Construction Accidents – Carpenter Injured - Transcript

Another individual I represented was a carpenter who was required to show up at a construction site in New York early in the morning and the general contractor on the case was supposed to take care of the walkways into the construction site and actually was obligated to put salt and snow remover down.  My client showed up for work at seven o’clock in the morning, and the crosswalk leading into the construction site was a skating rink.  It was just pure ice.  He went down, sustained a very serious cervical injury neck for which he ultimately had to undergo surgery. 

The insurance company for the general contractor and the owner of the construction site took the position that, hey, it’s a slip and fall case in the winter in Western New York and we don’t think we’re at fault.  It turned out the carpenter was protected under New York’s Labor Law which protects construction workers and other individuals in the demolition or construction trades.  Well he was protected by that and again we had to sue the case, go through all of the discovery, and shortly before trial, it was agreed to an arbitration of the case where a very, very substantial resolution of the case was worked out.