$5 Million for Victims of Mining Accident

The law firm recently obtained a substantial settlement for two victims of a catastrophic mining accident. Personal Injury attorneys Howard Krepack and Gary Stern won a $5 million settlement for two workers struck by a 2,780-pound bucket.

The employees, both in their 40s, were clearing large rocks stuck in a "jaw crusher," a unit 10-15 feet above the ground fed by a conveyor belt. The workers planned to remove the rocks by attaching one end of a strap to the rocks and the other end to a bucket attached to an excavator by a hydraulic coupler. The bucket, however, fell off of the coupler and into the crusher, striking both plaintiffs and causing spinal injury and other serious and permanent injuries.

Attorneys Krepack and Stern proved that the accident was caused by a defect in the hydraulic coupler. The defendant was the construction equipment company that sold the coupler to our client's employer (the coupler manufacturer had gone bankrupt). Under well established law, the seller of a defective product can be held liable to the same extent as the manufacturer of that product. Here, the coupler did not have the types of safety features recognized in the industry as necessary to prevent just this type of accident.

Please click here for more examples of results we have obtained for clients harmed by defective products.

Injured Father of Four Receives Substantial Settlement

Personal Injury attorney Roger Gordon won a substantial settlement for a young father of four struck in the lower back by a 200-pound metal cargo pallet.

Our client was his household's sole breadwinner, working as an air-cargo handler. One day in the warehouse, a coworker trying to squeeze through a small space lifted a loaded forklift above the items blocking his way. One of the pallets slid off of the forklift and knocked our client to the ground. He immediately felt intense pain throughout his back and right side, and X-rays showed he suffered back fractures. He spent several months in a wheelchair, and is still taking medication for disabling back pains that hamper his daily activities.