By Anthony DeMatteo
Staff Writer
With construction scaffolding pinning him to the floor of a Jacksonville Beach condominium where he worked in July 2005, Willie Slaughter said fear rushed through him.
“I was in pain,” said Slaughter. “I feared for my life. I heard, like, an earthquake. I thought I was going to die that day.”
Slaughter, 38, and his attorneys held a press conference Monday to announce that Slaughter and The Kelley Equipment Company of Florida, Inc. reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed over the incident in which a construction crane toppled, injuring workers.
At the time, Slaughter was employed by Pinnacle Concrete as a construction laborer.
A representative from Kelley Equipment, a Clearwater company which rents heavy construction equipment, declined to comment on the settlement Monday.
According to Joel Toomey, of Peek, Cobb and Edwards, which represented Slaughter, he accepted a payment in the low six figures.
Slaughter suffered a knee injury as a result of the accident, requiring surgery. Another Pinnacle employee who was injured and represented by the same law firm also reached an undisclosed settlement.
Since his injury, Slaughter said he has had trouble finding employment.
“I’ve looked for a few jobs, but I just can’t maintain my leg,” he said. “There are certain things I can do and certain things I can’t do.”
Toomey said he thought Slaughter has settled a workman’s compensation claim with Pinnacle, and that he has incurred about $50,000 in medical bills.
“This wasn’t a freak accident,” said Eric Ragatz, Toomey’s co-counsel on the case. “This happened because the crane company and the employees had a penny literally inserted into the safety switch of the crane.”
Ragatz said putting the penny in the crane’s limit-bypass switch allowed the 100-ton crane to operate its boom and luffing job beyond safe capacity.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated the incident, taking photographs of the panel, where a penny was wedged under a switch inside the crane. Those photos were displayed behind Slaughter and his attorneys at the press conference.
“Luckily, in this case, we did have a remedy outside of workers’ comp,” said Toomey. “Only the thought of facing a jury, having to explain a penny in the bypass switch, and, of course, Willie’s injuries, motivated them to want to get this case resolved.”
Toomey said he did not think the crane operators were alone in the knowledge of the penny being placed in the switch.
“It wasn’t just one employee operating the crane this way,” said Toomey. “There were at least two employees that we know about. It’s hard to believe that these crane operators are just going to take this upon themselves to do this, to jeopardize safety and jeopardize people without anybody in upper levels knowing about it.”