This refuse truck injury case California story is really a construction site case, and it is one of the clearest examples of what happens when companies make specific written safety promises and then do not follow through. Our client was 51 years old, with 28 years of experience as a welding inspector, when he was sent up onto a wet steel I-beam to inspect welds on a Las Virgenes Unified School District construction project. He never should have been asked to work that way. He fell roughly 13.5 feet, struck his head on the metal decking, and landed face-first on concrete. He has been hospitalized ever since.
$19M+
Projected lifetime future medical costs
13.5 ft
Fall from a wet steel I-beam onto concrete
4
Defense challenges defeated before mediation (two summary judgment motions, two writs)
The construction project involved building a new school facility for the Las Virgenes Unified School District. The school district hired S.C. Anderson, Inc. as the general contractor. S.C. Anderson subcontracted the structural steel work down the chain, ultimately to a company doing business as Diversified Metalworks, which installed the metal fabrications on site. The school district separately hired an independent testing laboratory to inspect the welding work, and our client was that lab's welding inspector on the project. Two days before the incident, the site had been shut down entirely because of rain and slipping hazards. On the morning our client fell, the steel deck and the I-beam he was working near were still wet from the previous day's rain. A last-minute change to the welding plan required him to be positioned at height so he could visually check the gaps between an embed plate and the steel beam, a job that called for him to be near the weld continuously while it was being performed. No scissor lift. No rolling scaffold. No safe platform of any kind was provided for that task.
Our client fell approximately 13.5 feet. His feet were thrown into the air, his head struck the metal decking, and he cartwheeled before landing face-first on concrete. He suffered a traumatic brain injury that required a craniotomy and a later cranioplasty, along with multiple skull and facial fractures, orthopedic fractures, a knee injury requiring surgery, respiratory failure, and a series of medical complications that followed in the months after. He developed a lasting cognitive disorder and personality change. He now struggles with memory, task planning, impulse control, and basic safety awareness. He has no memory of the fall itself. He has been confined to a hospital setting since the day of the incident and will require dependent, custodial care for the rest of his life. His future medical costs alone are projected to exceed $19 million.
The case did not rest on a general argument that construction sites should be safer. It rested on specific, documented facts.
On this project, the general contractor expressly promised, in its own contract, to provide all scaffolding, shoring, lifts, ladders, and cranes required so that inspectors and other workers on site could safely do their jobs. That promise was specific, not aspirational. It was not honored.
Internal project records showed the site had already been shut down once for rain and slipping hazards before the incident, so the responsible parties had actual knowledge of the risk when they sent our client up onto the wet steel.
The defense suggested our client may have been distracted, or engaged in some kind of horseplay, immediately before the fall, a claim that traced back to a single witness with an undisclosed family relationship to one of the defendant companies, raised for the first time at deposition. Because our client suffered a traumatic brain injury, he has no memory of the incident, and California law recognizes that an injured person who cannot recall the event is entitled to the presumption that he was exercising due care.
Both defendants asked the trial court to dismiss the case, arguing they owed our client no legal duty. The trial court denied both motions, and the Court of Appeal denied both defendants' writ petitions, sending the case toward a jury with the expressly-assumed-duty theory intact.
Construction sites depend on a chain of contractual promises about who is responsible for keeping workers safe. When a general contractor makes a specific promise to provide fall protection, scaffolding, lifts, and safe access, and someone is injured because that promise was broken, the company that made it can be held responsible under California's negligent undertaking doctrine, separately from any workers' compensation claim against the injured worker's own employer. Workers' compensation generally is the exclusive remedy against your own employer, but it does not bar a lawsuit against other companies on the site who caused the injury through their own negligence. This general duty of ordinary care is reflected in California Civil Code section 1714(a).
This matter was presented at mediation as a case with all the necessary ingredients for a 7-figure case value. That analysis rested on a permanent, catastrophic traumatic brain injury requiring lifetime dependent care, future medical costs alone projected to exceed $19 million based on a life-care-planning analysis, significant past and future lost earning capacity for a skilled tradesman with decades of specialized experience, a separate loss-of-consortium claim on behalf of the plaintiff spouse reflecting the loss of a marriage built since 1982, and liability findings that survived two motions for summary judgment and two appellate writs before mediation. We do not publish a specific settlement figure for this matter. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and The Homampour Law Firm works on a contingency fee basis, advancing the costs of the case, so clients pay nothing unless there is a recovery.
The breakdowns below cover negligent undertaking and waste hauler liability, elevated work and fall protection failures, schedule pressure as a driver of safety shortcuts, and expert selection for a catastrophic brain injury damages case.
Negligent undertaking and duty
Schedule pressure and shortcuts
We try catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases as counsel or co-counsel and pay statutory referral fees.
Refer a caseOur client, a 51 year old welding inspector with 28 years' experience, fell roughly 13.5 feet from a wet steel I-beam on a Las Virgenes Unified School District construction project. He landed face-first on concrete, suffering a catastrophic traumatic brain injury, and has been hospitalized ever since.
The general contractor had expressly promised, in its own contract, to provide safe access, including all scaffolding, shoring, lifts, ladders, and cranes needed for the project. When a contractor makes that kind of specific promise and someone is injured because the promise was broken, California law allows an injured worker to sue for negligent undertaking.
Workers' compensation generally is the exclusive remedy against your own employer, but it does not bar a lawsuit against other companies on the site who caused your injury through their own negligence.
