Articles Posted in Construction Injuries

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Mr. Doe, a 36-year-old construction worker, was completing his first day at work at a town home construction site. He was standing next to a large flatbed truck, waiting for help to unload a crane when a commercial trash collection truck came around the corner and sideswiped the flatbed truck.

Mr. Doe was crushed between the two vehicles and suffered severe injuries to his right leg and foot, as well as rib and spinal fractures. Despite multiple foot and leg surgeries, Mr. Doe continued to suffer from chronic lymphedema and deformity. Mr. Doe’s medical expenses totaled almost $400,000.

Mr. Doe sued the truck driver’s corporate employer, alleging that it was liable for the driver’s choosing not to remain in his lane of traffic. Before trial, the parties settled for $1.25 million.

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On April 27, 2017, Kevin Hartley was working for his uncle, Tony Hartley, at Hartley’s Painting. Hartley was refinishing the bathtub at an apartment complex in Nashville, Tenn.

While on the job, Kevin was wearing a respirator mask and gloves but was overcome by fumes from the NAPCO White Lighting Low Odor Stripper. He passed out and died the following day at the age of 21.

Wendy Hartley, his mother and special administrator of Kevin’s estate, filed a lawsuit against the North American Polymer Company Ltd. (NAPCO), which sold the product. The lawsuit then added Samax Enterprises Inc. (Samax), the company that manufactured the product. Wendy Hartley set out two causes of action for each of the two defendants. One was in strict product liability and the other was in negligence, alleging that the product was “unreasonably dangerous and toxic, and that defendants did not adequately warn users about the danger and did not adequately test the product to ensure that it was safe for its reasonable anticipated use.”

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Mr. Doe, a 44-year-old electrician, was hired by a general contractor to perform electrical work at a housing development project.

When Mr. Doe stepped on the mid-rail of a temporary guardrail, installed to provide fall protection on a second-story landing, the mid-rail collapsed. It had been joined with just one nail. Mr. Doe toppled over the guardrail and fell about 15 feet to the landing below.

He suffered numerous injuries in the fall. His many injuries included a severe closed-head injury, a skull fracture, an intracerebral hemorrhage, and facial, rib, scapular and wrist fractures.

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Victoria Jeffords sued defendant BP Products North America, the operator of an oil refinery, Fluor Constructors International, the engineering and construction manager and MC Industrial. She claimed that her husband, Donald Jeffords, had been injured when he was employed by Central Rent-a-Crane, which BP contracted with to provide crane services. He fractured both feet and his back when he fell seven feet while on a 13-inch wide catwalk on the crane with no guardrail while checking the crane’s fluid levels.

The U.S. District Court Judge granted summary judgment for BP, Fluor and MC Industrial finding no duty was owed to Jeffords and no breach of any duty existed under the contracts, at common law, or under OSHA.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago affirmed, citing six reasons the defendants breached no duty owed to Jeffords, noting Jeffords could not sue his employer, Central Rent-a-Crane, as he had only a workers’ compensation claim.

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M Construction Ltd. was doing utility construction, including digging a 9-foot trench to place pipes in the ground. The company’s foreman instructed employees to enter the trench to dig under a pipe.

The unprotected trench collapsed, killing Rigoberto Tovar, an M Construction employee.  He was just 25 years old and was survived by his wife and stepdaughter.

Tovar’s wife, individually and on behalf of his estate, sued M Construction Ltd., alleging it negligently ordered its employees to work in an unprotected trench and chose not to properly train workers on trench safety.

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George Petrosian was performing general repair work at an elevated parking system. While he was standing on a scissor lift, the lift’s work platform fell 25 feet, which caused him to suffer a torn ligament in his left ankle and bilateral torn rotator cuffs.

Petrosian, 72, underwent six surgeries and now suffers from complex regional pain syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Petrosian’s medical expenses were $500,000. He is no longer able to work and has incurred $100,000 in lost income. Petrosian and his wife sued the corporate property owners and one of the property owners individually, claiming that they chose not to maintain the scissor lift in proper working order. The Petrosian family alleged that the lift had been stored outside and became rusty and worn leading to its failure.

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A Cook County judge had dismissed the aggravated negligence claims based on a 2005 Illinois Appellate Court decision. In that case, there was a ruling that “prior knowledge of similar acts is required” to hold a public entity liable for willful and wanton supervision.

The lawsuit arose out of the claim of willful and wanton supervision that Becky Andrews pursued as Jeffrey Andrews’s plenary guardian against the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (Water Reclamation District). The lawsuit did not allege that anyone had previously been injured by the hazardous condition, a very dangerous cross-over between two ladders that allegedly caused head injuries to Andrews from a 29-foot fall to the bottom of the concrete chamber.

Andrews was working as a cement finisher for a joint venture, which the Water Reclamation District hired for a construction project at a water treatment plant.

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Yadvinder Singh, a 30-year-old truck driver, was hired by Destination Anywhere Inc. to haul aggregate materials from Granite Construction Company‘s facility to a construction site. He drove his dump truck to Granite Construction, where an employee loaded it with washed sand.  As Singh drove the truck toward his destination, its right front tire blew out. That caused his truck to leave the road and overturn. Singh was severely injured, taken to a nearby hospital and died that evening. He was survived by his wife and two minor children. He had been earning approximately $50,000 per year.

Singh’s family sued Destination Anywhere claiming it chose not to perform a mandatory safety check on the dump truck two days before the incident. It was alleged that had this inspection been done, it would have been discovered that the front tire’s tread depth was significantly below the limit. The lawsuit also alleged that Granite Construction’s employee was negligent in overloading the truck.

The defendant argued that Singh had routinely instructed aggregate suppliers to load his truck fully. The defendant also argued that maintaining the truck, which Singh had leased from Destination Anywhere, was his responsibility and duty.

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F&H Coatings LLC is a commercial and industrial painting contractor that contracted with Boardman LLC, a manufacturer of steel pressure vessels and tanks. F&H was contracted to sandblast and paint a number of vessels at Boardman’s manufacturing facility. During the contract work, a fatal incident at the Boardman facility killed Tony Losey, an employee of F&H.

At the time of this of this fatal accident, Losey and his F&H supervisor were preparing a 12,000 -pound vessel for sandblasting when the vessel slipped from its supporting racks and crushed Losey.

F & H characterized this event as a “freakish, unforeseeable, and still-unexplained accident.”

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Carl McNeill, an inspector for the South Carolina Department of Transportation, was standing in a designated work zone overseeing repairs to an interstate highway. Dewayne Marshall, an employee of Marketing Associates Inc., who was also working at the site, backed a truck up a ramp and struck McNeill, running over him.

McNeill, 58, suffered serious injuries, which included crushed injuries to both legs, a broken pelvis and a crushed urethra and scrotum.

He required multiple surgeries and rehabilitation and suffers ongoing pain. He is unable to return to his job in which he had earned approximately $636 per week. His medical expenses totaled more than $496,800.

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