start in a new city.

Gurmeet settled in New York and began a career in construction. Each month he sent part of his paycheck back to his family in India. Many of his jobs came from Adalat Khan, a subcontractor for a Queens construction company. According to Gurmeet’s children, the two men developed a friendship over the years.

In the spring of last year, Gurmeet began planning his first trip back to India in over a decade. Adalat offered him a job building the Dream Hotel on West 55th Street, and since it would be Gurmeet’s last job before his return trip, Adalat included an airline ticket to India in his pay.

It was on this job that Gurmeet fell 8 stories to his death.
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Eighteen construction workers were killed at New York City job sites in the last year—a significant jump from the seven construction deaths two years ago, according to the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration. As construction continues to boom in New York, we are seeing a pattern of dangerous conditions and preventable accidents.
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