The Trucks Nobody Track - How Chameleon Carriers Endanger Construction Workers
Hard Hats & Justice
In Episode 13 of Hard Hats & Justice, host Chris Gorayeb connects a story that seems to live outside the construction world, chameleon carriers in the trucking industry, directly to the safety of workers on New York job sites. Drawing on an April 12 investigation by 60 Minutes, Chris explains how trucking companies caught violating federal safety rules simply close down and reopen under new names and new DOT numbers with the same owners, drivers, and unsafe practices. According to Fusable risk assessment data, these operators are four times more likely to be involved in crashes than...
info_outline
My Back Hurts Every Day What Construction Workers Need to Know
Hard Hats & Justice
In Episode 12 of Hard Hats & Justice, host Chris Gorayeb tackles the injury that rarely makes headlines but affects far more construction workers than any dramatic accident: the chronic pain that builds up day after day until it takes everything. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 946,500 nonfatal workplace injuries involving days away from work in the United States in 2023, part of an estimated 2.6 million total nonfatal injuries and illnesses in the private sector that year. Chris cites research published through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and...
info_outline
The Workers Nobody Protects
Hard Hats & Justice
In Episode 11 of Hard Hats & Justice, host Chris Gorayeb confronts the collapse of construction safety enforcement in New York and the workers paying the price. Drawing on the 2025 NYCOSH "Deadly Skyline" report, Chris reveals that 30 construction workers died in New York City in 2023 and 74 died statewide, the highest toll in a decade, even as the average OSHA fine for a fatality dropped 45.6 percent in a single year from $59,075 to just $32,123. He layers in numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which recorded 1,034 construction worker deaths nationally in 2024 with falls...
info_outline
When the Insurance Company Won't Pay: What Workers Actually Need to Know
Hard Hats & Justice
In this episode of Hard Hats & Justice, host Chris Gorayeb of Gorayeb & Associates takes listeners past the courtroom victory and into the battle that often follows: collecting what an injured worker is actually owed. Drawing on the New York State Workers' Compensation Board 2022 Annual Report, Chris highlights that 16,822 of 161,808 claims filed in New York were controverted or denied, a 10.4 percent dispute rate that exceeds the national average of roughly 7 percent. He explains why insurance companies fight payment even after verdicts, walks through the five most common denial...
info_outline
The Scaffold Law: 139 Years of Protecting New York Workers
Hard Hats & Justice
Chris Gorayeb explains why New York Labor Law Section 240, known as the Scaffold Law, was created in 1885 and why it still matters today. He walks through how workers historically had little power or recourse after fatal falls, and how the law shifted responsibility onto property owners and general contractors who control jobsite safety and equipment. Chris breaks down what the law covers, focusing on elevation and gravity related hazards such as falls from scaffolds, ladders, and unsecured work areas, plus injuries from falling objects. He emphasizes the law’s core feature, absolute...
info_outline
What Happens After You Win Your Case?"
Hard Hats & Justice
In this episode, attorney Chris Gorayeb explains the part most injured workers do not expect: winning a verdict does not mean you get paid quickly, or even easily. He walks listeners through what typically happens after a jury award, starting with the near automatic Notice of Appeal that can freeze payment for years while the case moves through the appellate process. He breaks down why companies appeal, often as a delay tactic designed to pressure workers into accepting a reduced settlement just to get cash sooner. He then explains what happens when the appeals are over but the defendant still...
info_outline
Five Examples of Negligence That Kill Construction Workers
Hard Hats & Justice
In this episode, attorney Chris Gorayeb lays out five common, preventable types of negligence that lead to construction worker deaths or life changing injuries, based on the kinds of cases that show up in his office. He opens with a blunt point: construction is dangerous, but a large share of catastrophic incidents are not random, they come from contractors ignoring OSHA rules and basic safety practices to save time and money. He then breaks down the five major negligence patterns: missing or inadequate fall protection, unsecured tools or materials that strike workers below, unsafe machinery...
info_outline
Five Warning Signs You're Not Getting Good Legal Representation
Hard Hats & Justice
In this episode of Hard Hats & Justice, Chris Gorayeb breaks down the real-world consequences of poor legal representation in construction accident cases. Using a shocking true story—where two workers suffered similar injuries but received wildly different outcomes ($6.5 million vs. $80,000)—he exposes five clear warning signs your attorney isn’t doing their job. From failing to investigate all liable parties to rushing low settlements and lacking construction law expertise, the episode is a blunt, practical guide for injured workers on how to protect their rights, their future, and...
