CRANE OWNER ABOUT TO BE INDICTED FOR MANSLAUGHTER IN FATAL ACCIDENT
From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Bronx accident lawyer)
The date: May 30, 2008
The place: 333 East 91st Street, New York City
The who: James Frank Lomma and his company, New York Crane, New York City's largest construction crane company. At the time of the crane accident discussed in this blawg, Lomma owned 11 of the 25 tower cranes in operation in New York City.
The what (then): Two of Lomma's cranes collapsed onto Manhattan sidewalks in terrible, horrible accidents, killing nine people overall, and injuring more. The second crane accident crushed to death and killed 27 year-old construction worker Ramadan Kurtij, who supported his family back home. The operator of the crane Donald Leo, age 30, was also killed, three weeks before he was to be married.
The what (now): Sources report that Lomma is about to be charged by the Manahttan District Attorney with manslaughter for the second accident, for using a crane that was so cheaply refurbished that it broke in half, dropping the crane boom, cab and engine twenty stories, with the crane operator, Donald Leo, trapped inside. Allegedly, the manslaughter charge in part concerns a poorly-done weld in the crane's "turntable," the bearing which allows the crane's cab and boom to pivot.
Civil injury lawyers for the estates of both victims have gathered records showing that when the "turntable" was severely damaged at a high-rise job on West 46th Street in May 2007 Lomma opted for a cheap repair.
The personal injury attorney for two of the families has argued in legal papers that Lomma considered an offer by an Ohio company, Avon Bearings, to weld the crack for $120,000 that wuold take about six and one-half months. Instead, Lomma accepted an offer by a Chinese firm, RTR Bearing, to weld the crack for $20,000 in three months.
Reportedly, RTR did the weld reluctantly: after advising Lomma that the Avon Bearings was equipped to do a safer job, and after Lomma came up with more money. Lomma also ignored warnings from a New York City Department of Buildings inspector that the weld would be unsafe, the accident lawyer has said.
