In June 2011, the plaintiff was working in a crew assigned with the work of cleaning graffiti off of the walls of the Darwin Public School in Chicago, on a project where FH Paschen, S.N. Nielsen Inc., was the general contractor.
The crew used a ladder jack scaffold which was comprised of two extension ladders with ladder jacks and a plank that rested on the ladder jacks. The system was set up, utilized, disassembled and relocated in 3 different locations that day prior to the incident. At about 6:00 p.m., the scaffold system was moved, re-assembled and the plaintiff climbed the scaffold, got onto the plank and within 35 seconds the plank fell off of one of its supports and collapsed.
The victim suffered severe traumatic brain injury, loss of sight in one eye and other related injuries. Defendant’s superintendent was unaware of the fact that the scaffold had been moved or that there was no lifeline being used by plaintiff during the 35 seconds that he was on the scaffold.
GWC partners Lou Cairo and Colin O’Malley settled the case a month prior to the trial for $13,750,000.00.
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