info_outline
Construction Negligence: The Accidents That Should Never Happen
Hard Hats & Justice
Construction workers face life-threatening hazards every day, but what most don't realize is that the majority of job site fatalities aren't accidents—they're violations of federal and state safety laws. In this episode of Hard Hats & Justice, construction accident breaks down the five most common negligence-related incidents on construction sites: falls from elevation, struck-by accidents involving falling objects, caught-between incidents with machinery, electrocutions, and chemical burns. Each of these catastrophic events shares a common thread: employers who cut corners on safety,...
info_outline
The Most Dangerous Jobs on a Construction Site
Hard Hats & Justice
This episode of Hard Hats & Justice lays out the most dangerous jobs in New York construction—and the legal protections workers are owed but too often never receive. Chris Gorayeb breaks down the hazards tied to demolition, high-elevation work, towers, confined spaces, and defective tools, showing how nearly every catastrophic injury stems from preventable safety failures. He explains exactly when the law places responsibility on building owners and general contractors, why falls remain the leading cause of death in the industry, and how violations of Labor Law §240(1) and...
info_outlineHard Hats & Justice
Episode 1: “Maria’s Fall: The Law That Saved Her Life”
It was just another Monday morning in midtown Manhattan—until a rotten plank snapped beneath Maria’s feet. The fall left her paralyzed from the waist down. For this 41-year-old single mother and construction worker, everything changed in seconds.
In the premiere episode of Hard Hats & Justice, attorney Chris Gorayeb tells the haunting true story of Maria’s fall and the law that stood between her and destitution: New York’s Scaffolding Law (§240). More than a century old and unique to New York, this statute forces contractors and building owners to take full responsibility for unsafe work conditions at height.
Gorayeb unpacks how this landmark law—now under attack by corporate lobbyists and insurers—has saved thousands of workers from ruin, and what could happen if it’s ever repealed. Through vivid storytelling, sobering statistics, and decades of legal experience, he reveals the brutal truth of construction work in America’s largest city: safety is never guaranteed, and justice is always earned through the fight.
About Gorayeb & Associates, P.C.
For over 40 years, Gorayeb & Associates has been the voice of injured construction workers across New York City. Known as The People’s Lawyers, the firm has recovered nearly $2 billion for over 10,000 clients, defending the rights of immigrants and working-class laborers who built this city—and deserve its protection.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
In Hard Hats & Justice: “Maria’s Fall — The Law That Saved Her Life,” attorney Chris Gorayeb recounts the devastating accident that left a New York construction worker paraplegic—and how New York Labor Law §240, known as the Scaffolding Law, became her only hope for justice.
This episode examines the legal framework that protects workers from unsafe job conditions, the ongoing corporate efforts to repeal those protections, and the human cost of negligence in one of the world’s most dangerous industries. With decades of courtroom experience, Gorayeb connects Maria’s story to the larger fight for worker rights, safety reform, and accountability in construction.
Keywords: New York scaffolding law, construction accident podcast, workplace safety, labor law §240, worker rights NYC, Gorayeb & Associates, Chris Gorayeb, construction injury law, workplace justice, legal podcast.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00 – Chris Gorayeb
It was a Monday morning and Maria went to her job as a laborer in midtown Manhattan, and before lunch, her life completely changed. My name is Chris Goreb and this is our first episode of Hearts, hats and Justice. If you’re a construction worker or know someone who is a construction worker in New York City, then this broadcast is for you. We’re going to be talking about construction accidents in New York, the effect that they have upon the construction workers, their families and the types of compensation that construction workers can receive when they’re hurt. I look forward to explaining all of this to you.
On that Monday, maria went to work, as she had done for six months at this job site in Manhattan, working as a laborer, and on this day, she climbed up onto a sidewalk bridge. She began her work and then, without warning, she stood on a rotten Osha plank. That broke and caused Marie to fall 20 feet. But before she hit the ground, her back landed on a cross brace, breaking multiple of her thoracic vertebrae, breaking multiple of her thoracic vertebra, rendering this 41 year old woman, a single mother of a learning disabled child, paraplegic. As a result of that, her life completely changed, and let me explain to you what now happened.
