$715,000 Workplace Injury Settlement in Manhattan

He walked into the bathroom at work and a skylight frame fell on his head. No warning, no prior notice to employees, no repair — just a building component that the property owner let deteriorate until it collapsed onto a worker.

Skylight Frame Collapses in a Manhattan Workplace

Our client was using the bathroom at his Manhattan workplace when the metal frame surrounding a ceiling skylight detached and fell directly onto his head. The frame — a heavy structural component designed to hold the skylight glass in place — dropped without any warning. There was no cracking sound, no visible sagging, and no indication that the fixture was about to fail. One moment the ceiling was intact; the next, our client was on the floor with a metal frame on top of him.

The impact caused a head laceration requiring sutures, a cervical spine injury with disc herniations, and shoulder damage from the force of the falling frame. The cervical injuries produced radiating pain and numbness into both arms, requiring epidural injections and ultimately surgical intervention when conservative treatment failed to resolve the nerve compression.

Property Owner Failure to Maintain Building Components

Skylights and their frames are structural building components subject to weathering, corrosion, and material fatigue over time. Property owners have a duty to inspect these components regularly and repair or replace them before they become hazards. A metal frame that detaches from the ceiling has been deteriorating for an extended period — the failure does not happen overnight.

Our attorneys retained a structural engineer who examined the failed frame and determined that the mounting hardware had corroded significantly, reducing the connection strength to a fraction of its original capacity. The engineer's report concluded that visible rust and corrosion would have been apparent during any routine inspection of the bathroom ceiling. We also obtained the building's maintenance records, which showed no record of skylight inspection or frame assessment in the years preceding the incident.

"A metal skylight frame doesn't just fall out of a ceiling without years of neglect. The corrosion on the mounting hardware was extensive — our structural engineer said it would have been visible to anyone who looked up. The property owner never looked. No inspections, no maintenance, no records. That neglect put a heavy metal frame on our client's head." — Jason Krakower, Attorney

$715,000 Settlement for a Manhattan Workplace Injury

This $715,000 settlement covers head laceration treatment, cervical spine surgery, shoulder rehabilitation, epidural injections, lost wages, and the permanent cervical limitations our client now manages. It holds the property owner accountable for failing to inspect and maintain a building component that posed a foreseeable hazard to everyone in the building.

If you were injured by a falling fixture, ceiling component, or structural failure at your workplace or in a building, our premises liability attorneys have experience proving property owner negligence and are ready to review your case.