Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Construction Accident

Published on:

By

using the wrong ladder can result in accidentInjuries and deaths resulting from ladder accidents are extremely common. According to the most recent CDC statistics, over the last decade, 81% of fall injuries treated in American ERs were resulting from falls from ladders. Ladders were also involved in 43% of all fall fatalities.  Thousands of people are injured and hundreds are dying every year in ladder accidents. Year after year, our construction accident attorneys are helping construction workers injured in ladder accidents getting compensated for their injuries. Most of the time, construction workers fall from ladders because they are not provided with the adequate ladders to perform the task. One of our recent clients was a carpenter who was standing on a 6-foot A-frame ladder while pinning studs above his head. The ladder that was provided to him was not proper for the work he was doing. As the carpenter was working, the ladder kicked out and the man fell. He suffered a spine injury and had to undergo a microdiscectomy to his lumbar spine. Our attorneys were able to obtain a $1.250 million settlement on his behalf.

In New York, the law requires that workers using ladders be provided with the adequate equipment to execute the task and that ladders are not defectively maintained, placed or operated. However despite that law, many negligent contractors continue to provide workers with inadequate, broken or old ladders that put them at risk of dangerous accidents.

Ladder accidents are not only common on construction sites but also at home. From changing a smoke alarm, to cleaning gutters, home owners also use ladders and get injured frequently.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

drone inspection can prevent accidentsRecent studies found that drones can be helpful in identifying hazards and preventing workers getting injured or killed in construction accidents.  The Center for Construction Research and Training is hosting a free webinar on Wednesday March 23 about drones in construction and specifically how they can help make construction sites safer. The webinar will be presented by the authors of 3 studies in this field:

  1. Rod Handy, MBA, Ph.D., CIH, University of Utah  who is the lead author of a study entitled Nebulizer-retrofitted drone deployment at residential construction sites will explain how water spraying drones can reduce exposure to air pollution and heat stress and as a result prevent dangerous illnesses
  2. Masoud Gheisari, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, University of Florida who is the lead author of Using unmanned aerial systems for automated fall hazard monitoring in high-rise construction will share how drone technology can help identifying hazards and safety issues on construction sites especially the most common and dangerous ones that are related to falls. His study focuses on the monitoring of guardrails near unprotected edges and openings in a high rise construction site. The author developed an automated fall hazard recognition system that could facilitate the recognition of guardrails in high rise construction projects.
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

https://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneysblog.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpBuilding owners, contractors or other construction professionals that do not respect construction safety rules put workers and civilians at risk of accidents. To prevent misconduct, the NYC Department of Buildings conducts thousands of inspections and bad actors are sanctioned. A list of the main sanctions is published monthly by the DOB. What comes out of the January DOB Enforcement Action Bulletin is that sadly, in New York City, endangering the life of construction workers comes at a much cheaper price tag than displaying advertising in illegal locations or being an illegal Airbnb host.

Here are the highest penalties issued by the NYC Department of Buildings in January:

  • The owner of a two-family building located at 29 Marconi Place in Brooklyn received the highest fine with a total of $74,250 in penalties.  After a fire erupted on location, a DOB investigation found that the owner had illegally converted the property to add 4 single-room occupancy units. The construction work was effectuated without a permit and the owner failed to comply with previous orders from the DOB to legalize the conditions at the property.
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

NYC construction workers have a high risk of fatalities Construction worker deaths in New York City and New York State represented respectively 22% and 24% of all worker deaths in the city and in the State in 2020 according to the annual report “Deadly Skyline” recently published by NYCOSH. The percentage is higher than the 21% rate recorded at the national level.

While less workers died in 2020 in NY and and NYC, data are difficult to compare as many construction sites shut down during the lock down. 41 construction workers died in accidents in New York State in 2020 compared to 55 in 2019. Among them, 13 died on New York City construction sites in 2020 compared to 24 in 2019.

Fatality rate is a better measure of how dangerous the work places are: In New York State, the construction workers fatality rate was 11.1 per 100,000 workers in 2020 compared to 10.2 in 2019. This indicates that work conditions were more dangerous for workers in 2020 than in 2019 in New York State. In New York City, the fatality rate declined from 11.6 to 7 per 100.000 which is quite an improvement and an indication that the recent measures taken by the city to make construction sites safer may work. Over the last few years, the budget for the New York City Department of Building has been increasing and so did the number of employees working on safety legislation and inspections.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

OSHA logoAfter a hard hat fatally fell 60 feet during demolition work on one of its construction sites, Richmond Construction, based in Queens, NYC, was hit by a $374,603 OSHA fine. This is the second highest OSHA fine for the last quarter of  2021.

