$1.75 Million Settlement for Electrician Whose Ladder Was Pulled Out From Under Him

A 46-year-old licensed electrician was assigned to a Staten Island construction site through a staffing agency. From the outset he had concerns about conditions there. He requested a safety harness and was told none were available. He contacted the agency asking to be moved to another site; the agency confirmed it received the request but had no placement for him.

On the day of the accident, he and his supervisor were running cable along ceiling joists, each on a separate ladder about fifteen feet apart. The supervisor fed wire while the electrician pulled it through. After two successful runs, the wire stuck on the third. The supervisor said he would pull it back. The electrician heard something below him, looked down, and saw the wire had looped around the base of his ladder. Before he could shout a warning, the supervisor pulled again. The ladder came out from under him.

The electrician landed on his right ankle with enough force to cause an open fracture. Surgeons performed emergency open reduction internal fixation, placing a plate and eleven screws. He remained hospitalized for six days, then required a home health aide for three months and moved through a wheelchair, crutches, and eventually a cane. Thirteen months after the first operation, he underwent a second surgery: a fusion of the right ankle.

The firm pursued the property owner, property manager, and general contractor under New York's scaffold law. The defense relied on the supervisor's account, which differed substantially from what the electrician described. The supervisor claimed the electrician had been working alone on a separate ladder, that no wire connected to that ladder was being pulled, and that the electrician was standing on the top step of an eight-foot ladder. Adam Moses Orlow, the firm's senior trial partner, challenged that account on basic arithmetic: the supervisor placed a 6-foot-1-inch man on the top step of an eight-foot ladder under a thirteen-foot ceiling, working on joists eleven feet up. His head would have been above the ceiling decking. Photographs taken by a coworker immediately after the fall showed multiple wires hanging vertically in the area, directly contradicting the supervisor's claim that no such wires were present.

The supervisor also denied having made a recorded statement to his insurance carrier. The firm obtained the recording. The voice was his. The defense's $750,000 settlement offer was rejected. The case resolved at $1.75 million.