$41 Million Verdict Cut to Zero by High Court
Contractor had no duty to inspect girder welds
In addition to the setback the high court dealt Norman Pelletier and his wife Reine, the unanimous verdict also found contractor Sordoni Skanska wasn’t liable because the accident was not foreseeable.
Peter T. Zarella, writing for the court, found that Waterbury Superior Court Judge Jon Alander improperly found that Connecticut’s construction code created a non-delegable duty for the contractor to make sure the welds were inspected for the benefit of welder Pelletier, among others.
Instead, the court found the contractor was free to assign the inspection duties to the girder manufacturer, which in this case was Pelletier’s employer, Berlin Steel.
The code also permitted the general contractor to assign the inspection duties to a third-party inspector, the high court found in an opinion released Monday.
It held that, as the code is written, no one in particular is responsible for inspecting all the welds in a steel girder building.
“[W]e conclude that the statutes in question merely require that the plans and specifications for proposed and completed structures substantially conform to the building code and impose no specific duty on the permit applicant, the contractor or on any other party to inspect all welds,” the court stated.
Section 1307.1 of the building code requires the building permit applicant, in this case Sordoni, to “provide” special inspections of steel fabrications to the state. The building code includes the welding code, which states there are two types of welding inspections. Fabrication and erection inspections are the responsibility of the contractor, and verification inspections are the prerogative of the owner, the court stated.
Assuming the permit applicant has a duty to inspect, it isn’t a non-delegable duty to inspect all welds, Zarella wrote, but instead “a duty to ‘provide’ such inspections” — which list the materials and work — and a statement of who is to do the inspections. For welded materials created in the contractor’s shop, the permit applicant doesn’t have a duty to inspect so long as a third-party inspector has been hired to conduct periodic in-shop inspections.
NOT FORSEEABLE
Daniel J. Krisch, of the Hartford appellate firm of Horton, Shields & Knox, argued to a five-judge panel Oct. 16, contending Pelletier’s injury was not foreseeable to Sordoni, and that it did not have a non-delegable duty to inspect.
Krisch and co-counsel Kimberly Knox won a directed judgment for their client, and the court agreed with their argument that the incident was not foreseeable, as a matter of law.
Plaintiffs lawyer William Clendenen, of New Haven’s Clendenen & Shea, raised the court’s 1994 landmark of Burns v. Board of Education to support the argument that a defendant can’t delegate his inspection duties to an agent and thereby avoid liability. In that case, a Stamford school superintendent delegated snow removal duties to a custodian. That was a matter of a supervisor delegating his responsibilities to an employee under his control, the court noted.
Sordoni’s situation is completely different from the Burns case, the court noted, because the building code provisions “expressly anticipate that the permit applicant will retain qualified experts to conduct special inspections,” the court concluded.
Pelletier argued in a cross appeal that the trial court should have instructed the jury that common law negligence applied, and that the general contractor had heightened responsibilities due to the dangerousness of the job, and over any part of the project it controlled. The high court ruled for Sordoni, concluding “a fair and reasonable person could reach but one conclusion as to who exercised control over the welding and inspection process, namely, Berlin Steel.”
Pelletier is collecting workers’ compensation payments for his considerable injuries, Zarella noted. In a previous Supreme Court appeal, Pelletier established that the workers’ compensation policy barred him from suing Berlin Steel, but did not prevent him from suing the general contractor. Previously, under an Appellate Court ruling, contractors were deemed to be protected from lawsuits from their subcontractor’s employees by the subcontractor’s workers’ comp coverage. The previous Pelletier case held that a general contractor was not shielded from negligence liability to a subcontractor’s employee.
New Haven’s David Rosen filed an amicus brief for the Connecticut Trial Lawyers’ Association. He commented, “The overall message of this decision is a problem for workers’ safety, because the companies at the top can shed significant legal responsibility.”
Krisch, in an interview, said he was impressed that the Supreme Court did not take the smaller step of sending the case back for a new trial. “They could have given both sides half a loaf,” he said. “But there really was no legal basis for a duty for Sordoni to inspect, or a duty to exercise control over what happened, or that it should have forseen what happened. We are very glad the Supreme Court saw that.”
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice….
Replies
I wish they had included a summary of the accident.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Funny, I thought of you when I ran across that article. Wasn't there a link in the article to the court decision itself? Yeah, right up in the first line. The judge ususally summarises the complaint and testimony before he gets to the meat of his legal reasoning.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Edited 4/16/2008 11:38 pm ET by Dinosaur
"Pelletier, of Bristol, was injured when a 2-ton beam, poorly welded on one end to a column, broke loose overhead and fell on him, fracturing his spine and ribs. He cannot move his body below the chest, but still has enough nerve function to feel pain from his injuries, his attorney said at the time of the verdict."
Jeff
That is only a summary of the summary of the summary of the accident.Here are some more details."Norman Pelletier was injured on June 20, 1994, while working for Berlin Steel Construction Co., which was a subcontractor for Sordoni Skanska on the construction of a building for Pitney Bowes Inc. in Shelton, Conn.At the time of the accident, Pelletier was working beneath the building's large steel frame, which Berlin Steel had been hired to build, according to court documents.Pelletier was installing metal sheet flooring between two steel columns when several of his co-workers interrupted his work to install a 2-ton crossbeam between the columns.Pelletier stepped away while his co-workers bolted the crossbeam to seat connections steel flanges that enable the interconnection of large structural members located on each of the columns.One of the seat connections was attached to the column via a weak, temporary weld called a tack weld, court documents say.When his co-workers finished installing the crossbeam between the columns, Pelletier returned to work beneath the crossbeam. Shortly after, the seat connection that had been tack welded gave way, and one end of the 2-ton crossbeam fell and hit Pelletier.The crossbeam struck Pelletier's "OSHA-mandated safety helmet and then hit him in the back area, severing his spine completely," according to Clendenen."The amazing thing is he had no brain damage," Clendenen said. "That helmet did exactly what it was supposed to do, although it's not designed to protect against falling beams that weigh a couple tons."Clendenen, who was assisted by his partner, Kevin Shea, argued that Sordoni Skanska's responsibility under the state building code was to inspect welds such as the one that caused the crossbeam to fall on Pelletier."http://tinyurl.com/6l534p.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
This is a little clear reading of the ruling.http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2008/04/15/89153.htm"A Connecticut general contractor who delegates special inspections of all steel welding work as required by the state's building code to a subcontractor is not liable for injuries resulting from an accident that occurs due to failure of the subcontractor's work.
