$1,100,000 Settlement – Falling Object at Bronx Construction Site
| Settlement Amount | $1,100,000 |
| Injury Type | Traumatic brain injury (subdural hematoma), fractured skull, permanent partial vision loss |
| Location | Bronx residential construction project |
| Year | 2023 |
| Practice Area | Construction Accidents / Labor Law 240 |
What Happened
Our client was a tradesperson working at a Bronx residential building that was undergoing a complete gut renovation. He was working at a lower level of the building while overhead work was being performed on an upper floor. A steel beam was being repositioned using a crane – without proper rigging, without taglines, and without any system to control the load if it shifted. It shifted. The beam fell.
Our client never saw it coming. The beam struck him directly, driving him to the ground with a force that caused injuries severe enough that his co-workers feared he had been killed. He was not – but the road back from what happened to him that day has been long, incomplete, and marked by permanent loss.
OSHA investigators arrived at the site in the aftermath and found not one violation but multiple – a site operating well below the minimum safety standards federal law requires. None of those citations came as a surprise to anyone who had been working there.
The Injuries
The falling beam caused a subdural hematoma – bleeding between the brain and its protective covering – that required emergency neurosurgery. Our client also sustained a fractured skull and, as a result of the trauma to his head and the resulting neurological damage, suffered permanent partial vision loss in his left eye.
These are not injuries from which a person simply recovers. The subdural hematoma required immediate surgical intervention to relieve pressure on the brain. The surgery was successful in a life-preserving sense, but its success did not restore our client to who he was before that beam fell. He emerged with lasting cognitive effects, reduced visual field, and a future that looked fundamentally different than the one he had been building.
How Liability Was Established
New York Labor Law § 240(1) covers not just falls by workers but falling objects that strike workers below. The statute requires that objects being hoisted or secured must be protected against falling – through proper rigging, protective equipment, or both. A steel beam being moved by crane is precisely the kind of load the statute was written to address.
Jason’s investigation established the specific rigging failures that caused the beam to fall. The crane operator had not used taglines – cables that control the swing and movement of a suspended load – despite the fact that taglines are a basic OSHA requirement for crane operations in the presence of workers below. The rigging itself was improperly configured for the weight and shape of the beam.
The OSHA investigation, which Jason obtained in full through discovery, cited the general contractor directly for these violations. Both the general contractor and the property owner were named as defendants – the standard approach under Labor Law 240, which imposes liability on both regardless of who directly controlled the work.
Challenges in the Case
This case had a significant complication: our client had a documented prior traumatic brain injury from an accident several years earlier. He had made a functional recovery from that prior injury, but it existed in his medical history – and the defense intended to use it.
The defense’s strategy was predictable: argue that our client’s current symptoms – the cognitive effects, the vision loss, the neurological deficits – were all attributable to the prior injury, not the beam strike. Under this theory, the defendants would owe little or nothing because they had not caused anything new; they had simply triggered pre-existing conditions.
Jason retained both a neurologist and a neuropsychologist to address this defense head-on. Both experts reviewed our client’s complete medical history, including records from the prior injury and his functional baseline in the period between the two events. Their opinions were clear and well-documented: the current presentation was categorically distinct from the prior injury. The subdural hematoma was a new and acute injury, not an aggravation. The vision loss was a new deficit – one that did not exist before the beam struck him. The neuropsychological testing showed a marked and measurable deterioration from the documented prior baseline.
The defense’s own medical experts could not credibly dispute the surgical records, the imaging, or the objective neuropsychological test scores. The pre-existing injury argument, while predictable, could not survive the expert evidence Jason built.
The Outcome
The case resolved for $1,100,000. That result captured the severity of our client’s permanent neurological injuries, the impact on his vision, his lost earning capacity, and the recognition that this was a man who had already survived one serious brain injury only to be placed in harm’s way on a job site that never should have been operating as it was.
For our client, the settlement brought a measure of justice and the financial stability to address his ongoing care needs and reduced work capacity.
Were you or someone you know injured by a falling object or unsecured load on a New York construction site? Labor Law 240 falling object cases require expert investigation and fast evidence preservation. The sooner you call, the stronger your case.
Contact Linden Law for a Free Consultation → | (212) 804-8440
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Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is unique. The facts, injuries, and legal theories in your case will determine its value. This summary has been anonymized to protect client privacy.