$375,000 Recovery After Electrician Fell From Defective A-Frame Ladder
A 30-year-old electrician fell from an A-frame ladder with a cracked side rail held together with electrical tape. The Orlow Firm pursued the property owner and general contractor under New York's scaffold law on what looked like a textbook violation. The trial court denied our motion for summary judgment on liability anyway, and the defense pressed a substantive causation argument. The electrician had a complex prior history with the same ankle, and his treating doctors had identified an eventual fusion as a likely future course before the fall. The Orlow Firm kept the procedural pressure on through a notice of appeal, moved the case to mediation, and secured $375,000 for our client.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
What Happened
Our client was a 30-year-old electrician employed full-time by an electrical contracting company. On February 27, 2017, he was pulling cable through the ceiling at a construction site, standing on the fifth step of an eight-foot A-frame ladder his employer had provided. As he pulled the cable, it became stuck. When he applied force to free it, the ladder shifted beneath him and collapsed. He fell and landed on his right foot. After the fall, our client looked at the ladder and discovered why it had failed. One of the side rails had a crack running its length, a structural defect that someone had previously noticed and tried to repair with nothing more than electrical tape. He recorded video of the broken ladder immediately after the incident, clearly showing the split rail and the tape.
How We Won
Despite what looked like a textbook scaffold-law violation, the trial court denied our motion for summary judgment on liability. The defense had two arguments. The first was procedural. They pressed enough of a question of fact to keep the case from being decided as a matter of law. The second was substantive. Our client's right ankle had carried significant pre-existing pathology, and his treating doctors had identified a fusion as a likely future course before the fall. The defense argued the surgery was on his medical horizon regardless of the fall.
Adam Moses Orlow, our Senior Trial Partner, kept the procedural pressure on through a notice of appeal while moving the case toward mediation. The video our client recorded immediately after the fall, clearly showing the split rail held together with electrical tape, was the centerpiece of the liability case. The defense's causation theory required them to convince a jury that an active construction worker's pre-existing ankle would have failed at exactly the same time as a fall from a defective ladder. That theory was not impossible to win on, but it was a long road for the defense, and the case settled at mediation rather than going there.
The Injuries
Our client had a complex prior history with his right ankle. In 2008 he had undergone an open reduction surgery with hardware placement; in 2016 he had a second procedure to remove the hardware. After that surgery, his treating doctors had told him a fusion might be needed at some future point if the ankle became symptomatic again. On June 27, 2017, four months after the fall, he underwent the ankle fusion.
The Result
The Orlow Firm secured $375,000 at mediation.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
If you or a loved one has been injured in a construction accident, contact The Orlow Firm at (646) 647-3398 for a free consultation.
