Building inspectors are cracking down on hundreds of building owners who have been dragging their feet correcting unsafe-façade citations. The building owners must install scaffolding or face intervention by the city, which would then install its own sidewalk shed. According to Crain’s New York, these enforcement efforts come about a month after a 60-year-old architect was killed near Times Square by falling debris. After her death, Department of Buildings inspectors reviewed 1,331 buildings that previously received notices for unsafe facades and found that 220 of them had not yet installed any pedestrian safety features. Property owners were ordered to do so right away.
Crackdown on Building Owners Over Facades
While some owners have complied, city officials are now issuing Immediate Emergency Declarations to landlords who did not. These are essentially notifications that the city will be sending out its own contractors to construct scaffolding and other necessary safety measures. The property owner will have to bear the cost. The Department of Buildings has put property owners on notice as they continue with proactive inspections, strong enforcement actions and direct outreach to make sure they are held accountable for their buildings’ safety, officials said.
Property owners who receive this emergency declaration have only a couple of days to bring in their own contractors before city workers arrive and get the job done. Handing down a large number of these declarations is an unusual move for the city. Each year, the buildings department hands out 200 of these declarations and most of them are reserved for cases where a building poses an imminent danger to neighbors.
Buildings officials have vowed to hold negligent (careless) landlords accountable after the Dec. 17 death of a woman who was struck and killed by loose facade that fell from an office building on Seventh Avenue. That building owner had been slapped with a city violation for having an unsafe facade. However, the landlord in that case failed to install scaffolding or other safeguards prior to the fatal incident. Also, during an administrative hearing, the landlord’s attorney argued that the facade did not pose a danger.
This fatal incident highlights the immediate dangers faced by pedestrians and passersby near construction sites and from building owners’ and other parties’ negligence (carelessness) when it comes to maintaining their building facades. When a piece of debris drops from several feet above and strikes someone walking or standing below, it strikes with a significant force, which may prove deadly. These types of accidents have the potential to cause catastrophic head injuries, lacerations, broken bones, internal organ damage, etc. We hope the city continues to enforce the law and push landlords and building owners to do their due diligence in maintaining their properties and keep them in a condition that is safe for everyone.
Who Can Be Held Liable
There are several parties that may potentially be liable for building-facade related injuries. Construction companies, managing agents, building owners, some contractors and sub-contractors have a responsibility to ensure that scaffolds and other structures at a construction site are properly secured so they don’t pose a danger to workers, visitors or pedestrians at or near the worksite.
In such cases, injured bystanders or passersby can seek compensation for damages including, but not limited to, medical expenses, lost wages and benefits, cost of hospitalization, rehabilitation, permanent injury, disabilities, past and future pain and suffering, etc. Families of deceased victims may be able to file a wrongful death lawsuit seeking compensation for damages such as lost future income, funeral costs, medical expenses, pain and suffering, etc. Liable parties may include construction companies, general contractors, sub-contractors, property or building owners/managers, manufacturers of defective products, etc.
Contacting an Experienced Lawyer
Whether you are a construction worker who has suffered injuries at a construction site or a bystander or pedestrian who has been injured by falling debris, the experienced New York personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm can help you better understand your legal rights and options, and also fight hard to recover just compensation for you.
Our law firm recovered $3,375,576 for a construction worker (an undocumented immigrant) who was injured on the job – one of the highest construction case settlements in New York that year. Also, one of our clients obtained a verdict for $43,940,000 and another of our clients got a verdict for $23,500,000, both in medical malpractice cases.
Please contact us TOLL FREE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). WE CAN EVEN COME TO YOU. There is no attorneys’ fee unless we recover money for you. We can also help with personal injury and medical malpractice cases in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
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Source: Crain’s New York