AdvertisementThe Connecticut Supreme Court has reversed a $41 million verdict originally rendered back in 2005 that held a general contractor rather than the subcontractor responsible when a loose steal beam fell and severely injured a worker.More than 13 years ago, Bristol, Conn. construction worker Norman Pelletier was paralyzed in a worksite accident at a Pitney Bowes facility when an insufficiently-welded steel beam broke loose and struck him. On Dec. 8, 2005, a jury found the general contractor for the job, Sordoni Skanska Construction Co. of New Jersey, responsible and awarded Pelletier $5.6 million in economic damages, $22.7 million in non-economic damages and awarded his wife $3.8 million for loss of consortium, for a total damages award of $32.2 million.Pelletier was an employee of Berlin Steel Construction Co., the structural steel fabrication and erection subcontractor for the project hired by Sordoni.In 2006, in an appeal, a trial court also rendered judgment for the plaintiff on the jury verdict, granted his motion for post-judgment interest and attorneys' fees and awarded him damages in the amount of $41.4 million.Pelletier has been receiving workers' compensation benefits from Berlin Steel since the accident.The trial court found that the general contractor was responsible for the poorly welded steel beam. It determined that the general contractor Sordoni had a "non-delegable duty under the building code to conduct special inspections of all welds and that a violation of that duty constituted negligence per se."Now the Connecticut Supreme Court has overturned that verdict, ruling instead that Pelletier's own employer, independent subcontractor Berlin Steel, was responsible for the injury, not the general contractor Sordoni.Sordoni claimed that the trial court improperly concluded that it owed the plaintiff a non-delegable duty of care under the building code to inspect all welds at the Pitney Bowes site and that its failure to do so constituted negligence per se. Sordoni specifically argued that neither the building code itself, nor any of its provisions, created such a duty.Pelletier's lawyers, however, responded that the building code imposed a non-delegable duty on Sordoni, as the permit applicant, to provide special inspections of all steel welds.The state Supreme Court agreed with Sordoni that it did not have a non-delegable duty under the building code to inspect all welds.The court said that subcontractor Berlin Steel had the responsibility to provide all of the structural steel for the Pitney Bowes project, and to ensure its integrity. This included the duty to weld connections in the structural steel that would allow for the interconnection of steel members as a load-bearing, structural frame for the building. Furthermore, Berlin Steel had the duty to inspect those welds, ensuring their ability to bear weight."A fair and reasonable person could reach but one conclusion as to who exercised control over the welding and inspection process, namely, Berlin Steel," the court's ruling states.The court said that the language of the building code clearly does not expect the permit applicant to conduct special inspections because as a condition for permit issuance it requires that the applicant shall submit a ''statement of special inspections'' that includes ''a list of the individuals, agencies and/or firms intended to be retained for conducting such inspections.''"Thus," the state's high court stated, "although the building code does not explicitly preclude the permit applicant from conducting special inspections, it clearly contemplates that such inspections will be conducted by a qualified expert retained by the permit applicant or by an approved independent inspection or quality control agency with which the fabricator maintains an agreement."The decision is Norman Pelletier et al v. Sordoni/Skanska Construction Company (SC 17775).".
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
The concept of workers compenstation is that for the good of society workers should be covered by a no fault inusrance system. And for this the employer can't be used and the employee is limited to benifits defined by statue.Howver, the injured employee is free to sue any 3rd party.In this case sue the GC and hired the steel fabriactor who employeed the injured worker.What this case was about was if the GC directly had a responsibility to inspect welds.There was a similar case in MO a couple of years ago. A local POCO had a sub-contractor running some power lines. Apparently that there where some unsafe conditions that caused the accident.In that case the court rules that the POCO was an expert in building powerlines and should have reconized the unsafe conditions..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Thanks for finding those additional articles, Bill.
It's an interesting decision. There are parallels here to suits against third parties--like manufacturers or repair shops--in an attempt to recover damages from a car accident over and above what the No-Fault system will pay.
Wanna bet whether they try to appeal it to the US Supreme Court?
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
My "common sense" tells me that Berlin is 100% liable. From what I read, they were working on a job and, while in the process, they're methods were not safe and an accident resulted.If the beam fell several months later, that may be a little different. I see this as being almost the same as a if the strap on the beam had broken and fallen on the plantiff (with the steel workers owning the beam, strap, and crane).Of course, my common sense may be wrong and it certainly has no legal standing.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Interesting.
I do a lot of work with Skanska USA which is the parent company of Sordoni Skanska.
I did work with Sordoni Skanska in 2002 on this projects first phase http://www.us.skanska.com/skanska/templates/page____457.aspx
The verdict doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
I don't "forsee" me running over a pedestrian in a crosswalk, but if I do I'm pretty sure I'm liable.
I noticed that the plantiff worked for the girder co, so was it under construction. I suppose details of the accident would help a lot.
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.†—Albert Einstein
"The verdict doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me."It's simple. The contractor had a better paid, better connected attorney.
does this just shift "blame" from the GC to his direct employer?
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa