A carpenter won a $3.5 million verdict for injuries from a scaffold fall but will recover only $2.75 million due to a high-low settlement, in Lattanzio v. Quality Technology Services.
On July 22, 2010, Anthony Lattanzio of Port Reading, then 59, was removing ceiling tile at Quality Technology Services (QTS), a data center company, in a Jersey City office building. He was standing on a five-foot-high wheeled scaffold that he rolled from place to place by grabbing the ceiling. A wheel caught in a hole in the floor, one of several created by removal of air conditioning units. The scaffold tipped over and he fell to the floor, breaking four ribs, tearing his left rotator cuff, collapsing his lungs, herniating a disk at L5-S1 and damaging his urethra, which required surgery, said his lawyer, Peter Chamas of Gill & Chamas in Woodbridge.
