Speakers – Matthew Sullivan & Michael Levitis
Michael Levitis 00:00
Good day everybody. Michael Levitis is here from JurisQ.com with Matthew Sullivan, a partner in a law firm of Gregory Spektor and Associates, a personal injury law firm that deals with construction cases, with car accidents and with slip and falls. But today, I bring you Matthew Sullivan, who deals exclusively and has knowledge on, a lot of knowledge on construction accidents. Let’s see a question. I’m just curious. And we had some questions from our viewers. What do you think is the number one number one killer during construction, what have you seen in your cases,
Matthew Sullivan 00:40
it’s an unfortunate fact that the number one killer on construction sites are falling hazards, workers falling from unsecured ladders, scaffolds, roof tops, and other height elevations.
Michael Levitis 00:54
And who are responsible for such false is the location meaning the owner of the project of this property, or the GC? Who is responsible?
Matthew Sullivan 01:10
Because, you know, construction is some of the most dangerous work in the state of New York. And that’s why the laws in the state of New York are designed to protect the worker and afford the worker the opportunity to go after some of the defendants some of the entities you just mentioned, the owner of the property, the general contractor, or the construction site manager if they have unfortunately, fallen victim and fallen from the scaffold, ladder or roof.
Michael Levitis 01:39
So that means that you’re an attorney, you have a job to do, where sometimes it’s not known. Or the worker doesn’t know who is the GC, he was hired by some contractor, by some firm. He doesn’t know who the GC is.
He doesn’t know what she doesn’t know who the owner is. So your job as an attorney will be to find out all the possible parties that could responsible and that could pay for the injuries. Am I right?
Matthew Sullivan 02:08
You’re absolutely correct, Michael, if I could take it one step further, that’s even more true when we have the privilege of representing the family of a worker who has passed away in a wrongful death action. At that point, the person who would have the most knowledge has passed away. So we’re starting from scratch to build the elements of that case.
And thankfully, at Greg Spektor and Associates, we have a team of investigators ready to go, ready to go to the site and identify who had the building permits, who had the construction permits, go down to the Department of Buildings and get that evidence. So we can start to identify those parties who we can assist the family to recover from
Michael Levitis 02:51
Matthew as a follow up, if somebody unfortunately passes away from their injuries, right? You said that the family could sue the estate, in effect, right? can sue the party is responsible. But what is this? What are they suing for? This person is no longer with us, he or she cannot work. So what are they suing for exactly?
Matthew Sullivan 03:16
they would have a number of different elements to their claim. First of all, they could sue for that individual’s, the deceased, pain and suffering, they could also sue for what’s called pecuniary loss. And what that means is, if the worker was a father, a mother, or otherwise supporting dependents, I send those dependents who no longer have that support.
And that would be recoverable, you could sue for that amount of money. It’s tough to quantify emotional support, right being with a loved one, but you wouldn’t be able to recover for those losses as against the general contractor, the construction site manager, the owner, or any other entity that may be responsible for the hazard that caused the deaths.
Michael Levitis 04:03
Yeah, because this is very unfortunate. And, of course, the first priority, you know, you’re grieving for your loved ones, we got to think about the future, who’s gonna provide now for the kids, for the family, for the spouse, where this working person is no longer with us. So it’s important to identify what you can sue for and whom you console.
And that’s why we provide your number at the bottom of the screen for free consultation. So you can find out your rights, what you can get compensation for and from home. And we urge everybody to call as soon as possible just to get all the evidence to get as we say, discovery, to use the court system to protect your rights and get the maximum.
Matthew Sullivan 04:53
Of course you only get one chance to get it right especially when you’re dealing with a wrongful death or construction. sight accident that can often total damages in the millions of dollars.
Michael Levitis 05:03
Very good. Okay, Matthew Sullivan, a partner in Gregory Spektor and Associates, we thank you for your time, you’re always very, very educational, we get to learn a lot of useful, I would say useful and interesting information on how to proceed if somebody gets injured or even gets killed at a construction site. So thank you for your time.
And you bet we’re gonna bring you back for more questions. If anybody has further questions, you can call the number on the bottom of the screen, or you can post your comments below this post. You can message us and we’re gonna try to get Matthew Sullivan back to answer your questions. Okay, thank you so much. Have a great day.
Matthew Sullivan 05:47
Really appreciate the opportunit
