Ironworker Hurt in Fort Sheridan Scaffold Collapse Settles Cook County Suit Before Trial
Won by GWC Injury Lawyers.
Ironworker Michael Zigich, 50, fractured his right leg and ankle and tore a rotator cuff when a scaffold section collapsed under him at a Fort Sheridan construction site in June 2009. He sued the steel contractor, the general contractor and a joint venture in Cook County. The defendants disputed the scaffold's condition and who was responsible for its use, and the case settled on July 15, 2015, before trial.
What happened
On June 22, 2009, Michael Zigich, then 50, was working as an ironworker at a construction site at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was employed by Delgado Erectors, a subcontractor on the project. The general contractor was the Plata/Mota Joint Venture, and Carlo Steel Corp. was the steel contractor above Delgado.
A section of scaffolding Zigich was using to climb up and down gave way, and he fell about six feet to the ground. He was taken for emergency surgery the same day, and he would need two more operations over the following months.
The injuries were to his right leg and right shoulder. He had pilon fractures of the right tibia and fibula, the weight-bearing end of the lower leg at the ankle joint. He also tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Surgeons first stabilized the leg with an external fixator, then performed internal fixation about five weeks later. The rotator cuff was repaired roughly three months after the fall. Traumatic arthritis later developed in the injured joint.
Zigich filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County in 2010 against Carlo Steel, Plata Mota Construction, Plata Construction Corp. and the Plata/Mota Joint Venture. The case was assigned No. 2010-L-007265 and heard before Judge William E. Gomolinski over the following five years. Delgado Erectors was also named as a defendant. Zigich's lawyer was Joseph P. Sorce of Goldberg, Weisman & Cairo in Chicago.
Zigich's position was that the defendants supplied unsafe scaffolding for getting up to and down from the work area. Liability was contested. The defense argued that Delgado chose to use the scaffold, that fall protection was not used, and that the scaffold's base was too narrow for proper stability. Lawyers for Delgado Erectors and for the remaining defendants, from separate Chicago firms, defended the claims.
Six years after the fall, the case settled on July 15, 2015, before it reached a jury, for $1.9 million. That ended a dispute over fault among a general contractor, a steel contractor and an injured worker's employer, which a trial would have put in front of jurors.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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