About John Ratkowitz
John J. Ratkowitz is Of Counsel at Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd, LLP, focusing on medical malpractice and personal injury matters in New Jersey. He earned his B.A. from Rutgers University and his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark.
Notable case results
When improperly installed scaffolding collapsed at a Bordentown, New Jersey construction site and injured four workers, John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez and Winograd secured a $19.675 million multi-party settlement that awarded $15 million to Luis Yanza, who sustained a traumatic brain injury leaving him with permanent, severe cognitive deficits.
Jose Criollo, 46, fell from an unguarded scaffolding tower after airborne debris struck his eyes, sustaining a complete spinal cord injury at T12-T13 that left him permanently paraplegic; the case settled for $8.225 million against the general contractor and his employer combined.
After falling from a Sea Girt rooftop without a safety harness on May 4, 2017, and sustaining a complete cervical spinal cord injury that left him permanently quadriplegic, Roberto Carlos Bolanos settled his negligence claim against the general contractor for $4 million.
A New Jersey delivery worker received $2,225,000 in 2018 after a Ryder rental truck's lift gate collapsed mid-use, causing a fall that required multiple surgeries and left him with permanent physical restrictions.
A construction worker fell through a failed metal grate inside the Central Railroad of NJ Terminal building at Liberty State Park in 2015, suffering bone fractures and permanent spinal injuries that John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd resolved for $2 million in 2024.
An Essex County jury awarded $1,800,000 to a plumber who fell from unguarded construction stairs while carrying a bathtub, finding Hutchgrove Enterprises liable as the de facto general contractor on the project.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
