Brooklyn Jury Awards $53.5 Million to Construction Worker Paralyzed in Rooftop Fall
Won by Block O'Toole & Murphy.
A Brooklyn jury found general contractor Mecca Contracting failed to protect Alan Moonsammy from a fall that left him paralyzed and awarded him $53.5 million.
What happened
On August 8, 2017, Alan Moonsammy was working on a Brooklyn construction project, installing an air conditioning condenser on a bulkhead rooftop. He fell off the bulkhead and dropped about ten feet to the roof below.
The fall fractured his spine. He needed emergency surgery, but the damage to his spinal cord could not be undone. Moonsammy was left paralyzed from the waist down. He uses a wheelchair, lives with chronic pain, and relies on help for everyday tasks.
New York law requires contractors and property owners to provide fall protection for workers at height. Block O'Toole & Murphy, representing Moonsammy, argued that the general contractor on the job, Mecca Contracting, failed to supply the safety measures that would have kept him from falling. Partners S. Joseph Donahue and Jeffrey Block tried the case before a jury in Kings County Supreme Court.
On April 21, 2023, the jury agreed. It found that Mecca Contracting did not provide the proper safety measures for work at elevated heights and that the failure caused Moonsammy's injuries.
The jury then set the damages at $53,500,000. That figure included $15 million for past pain and suffering, $1 million for past medical expenses, $7.5 million for future medical care projected over 28 years, and $30 million for future pain and suffering over the same period.
"This accident has shackled Mr. Moonsammy, making him a prisoner of his own body," Donahue said of his client's injuries. Block added that the verdict gave Moonsammy "the justice he so desperately deserves."
Moonsammy remains paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.