$10,300,000 Recovery for Polish Laborer Who Fell from Ladder and Sustained Traumatic Brain Injuries

The client suffered debilitating brain injuries, including an internal carotid artery dissection. Partners Daniel P. O’Toole, David L. Scher, Frederick C. Aranki, and Pawel P. Wierzbicki handled the case.

 

Court and County 

Supreme Court, Kings County
Appellate Division, Second Department

 

Polish Electrician Falls from Ladder, Sustains Head Trauma

Our client, a 56-year-old Polish immigrant, had been a hardworking electrician for over 25 years. One afternoon, he responded to an unexpected service call at a high-rise Manhattan building – a light fixture in one of the retail stores had stopped functioning.

Because the repairs weren’t part of routine building maintenance, no one on-site had turned off the power supply to the fixture. Our client attempted to locate breakers and switch off the electric current, but the lighting conditions were poor, and he did not know where to look. He instead grabbed an A-frame ladder (owned by his employer), climbed to the top, and began disassembling and repairing the broken ceiling light.

The moment our client touched the lamp, he received a severe electric shock. The shock caused the ladder to wobble, and our client fell to the ground, where he struck his head, low back, and right side. He was not wearing a hard hat, nor had he been provided with any fall protection equipment.

Our client lost consciousness, waking up on the floor with electrical burns on his forearm, hip, and thigh along with multiple lacerations on his head, knee, and foot. He refused an ambulance, and instead drove himself home, later recalling that he did so with a shaky arm and blurry vision. Once home, our client didn’t remember much else until he woke up in a hospital bed, where he was told he had suffered a serious stroke.

 

Lifelong Side Effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries

Hospital scans were inconclusive, but the treating emergency physicians opined that our client had suffered an occlusion, causing a stroke and subsequent hemiplegia (one-sided paralysis), neurological deficits, slurred speech, behavioral changes, and mood disorders. He also began experiencing short-term memory loss.

Our client spent one month in the hospital and many more months in physical and occupational therapy, trying to relearn tasks that were once part of his daily routine. He required around-the-clock care from his wife, who had to quit her job to become his full-time caregiver.

Tragically, these injuries are likely permanent. Our client will need extensive future medical care, including a full-time facility or health aide to assist him with day-to-day tasks. His treating neurologists also believe he is likely to develop further neurological complications as he ages.

Given the severity of these injuries, our attorneys on the case – Partners Daniel P. O’Toole, David L. Scher, Frederick C. Aranki, and Pawel P. Wierzbicki – knew they needed to treat the case with the utmost care and precision.

 

Handling the Workers’ Compensation Claim and Proving Causation of Injuries

The issue at the heart of the case was causation, and it presented a significant hurdle for our attorneys, who handled both the lawsuit and our client’s workers’ compensation case. Though hospital doctors had believed our client had sustained an occlusion as a result of chronic, untreated hypertension, our attorneys sought to prove that he had suffered an internal carotid dissection (a tear in one of the major arteries that supplies blood to the brain) in the fall.

Solidifying the link between the fall and the injury would be crucial if our client was to receive continued workers’ compensation benefits and be awarded damages. Partner Pawel P. Wierzbicki successfully handled the workers’ compensation trial, securing a decision establishing the claim, and defended that decision on appeal against the insurance company’s efforts to overturn it.

To show that our client had suffered a dissection, not an occlusion, attorneys began their investigation by combing through our client’s medical documents. Many details were lacking, and multiple doctors noted evidence of chronic vascular stenosis, or narrowing of blood vessels. Narrow blood vessels can cause blockages that lead to dissection and stroke.

The defense also emphasized that our client did not go to the hospital until nearly two days after his accident, making it less clear that the accident and injuries were causally related.

Our attorneys strongly pushed back against this argument, and they did so with extensive supporting evidence. The first thing they did was hire an expert neurologist to review the medical scans. Though the neurologist’s initial review led him to believe that a dissection had occurred as a result of a traumatic injury, our attorneys also consulted a neuroradiologist to take detailed images of our client’s brain and look for further evidence. That neuroradiologist then also opined that our client had suffered a carotid dissection.  

Our attorneys also found a doctor’s note in the hospital records, which admitted that the tapering of the blood vessel may indicate our client had suffered a traumatic dissection. Despite this, multiple other emergency physicians acted on the assumption that the stroke was the result of a chronic condition and did not do further testing to find the true cause.

Ultimately, Mr. Wierzbicki was able to prove in front of the Workers’ Compensation Board that the stroke was caused by our client’s fall from the ladder. This success in the workers’ compensation case bolstered our lawsuit’s claims, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

 

Establishing Liability Under Labor Law 240(1) and Labor Law 241(6)

Our attorneys pursued claims under Labor Law 240(1) and Labor Law 241(6), both of which require property owners and general contractors to provide construction workers with the appropriate safety equipment for the job. Labor Law 240(1) specifically imposes strict liability on property owners and general contractors when workers are injured in gravity-related accidents, like a ladder fall or scaffolding collapse. These protections extend to workers performing repairs.  

To investigate and build their arguments, our attorneys began by inspecting the job site and interviewing witnesses to the accident. They learned that there was no scaffolding, harness, or any other device meant to protect workers from falls on the job site. According to our construction liability experts, a ladder is an insufficient safety device to prevent a fall if shocked, so more robust equipment should have been provided.

Another point of failure was the live electric current. Someone – either a building manager or engineer – should have been on-site to shut off the electricity before our client began the repairs.

The defense tried to fight against our attorneys’ Labor Law 240(1) claim, arguing that the proximate cause of the accident was our client pushing himself away from the electric shock, not the shakiness of the ladder. It was not, therefore, a gravity-related risk.

Our attorneys countered that the most serious injuries – the head trauma and carotid dissection – were caused by the impact from the fall, not the shock. If proper scaffolding or harnesses had been used instead of an unsecured ladder, the shock would have never caused our client to fall and hit his head. The ladder was insufficient, and the lack of proper safety measures inherently violated the labor law.

 

Resolution, Just Before Trial

The many complicated elements of this case made it difficult to negotiate with the defense, and our attorneys knew it could very easily go to trial. They worked tirelessly to develop the evidence, craft their arguments, and perfect their appeals to the jury. Shortly before trial was scheduled to commence, our attorneys reached a settlement agreement of $10,300,000. We hope this result eases some of our client’s pain and gives him and his wife more options as they continue to rebuild their lives.

 

Settlement Amount 

This case was settled for $10,300,000. 

 

Handling Attorneys 

This case was handled by Partners Daniel P. O’Toole, David L. Scher, Frederick C. Aranki, and Pawel P. Wierzbicki.