She was hospitalized for two months. She was in rehabilitation for another three months, able to obtain her workers’ compensation. We then brought a lawsuit against the owner of the building and the general contractor, who both were responsible for making sure that this job site was safe, making sure that the planks weren’t rotten. Making sure that the planks weren’t rotten, making sure that she had a lifeline and a harness to prevent her from falling in the event that something like a plank did break. But they did none of these things for her.
02:43
You’re going to hear that Maria is protected by something that’s known in New York as the scaffolding law. It’s a law that was enacted more than 100 years ago and it’s unique to New York State. The reason why the scaffolding law is unique to New York State is because no other state has a statute like it, but luckily, new York does.
And the reason why New York does is because we have so much construction in New York high rise buildings. We have a statute in New York City that requires that every five years, a building over six stories must be inspected on its exterior, a sidewalk bridge must be installed, workers must climb scaffolds to inspect the buildings, and every time one of those buildings is inspected, there’s the chance for a terrible accident to occur.
03:36
There is an effort in New York to repeal that scaffold law. The people who want to repeal the law are those building owners and contractors and their insurance companies that have to compensate people like Maria for the injuries that they sustain, and they don’t like compensating. They want to collect premiums and not pay.
The problem with it is that someone like Maria and the thousands of construction workers that are hurt in New York every single year would be unable to obtain real compensation if it were not for the scaffolding law. The scaffolding law is the only thing that workers can turn to other than workers’ compensation, and workers’ compensation provides marginal benefits for only a very short period of time.
Were it not for the scaffolding law, people would be rendered paraplegic, maimed, they lose arms, put in positions where they can’t work and support their families, with nowhere to turn. We live in a society right now where there is an effort to restrict our people’s access to medical care, making it more difficult to obtain medical care, making insurance much more expensive medical care making insurance much more expensive and without the scaffolding law, thousands, tens of thousands of people would be put in a position where they would be maimed, unable to work, unable to support their families, with nowhere to turn, not even to the government.
There are efforts now to even change the scaffolding law so that the law wouldn’t apply to buildings where the federal government has provided financing, and you have to ask yourself who would work on those buildings, knowing that they would be exposed to the dangers of construction, but unable to obtain compensation when they were badly hurt.
05:53
You know, the statistics in New York are incredible. Almost every hour, two construction workers get hurt. In 2023, 30 construction workers in New York City were killed in construction accidents. 39% of the deaths in construction accidents are the result of falls from ladders, from scaffolds, from beams, from roofs. Statistically and it’s hard to believe that, if you work in construction for approximately 35 years, there’s a 75% chance that you are going to sustain a serious, disabling injury.
06:45
Construction is one of the most dangerous jobs that anyone can do and it’s one of the most essential jobs that we as a society need. Whether schools are being built, homes are being constructed, apartments are being constructed, office buildings are being constructed, bridges and highways are being constructed, apartments are being constructed, office buildings are being constructed, bridges and highways are being constructed we need Construction workers.
And all of the people that work in those jobs run the risk of being injured to the point where they’ll no longer be able to work, no longer be able to support their families, no longer be able to pay their bills. That’s why the construction laws are so important and that’s what we do here to protect construction workers. We even run classes providing the ability for construction workers to obtain OSHA certification so that accidents won’t happen.
But unfortunately, even with the best training, these accidents occur. Construction workers be hurt, but the owners and the contractors will no longer have incentive to provide protections to these workers. Why? Because they won’t have to pay them if they get hurt, and individuals who are working on construction sites will more than likely be treated as disposable labor. And the less connection you have, the more disposable you become. Union workers, they’re more protected. But if you’re not in the union, you don’t get trained, you have nowhere to turn.
08:35
If you complain to the boss, what happens? The boss fires you because someone else is going to be looking for that job. We know of many instances, thousands of instances. We’ve represented almost 13,000 construction workers where an accident occurs and the boss won’t call an ambulance. The boss will tell a worker go home. If you need to go to the hospital, tell them that your accident happened at home. And why would they do that? They do that so that if a claim is ever made, the boss can say there was no accident. He reported it at home. There was no ambulance, there’s no proof of an accident.
Okay, all they want to do the contractors, the owners of the buildings, the insurance companies themselves is save money, collect premiums and pay nothing. They don’t care what happens to the construction worker, to his family or to his future his future.
