Construction Accident - Labor Law
Bill Hepner obtained this result at mediation for a worker who fell from a height when he was trying to get from one level of a warehouse to another. He jumped from the top of a beam to a platform, lost his grip and fell approximately 15 feet onto a pile of wooden pallets.
This was a claimed Labor Law 240 case. The plaintiff was involved in the replacement of hundreds of sprinkler heads that were not up to code, located in a warehouse. They had been originally installed at least 50 years before.
Liability was disputed, with defendants arguing that plaintiff was involved in mere maintenance, which if believed by a jury, would have left him with no recovery under the Labor Law. Plaintiff was just replacing the sprinkler heads which takes about three minutes each.
We argued that it was part of a larger project and therefore was a viable labor law claim. There was a significant chance that plaintiff could lose the case based upon the law, although there was still a risk to the defendant.
Plaintiff had a lumbar fusion with a graft instead of hardware, as well as a right and left knee arthroscopy.