David's Construction Accident Corner

In this case, a day laborer was injured after falling 20 feet from the platform of a forklift while stocking shelves inside a warehouse in Brooklyn. The main question was whether the worker’s activity of stocking shelves was covered by the “Scaffold Law.” Here, the court said it might be and that the case was allowed to go forward because plaintiff’s activity may have been “performed as part of the larger renovation project that he had been hired to complete on the premises, including assembly of the shelving structures and other tasks attendant to preparing the warehouse to receive [the] stock merchandise.” However, because this question could not be answered on paper alone, the worker could not win his case completely without a trial.

Another case here from the Second Department appellate court reversing the trial court below and granting the plaintiff summary judgment under Labor Law 240(1). Here, the worker was injured by a block and chain hoisting apparatus that fell as he and his co-worker were getting ready to use it. The Court said the worker wins, regardless of whether the coworker accidentally dropped it or if it was not properly secured. There are a number of cases from the Second Department cases where the injured construction worker has lost because a coworker simply dropped the object that struck them, so this is a bit of a departure from those cases. The difference here seems to be that the object that fell was a safety device used to hoist objects or materials.

This is a case decided by the Second Dept., reversing the trial court and granting summary judgment to plaintiff, a construction worker who was struck by a piece of plywood used as part of the formwork that fell from first floor ceiling. Approximately 30 minutes before the accident plaintiff’s co-workers had removed a post supporting the plywood, leaving it unsecured. The Court also noted that there was “no caution tape surrounding the perimeter to prevent other workers from entering the area where the formwork disassembly was occurring.” Of note is the Court’s mention that the defendant’s arguments were mere speculation as to whether the plywood could have been secured or how the accident happened.

In this case, the construction worker was unloading flooring materials from the back of a truck to the ground with a coworker using a hydraulic lift. The lift was being used to lower the flooring materials in pallets or “skids” weighing 2,500 to 3,000 pounds a height of about 4 feet off the ground. One of the skids fell off the lift onto the worker.

The Court said that the court below was wrong and that the worker was actually entitled to win his “Scaffold Law” claim under Labor Law 240(1) because certain defendants didn’t provide a proper safety device that secured the materials as they were being lowered off the truck. This case falls into the category of falling object cases where the object needed to be properly secured while being hoisted.