$750,000 Settlement: Construction Worker Thrown From Bucket Lift by Garbage Truck

In January 2017, a 53-year-old window installer was working inside a bucket lift roughly 25 to 30 feet above the sidewalk at a new construction site in Brooklyn. His employer had been hired by the general contractor to handle window installation throughout the building. That day, the client was positioned in the lift bucket, coordinating with a coworker on the building's interior to set a window from the exterior. A garbage truck operated by a waste-hauling company reversed at high speed and struck the base of the lift. The sudden impact caused the lift to wobble violently, throwing the client out of the bucket. He fell to the ground and lost consciousness on impact.

The firm pursued claims against three parties: the property owner, the general contractor, and the trucking company. The theory against the owner and general contractor rested on New York Labor Law Section 240(1), which imposes liability on those parties when an elevation safety device fails and a worker is injured. The defense countered that the scaffold law did not apply here because the lift itself had not malfunctioned. The equipment had worked as designed, they argued. It was struck from outside by a vehicle, not a case of equipment failure. The trial court accepted that argument and denied the firm's motion on that theory.

With the scaffold law path closed against the owner and GC, Senior Trial Partner Adam Moses Orlow refocused the case on the trucking company. The facts there were straightforward: a commercial vehicle reversed at speed into the base of a lift carrying a worker. The court reviewed the record on its own and granted summary judgment against the trucking company on liability. That ruling took negligence off the table as a disputed question, leaving only the extent of damages to resolve.

After the fall, the client was transported by ambulance to Coney Island Hospital. MRI imaging showed herniated and bulging discs in both his cervical and lumbar spine, a torn anterior labrum in his right shoulder, a torn superior labrum in his right hip, and multiple cracked and lost teeth. In November 2021, he underwent hip arthroscopy, which confirmed a partial labral tear along with chondral lesions on the femoral head and acetabulum. The case resolved for $750,000.