Articles Posted in Construction Injuries

On May 11, 2009, Manuel Banuelos was driving a dump truck through a construction zone on northbound Interstate 94 in Lake County, Ill., when he attempted to turn into a construction site a quarter-mile north of Illinois Route 176. At that point, Banuelos was rear-ended by a semi-tractor-trailer driven by the defendant Dezell Kelley, pushing Banuelos’ truck into a ditch causing his serious injuries.

Banuelos claimed that he had slowed down in advance of his turn, that his flashers were engaged and signs were present warning drivers of a flagger ahead and the trucks were entering and exiting this highway.

Two witnesses confirmed that Banuelos had slowed and his flashers were on. Banuelos was 39 years old at the time of the crash. He sustained a herniated L5-S1 disc that required a discectomy and fusion, a torn meniscus in his right knee that required arthroscopic surgery and a herniated C5-6 disc requiring treatment and future fusion surgery, all leaving him unable to return to work as a truck driver.

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In late March 2008, Fortino Fonseca was working for RG Drywall, a subcontractor hired by Clark Construction Group, LLC. While Fonseca was carrying a 100-pound sheet of drywall, he tripped over an electrical pipe that was on a hallway floor. Fonseca fell and the drywall broke on top of him.

As a result of the fall, Fonseca suffered injuries that required surgery on his back and right shoulder. On Feb. 1, 2010, Fonseca filed a lawsuit naming Clark Construction Group, LLC as a defendant. During the next 14 months after the filing of the lawsuit, some other defendants were added and some were dropped. By April 15, 2011, the defendants who remained were Clark Construction and Maron Electric, which was a subcontractor hired by Clark Construction to do the electrical wiring for the building.

In the lawsuit, Fonseca claimed that Maron chose not to clear the construction area of debris and that Clark had chosen not to property supervise the work that was being done.

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Walter Rutland, 49, was riding his bike in the right lane of a state road that had recently been resurfaced. He moved to the right to avoid a car approaching from behind him. The bicycle’s front tire came on to a drop-off between the newly resurfaced road and a fringe area that had not been resurfaced. Rutland lost control of his bike and fell.

As a result of his fall, he was hospitalized with spinal injuries; an MRI showed swelling at C1-7. He underwent decompression infusion surgery at C2-7, but the injuries resulted in complete quadriplegia. Rutland is now only able to walk about 25 feet. He requires a wheelchair for longer distances to move about. He also requires assistance with most of his daily tasks.

Rutland’s past medical expenses totaled about $700,000 and his future medical expenses and life-care costs were estimated to be about $4.5 million.

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The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has reversed a district court judge’s decision in a case involving an indemnification clause in a contract.

Robert Krien was an employee of Riley Construction.  Riley was the general contractor on a construction project located in Wisconsin.  Riley in turn, hired Harsco Corporation to supply the scaffolding for the construction work.  Krien was injured when he fell from the scaffolding after a plank broke beneath him.  The parties settled Krien’s injury claim for $900,000.

Before the settlement, Harsco had filed a third-party complaint against Riley seeking indemnification for any damages Harsco might pay by way of judgment or settlement.  Then the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the district court judge granted Riley’s motion.  Harsco took this appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago.

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Leroy Walker Jr. was working as a flagman for Curran Contracting on May 1, 2008. He was directing traffic on Route 173 near Lorelei Drive in Zion, Ill.  Walker was standing in front of a construction site where a new Super Wal-Mart store was being built.

The defendant, Steven Kruglar, was driving westbound on Route 173 when Walker stopped traffic to allow construction vehicles to enter and exit the driveway to the construction site.

Walker alleged in his lawsuit that Kruglar accelerated without being given permission to proceed and attempted to go around a semi-truck turning into the entrance.  At that time, Kruglar’s vehicle struck Walker’s right wrist and arm.

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Adam Nowak was installing electrical equipment at an energy plant when a crane hook fell about 60 feet from an overhead crane, which struck and killed him. Mr. Nowak was an electrician working for Matrix Service Co., and he was installing electrical equipment at the Veolia Energy’s Schuylkill Steam Plant. 

The lawsuit for the wrongful death of Mr. Nowak was brought by his wife, Michele Nowak, and filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The defendants in the case included Veolia, which owned the crane, and Permadur Industries, which was contracted to do repairs and annual inspections of the crane. Another defendant in the case, Kenny Construction Co., was the contractor of Mr. Nowak’s employer. 

The lawsuit alleged that Veolia was negligent for choosing not to correctly maintain the crane’s limit switch, which was designed to prevent “two-blocking,” a design feature that is used when a crane hook is raised too high. In this case, when the crane hook was raised too high, the cable holding the hook snapped and the hook fell to the ground, killing Mr. Nowak. 

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Teodoro Ramirez was injured while working for his employer and subcontractor, Sullivan Roofing. The case was tried before a jury in Cook County against the general contractor on the project, FCL Builders. At the end of the trial, the trial judge included Sullivan Roofing on the jury verdict form for apportioning fault under Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, §2-1117. 

The jury’s verdict of $1.588 million against FCL included a finding that Ramirez was 20 percent at fault for his own injuries while FCL and Sullivan were held to be 40 percent at fault each. 

FCL appealed, arguing that Sullivan Roofing should not have been on the verdict form. 

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A district court judge in Chicago granted the motion of defendant Ryobi Technologies Inc.  to exclude an expert witness as unreliable and irrelevant. Purportedly, it would have cost Ryobi $50 to $150 to install an automatic braking system on the table saw that sliced off Brandon Stollings’s index finger and portions of several other fingers in a “kickback” incident.

Under Illinois law, it is required that expert testimony is necessary to prove that a product was unreasonably dangerous.  Stollings wanted to call John Graham as his expert to testify that each saw sold without the safety device burdens society with an average of $753 in accident costs. The basis of Graham’s opinion was that the automatic braking system would have been 90 percent effective.

After this appeal was taken, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed ruling that the district court judge’s exclusion of Graham’s testimony on reliability grounds was an abuse of discretion because it “intruded too far into the province of the jury.” Graham’s expert opinion was relevant as to whether the Ryobi saw was unreasonably dangerous. 

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Paul Junod, 51, a locomotive mechanic, fell from an elevated platform while changing shock absorbers at the Illinois Central Railroad’s Woodcrest shop in Homewood, Ill.  Junod suffered multiple fractures of his left wrist with median and radial nerve damage, which required open reduction internal fixation with a plate and screws inserted. Following the June 26, 2006 incident, Junod also developed post traumatic arthritis, chronic pain and increasing impairment of the hand. He will need future surgeries for hardware removal, nerve decompression and a possible wrist fusion.

Junod contended that the railroad chose not to provide him with adequate equipment to perform his job, which included a high-torque impact gun with deep well impact sockets, forcing him to use a breaker bar and box wrench to remove nuts from the shock absorbers. This made the task more difficult and allegedly caused Junod to lose his balance and fall off the platform.

Junod also argued that the platform was not equipped with handrails and a toe-board as required.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has upheld a $1.9 million Cook County jury verdict for injuries to a man who was riding his bike on a city street that was under construction.

In July 2007, the city of Chicago was resurfacing an intersection, which altered the otherwise safe bicycle path. While under construction, the alteration resulted in a raised structure in the roadway and a shallow gash not readily visible to bikers.  The alteration by the city was the proximate cause of the biker’s injuries, the court concluded.

In upholding the jury verdict, the appellate court upheld the Cook County’s judge’s refusal of a special interrogatory on the grounds it was prejudicial and implied several questions inside one “deceptively brief” question.

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