New York Legal Authority
Construction accidents often cause horror and havoc for the workers involved and their families. A seemingly “ordinary” injury like a fall, from a one-story building, can leave a worker forever changed. Failure to secure a floor panel, provide a guard rails, or furnish workers with safety harnesses can leave the worker living with a life time of injuries, or in the worst case scenario, their family attempting to move on after losing a husband or father.
When the construction accidents are spectacular, as with the collapse of a tower crane on East 51st Street in 2008, killing seven people, the publicity and the high-profile nature of the accident may help the victims obtain more adequate settlements, but the emotional trauma for the families is the same.
The property is now in the hands of new owners, insulated from liability for the crane collapse, and the building will provide one to four-bedroom units ranging in price from 1.3 million to more than $10 million.
While it is always good to see development, and the jobs that development provides, we need to remember the price that is extracted from the workers who build those projects.
The crane collapse was the one of two that year that prompted a review of “and new testing and safety requirements for crane operators, and other changes in construction rules.”
If anything good can be said of these tragic examples of negligence, it is that, maybe, it will not happen to another family. Better inspections, stricter requirements, improved training and more aggressive enforcement can provide some element of justice for the deceased workers’ families.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, “After Crane Accident, Residential Projects Take Shape,” Josh Barbanel, June 20, 2013
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Always room for improving for worker safety
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