$575,000 Settlement: Teen Struck in Construction-Blocked Brooklyn Crosswalk

On the morning of May 5, 2021, a 17-year-old high school student was walking to school in Brooklyn when she reached an intersection that had been turned into an active construction site. Scaffolding covered the sidewalk and orange barriers lined the curb. To her left, a large white trailer occupied the side street. Ahead of her, a commercial truck owned by a third-party rental company sat at a diagonal across the crosswalk, hiding the intersection, the traffic signal, and the walk signal on the opposite corner. To cross, she had to step around the truck. The instant she cleared the construction barrier, a car struck her.

The driver's insurer moved quickly, offering its entire $100,000 policy limit before mediation and then considering the matter closed, as though only one defendant existed. The four parties whose equipment and decisions had created the obstructed crossing, a developer, a general contractor, a site safety contractor, and the rental company that owned the truck, each intended to argue that the driver alone caused the crash by failing to yield to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk.

Adam Orlow, the firm's Senior Trial Partner, pursued all five defendants. Photographs taken after the collision showed the truck still sitting in the crosswalk and barriers positioned in the pedestrian sight line; the firm paired those images with police reports and witness accounts. The legal theory went beyond general negligence: together, the defendants had stripped away every cue a pedestrian depends on at a marked crossing, and their conduct ran afoul of New York statutes on traffic-control devices, stopping in crosswalks, and pedestrian protection near construction sites, along with New York City Department of Transportation requirements for construction work on public streets.

The crash left the teenager with two fractures in her left ankle. Severe swelling forced surgeons to delay the operation; a closed reduction came first, and on May 13, 2021, she underwent open reduction and internal fixation with syndesmosis fixation at Kings County Medical Center. Years after the surgery she still dealt with swelling, reduced range of motion, and pain from hardware protruding at the ankle.

By holding each contributor to the obstructed crosswalk accountable, the firm reached four insurance policies beyond the driver's. The total recovery came to $575,000, nearly six times the tender the driver's carrier had presented as the only money on the table.