When a landlord elects to fix a support beam himself, he better do it right. As the cement garage floor settled in their New Windsor, NY house, the landlord saw the support column in the middle of the garage was no longer connected at the top. Rather than pay for a contractor to properly affix the column, the landlord simply tried to nail the column to the ceiling. The column was loose because the original contractor choose to use the wrong size support column and the original framer never properly affixed it at the floor or at the ceiling. The column was loose for years. After a fire in their own house, our clients needed to rent a home while the fire damage was being cleaned. They moved into the rental house and the landlord never warned them about the loose column in the garage. Within a few weeks of moving in, the 6 year old son was walking through the garage with his three year old brother when, as expected, a the six year old pretended the pole was a fire pole and swung around it. As he did, the pole gave way and landed on him, killing him. Our office immediately sent an expert to the house and properly documented the faulty work by the contractor and framer as well as the shoddy repair work by the landlord. Even though they tried to blame the boy for swinging on the pole, ultimately they were held accountable and agreed to settle the case for a total of $1,100,000. While the parents know no amount of money is going to bring their son back, they were happy the responsible parties were held accountable because they don’t want this to happen to anyone else. The case was handled by partners Elyssa Fried and Ron Rosenkranz.
Winning Serious Injury Lawsuits Since 1959