Fatal fall from work stand leads to $2M settlement

The relatives of a worker who plummeted to his death after falling through an opening in a work stand have negotiated a $2 million settlement with the business that refurbished the stand before the accident.

Attorneys for the worker’s estate had argued that the defendant created a hazard by repainting moving parts on the 25-foot-tall stand’s top deck the same color, making it difficult to discern gaps in the platform. The stand was manufactured in 1996 and refurbished by the defendant in 2009.

“The defendant had changed the way the stand had previously been painted in a way that camouflaged the fact that there was an opening,” said an attorney for the estate, Paul R. Dickinson Jr. of Lewis & Roberts in Charlotte.

Citing a confidentiality provision in the settlement agreement, Dickinson and his law partners who worked on the case, James A. Roberts III and Brooke A. Howard in the firm’s Raleigh office, withheld any details of the case that could reveal the defendant’s identity.

Roberts said that the defendant had contended that the worker’s employer failed to give him proper safety equipment and training, that the worker should have seen the opening in the platform and that the claim was barred by the statute of repose.

“Our two main challenges were the statue of repose and contributory negligence issues,” Roberts said. “We argued that the painting of the platform was an independent act of negligence on the part of the entity [defendant] that sold us the platform … and that our client had immediate supervision and wasn’t violating any work procedures of his employer when the accident happened.”

SETTLEMENT REPORT: WRONGFUL DEATH

Case name: Withheld due to confidentiality agreement

Case number: Withheld

Court: Withheld

Date of settlement: 2013

Amount: $2 million

Attorneys for plaintiff: James A. Roberts III and Brooke A. Howard (Raleigh) and Paul R. Dickinson (Charlotte)

Attorneys for defendants: Withheld