Last May, a 49 year old worker hired by Richmond Construction was working on the demolition of the Flatbush Bank Building in Brooklyn. He had just finished breaking apart a section of the roof with a jackhammer and was  walking on the top of the exposed side when a piece of concrete on which he was standing broke apart. The man fell 60 feet down to the ground and died. The worker was not using proper safety equipment and had no training to execute such a dangerous job.

The OSHA investigators found that Richmond Construction failed to provide lifesaving fall protection and did not train employees to recognize and avoid fall hazards. The contractor was cited for 9 willful, repeat and serious violations including:

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

safety on construction site is keySome construction workers, especially those working on emergency repairs are required to work for long period of time in sub-zero temperatures and as a result they might suffer cold related illnesses and injuries such as Hypothermia, Frostbite, Trench Foot and Chilblains.

How to prevent cold illnesses?

  • The most important way to prevent cold illnesses is to wear appropriate clothing that are made for cold, wet and windy conditions. Dressing with layers of loose fitting clothes that can be adjusted depending on the outside temperature and always wearing a hat that covers ears and if necessary a knit mask. Waterproof and insulated gloves as well as socks and waterproof and insulated shoes that keep the body dry are necessary when working outside for a long time. Additionnally. it is always a good idea to bring extra clothes to change  in cases clothes get wet.
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

construction workers working at height in NYCTo reduce construction accidents in New York City and make sure New Yorkers and construction workers are protected, New York City Building Laws are constantly updated to adapt to actual situations.  Last year, a major update of the NYC construction code led to more than 600 significant changes and thousands of smaller ones. Here is a list of some of the laws that are affecting construction safety on work sites, building inspection requirements, and property maintenance:

  • Local Law 74 of 2021 was updated in regards to fences at stalled construction sites: chain link fences should be installed at sites where work was discontinued and all equipment and material posing hazards were removed.
  • Local Law 119 of 2021 extends the application period for certification of no harassment  pilot program
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

construction workers moving equipment are at risk of struck by accidentsIn New York and in the US, construction companies, like any employers, are responsible for the safety of their employees while they are at work. If a construction worker is injured or killed on the job, the employer might be liable. Therefore during the pandemic they had to make sure that construction workers were adequately protected from getting the potentially deadly virus.

In their last month Data Bulleting, the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR), looked at how construction companies dealt with Safety Management during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the nature of their work, construction workers can not work from home and often have to work in teams. Therefore they can easily be exposed to Covid19 if one of the workers is sick. As a result, construction businesses had to take measures to keep their employees safe from potential viral transmission.  However  the CPWR found that safety measures were different from one construction business to the other.

It is not a surprise that three quarters of construction businesses in the US reported that their business suffered from the Covid-19 crisis and that  a quarter of them suffered large decreases in employment compared to pre-pandemic levels. Among the extra expenses related to Covid19, many construction businesses implemented on-site testing as many of them also did not require vaccination for employees working on their construction sites.  While 11% of all nonfarm businesses require their onsite employees to be vaccinated, only 6% of construction companies do.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Man-working-on-tubular-scaffold-scaledAfter a 21 year old worker fell to his death on a Brooklyn construction site, Everest Scaffolding, a NYC roofing company located in the Bronx, received a $300,370 OSHA  fine. This fine was the second largest OSHA fine of Q2 2021 . The accident related to the fine occurred on November 13, 2020. The young worker was installing a supported tubular welded frame scaffold during the construction of a seven-story building in Brooklyn when he fell almost 50 feet and died.

OSHA investigators found that:

  • the roofing company did not evaluate the feasibility of using fall protection
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Our NY personal injury injury law firm is proud to announce that our partners Anthony H. Gair and Christopher J. Donadio obtained a $6.5 million settlement for a construction worker injured in Manhattan.

The case involved a worker who was injured while performing demolition work at a large construction site. On the day of the incident, the worker was instructed by his foreman to remove any material that was attached to the permanent ceiling on the second floor of the work site. In order to perform the work, the worker was required to use a large blowtorch while standing on a mobile scaffold. Unfortunately, the provided mobile scaffold did not have any safety railings. While the worker was performing his work on the scaffold, he lost his balance and fell headfirst to the concrete ground six to eight feet below.

The worker was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where he was diagnosed with a skull fracture and a brain injury. He was forced to undergo several surgeries as a result of his injuries.

Continue reading →
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. ...
  14. 45
Badges
Super Lawyers Best Lawyers Martindale-Hubbell
SEE NEW JERSEY DISCLAIMER PAGE- AWARD METHODOLOGY