Four companies will pay $3.45 million
total to a 47-year-old former electrician to settle a lawsuit he
filed after being shocked by an overhead high-tension wire at a
construction site in Harrison, N.J., lawyers said.
The accident three, years ago left Donald
Lynch of Mullica.Hill, N J., with second- and. third-degree bums
over 40 percent of his body and partial paralysis that makes it
difficult for him to walk, according to court documents.
The trial of Lynch v. Conectiv was scheduled
to begin Tuesday in New Jersey Superior Court in Camden County, but
Lynch's lawyers, Larry Bendesky and Robert Mongeluzzi, finalized
the settlement with the last defendant last week, they said.
That company, Sunbelt Rentals, provided the
work platform that Lynch was planning to use to lift him 40 feet in
the air June 13, 2001.
Lynch, an electrical subcontractor, had the
task of reaching a piece of plastic pipe 30 feet above the ground
and threading a wire through it to connect the building under
construction to a utility line, according to court documents.
The plaintiff claimed in court papers that
Sunbelt's rental agents should not have left the metal platform
lift that was not insulated below an electrified 7,200-volt power
line without training anyone at the site how to use the machine
properly, according to court documents.
Training would have included notice that
federal law prohibits the use of such equipment within 10 feet of
the power fines, according to court documents.
Sunbelt Rentals will pay the most money to
Lynch under the settlement - $1.35 million, said Bendesky and
Mongeluzzi, attorneys at the firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett &
Bendesky.
Lynch had tested the lift when he arrived the
work site and took it to a height of 15 feet to determine where he
needed to position his tools. He.then continued higher, bent down
to pick up a tool and that is the last he remembers before waking
in the bum unit of Temple University Hospital three days later,
according to court documents.
Sunbelt's lawyer, Kevin McKean of Marshall
Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin in Cherry Hill, N.J., did not
return a call to his office for comment yesterday.
The general contractor of the construction
site, Heritage Building Systems, would contribute $900,000 of its
$1 million insurance policy under the settlement agreement, as
would a subcontractor, Bruynell Electric, who hired Lynch and
rented the lift from Sunbelt, Bendesky said.
Lawyers for Heritage and Bruynell, Colleen M.
Ready of Margolis Edelstein in Westmont, N.J., and Robert A. Hicken
of Capehart & Scatchard in Mount Laurel, N.J., respectively,
did not return calls for comment yesterday,
The fourth defendant contributed the entirety
of its $300,000 insurance policy limit to the settlement. Heritage
hired Century Building Concepts Inc. to oversee the construction of
the Harrison project, which was an animal hospital, according to
court documents.
The plaintiff alleged that Century's president
was unqualified for the management job because, as he admitted
during deposition, he had no work safety training and was unaware
of the federal or state laws requiring workers to keep equipment a
certain distance from high-voltage lines, according to court
documents.
Joseph Collins of Daniel & Dochney,
represented Century Building. He declined to comment yesterday when
reached at his office in Marlton, N.J., by phone.
Lynch had also sued Conectiv, the utility
company providing service to the building, and Genie Industries,
the manufacturer of the platform lift, according to court
documents.
After discovery, Bendesky and Mongeluzzi
decided they would not present expert testimony against Conectiv or
Genie at trial. Those defendants won't contribute any money to the
settlement, the lawyers said.
However, Conectiv and Genie had planned to put
some blame on Sunbelt Rentals at trial, according to court
documents.
An expert report the companies produced
contended that when Sunbelt dropped the lift off at the site, it
"should have been positioned where it could not have come within
the minimum safe distance published in Genie ... manuals and on the
decals conspicuously located on the boom, as well as the minimum
safe distance required by the New Jersey High Voltage Proximity
Act."
The primary defense raised by Sunbelt,
Heritage and Bruynell was that Lynch had caused his own accident
and that as an electrician with 25 years of experience, he should
have known to take better precautions around a high-voltage wire, a
defense lawyer involved in the case said.
Bendesky and Mongeluzzi had planned to address
tire comparative negligence issue directly at trial.
"We were going to come in [to court], and
admit to the jury that our client had some responsibility for the
accident," Bendesky said.
The plaintiffs lawyers had purposely secured
testimony from separate experts against each defendant. Although
the approach was very costly, they think it made the difference in
pushing the last defendant, Sunbelt, to settle days before the
trial was to begin.
"When we settled with Century, Bruynell and
Heritage, that left Sunbelt by themselves," Mongeluzzi said. "That
puts a lot of pressure on the defendant."
The threat to the defendant is standing alone
at a trial where the plaintiff has an expert ready to testify
against you specifically, and, in addition, that defendant may face
being blamed by codefendants for the accident, Mongeluzzi
explained.
'The lesson here is if you do that, if you
spend the money, you really put the defendant in a difficult spot,
and the settlement value of the case goes up," Mongeluzzi said. "It
was something that was literally planned years in advance."
Lynch spent 41 days in Temple's burn unit,
enduring five skin-graft operations, then rehabilitation at another
hospital. The electricity exited his body at the base of his spine.
The wound is blamed for causing partial paralysis of his legs.
Lynch also alleged that he suffered a minor
brain injury that has caused short-term memory loss and other
problems, according to court documents.