Getting the New York Judgment Award You Need, and the Legal Tools for Getting it as Quickly as Possible

When you have suffered an injury while working at your construction job, you are probably feeling very concerned. You’re likely concerned about yourself and concerned about providing for your family, in addition to other concerns you inevitably have. Many of these concerns are financial, and can be addressed by pursuing, and then completing, a successful legal action as fast as possible. One of the best ways to make sure that your construction injury lawsuit proceeds, and finishes, as swiftly as possible is to be sure you have an experienced New York City construction injury attorney on your side.

A successful, and swiftly resolved, case need not involve elaborate trial presentations or mountains of paperwork. Pursued in the right manner, it may be based, in large part, just on your own deposition testimony. Of course, to make that deposition get the job done, you have to be sure that the right questions are asked and the right answers elicited (thereby by placing that information on the record). Again this is a place where skilled legal counsel helps.

Take, as an example, a recent case involving C.V., a roofing worker working in the Hudson Valley. C.V. was atop a ladder while working one day when he fell from that ladder and suffered substantial injuries.

The roofing worker sued, alleging that a violation of Section 240(1) had occurred and that he was owed damages. Section 240(1) protects workers involved in tasks that present “elevation-related” risks of harm, like falling objects or the worker himself falling. The law says that the property owner and the project’s general contractor have a “non-delegable” (meaning that they cannot “pass the buck” to someone else) duty to provide workers with sufficient safety protections against all elevation-related risks of harm. In some situations, you may even be able to succeed against additional entities, such as certain subcontractors.

In C.V.’s case, he sued the property owner, the general contractor and one subcontractor. In his case, he gave a deposition. In his deposition, he stated that the ladder upon which he was working shifted beneath him “for no apparent reason, causing him to fall.”

In this case, that was enough, the courts stated, to entitle him to a summary judgment in his favor on the issue of liability. (A summary judgment means that the court rules in your favor without requiring you to go through a full trial on that issue. This can be very important in speeding up the legal process and allowing you to secure a judgment award more swiftly.)

The worker’s statement about the ladder shifting created what the law calls “a prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.” Once you do that, you are entitled to summary judgment in your favor unless the other side presents some information to the trial court that raises a valid dispute of fact. In C.V.’s case, the defendants did not, so C.V.’s deposition testimony was sufficient to get him the summary judgment he needed.

To get the compensation you need, and to get it as quickly as is possible, it pays to have knowledgeable legal representation. To find out more, consult the New York City construction injury attorneys at Arcia & Associates. Our team has many years of experience helping injured workers seek the recovery they deserve.

More Blog Posts:

The Many Options that May Exist If You’ve Been Hurt at Work in New York, Blog de Abogado en la Ciudad de Nueva York, 23 de Enero de 2019

Proof of a Lack of Fall Protection Allows an Injured Demolition Man to Win His New York Construction Injury Case, Blog de Abogado en la Ciudad de Nueva York, 9 de Julio de 2018