John Ratkowitz

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 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.