Sea Girt Carpenter Rendered Quadriplegic in Rooftop Fall Receives $4 Million Settlement

Roberto Carlos Bolanos was 37 years old and employed as a carpenter by Eastern Architectural Millwork, a subcontractor brought onto a residential renovation by general contractor Kevin Casey Builders. On May 4, 2017, Bolanos was working at the project in Sea Girt, New Jersey. He climbed onto the rooftop of the home and fell to the ground. He was not wearing a safety harness at the time of the fall. Harnesses were sometimes present on the site, but they were frequently not fastened.

The fall fractured Bolanos's cervical spine and caused a complete spinal cord injury that left him permanently quadriplegic. After emergency surgery, he spent eight days in the hospital and then seven months in rehabilitation. By the time the case settled, Bolanos was residing in an assisted living facility.

John Ratkowitz and Michael Gallardo, both attorneys at the Newark office of Ginarte, Gallardo, Gonzalez and Winograd, filed a negligence claim against Kevin Casey Builders. New Jersey imposes a non-delegable safety duty on general contractors at construction sites. The firm's theory was that Kevin Casey Builders could not transfer responsibility for fall protection to the subcontractor; the general contractor was obligated to ensure every worker on the project was equipped and in compliance.

Discovery produced significant admissions. Kevin Casey Builders personnel confirmed that workers had been found without harnesses on multiple occasions at the Sea Girt site and had to be corrected. Evidence also showed that on the day of the accident, the site may not have had enough anchored safety lines available to outfit every worker present. The combination of missing compliance and insufficient anchor points formed the factual core of the case.

The matter settled without trial. After a series of conferences before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Andrea Marshall, the parties reached an agreement on August 26, 2022. Kevin Casey Builders' commercial general liability carrier, Selective Insurance Co., paid $4 million to resolve the claim.

TopVerdict ranked Bolanos v. Kevin Casey Builders among the top ten personal injury settlements in New Jersey for 2022.