09:52
My job is to explain all of this and to seek compensation for those individuals. So whenever you’re working as a construction worker really in any job, but we’re talking about construction there are a lot of people that want to pay you in cash. But the problem with being paid in cash is that the boss can deny that they know who you are when an accident occurs. The boss can deny how much they were paying you and that then affects your ability to receive workers’ compensation.
That affects your ability to receive workers’ compensation Because if you’re not getting paid in cash, because if you’re getting paid in cash, there’s no proof that you’re working for a particular company and there’s no proof of how much money you’re getting paid. So, if it’s possible, get paid by check. It protects you in the event that there’s an accident.
10:45
If you do have an accident report it. Call an ambulance, report it to the job super to site safety. Document your accident when you go to the hospital. Don’t ever allow the boss to tell you to say that you got hurt somewhere else at home. Tell the truth, report the accident. The bosses may tell you say you got hurt at home, don’t worry, we’ll pay your bills. And then, once you do that, you put yourself in a position where it’s going to be much more difficult to prove that you had an accident.
11:32
When you do have an accident in construction, you have two potential cases. You have a case for workers’ compensation. Everyone in New York who gets hurt while they’re working for a company always has one case. The case that they have is for workers’ compensation. Workers’ compensation pays your medical bills and some of the money you lose because you can’t work. It’s important to hire an attorney to represent you in a workers’ compensation case.
I’ve been an attorney now for almost 40 years representing injured construction workers, but if I had an accident, I would hire a workers’ compensation lawyer, because it’s an area of the law that requires real expertise.
The second case you have when you’re a construction worker is the case that we’ve been talking about, the case under what is called the scaffolding law, but it’s much broader than that. You can have the second case when you have an eye injury or you’re using a table saw that’s unguarded or you trip and fall or something even falls on you, and when that happens, there are at least three different types of compensation that you can receive.
Medical bills from the day of the accident, including ambulance doctors, hospital surgery, workers’ compensation all the way up until when the case ends. But for those that continue to be injured and require medical care, you can recover money to pay your future medical bills for however long you’re going to need that for your lifetime, if necessary.
13:06
The second category of compensation is compensation for the money you lose because you can’t work or your ability to work is affected. If you’re making $1,000 a week and you can’t work any longer, you’re losing approximately $50,000 a year and without raises, if you worked for another 20 years, you would lose a million dollars. With raises, of course, that would be much more.
Even if you were able to go back and get another job, if you were earning less money than you were earning before, that difference would be part of your case.
And then, lastly, the law allows you to recover compensation for the pain you experienced and the changes in your life that occur from that pain. Pain from the day of the accident up until when the case finishes, and then into the future, for however long you will experience that pain.
13:59
But the law recognizes that the pain changes your life and usually there’s two types of changes that occur when you have an accident. The first change that happens is you find out I can’t do the things I used to be able to do. I can’t walk, I can’t run, I can’t work, I can’t exercise, I can’t do things with my children, with my wife, with my friends, I can’t pay my bills.
But the second thing you find out is that, because of this accident, now you’re doing things that you never did before. I’m going to hospitals, I’m taking medicine, maybe having operations, physical therapy, I’m going to lawyers. Now, as a result of this accident, I’m worrying about my bills. I’m worrying about my rent, I’m worrying about my mortgage.
Now, instead of taking care of myself and taking care of my family, I’m asking people to take care of me, and the law recognizes that.
14:57
All of these things happen when someone is hurt and the law allows you to have compensation. And for those women out there who are married and their husbands get hurt, the law allows you to have compensation. And for those women out there who are married and their husbands get hurt, the law also allows you to have your own case, because the law recognizes that what happens to one also affects the other.
Some of you have children and now your husband gets hurt, and when your husband gets hurt, you end up with another child, some very big, who ends up crying a lot, and the law recognizes that and entitles you to compensation for that.
So the law, the scaffolding law, the laws we use to protect construction workers after an accident, provide far more compensation, or the ability, the opportunity to obtain compensation, than simply workers’ compensation, which pays a limited amount of money if you can’t work and will only pay you for a maximum of 10 years if that, and with great difficulty, to try to get workers’ compensation to pay.
16:03
That’s why we need these protections. That’s why we need the labor law. That’s why we need the scaffolding law, because without that, construction workers, the people of the state of New York, will have nowhere to turn and we’ll have people living in boxes on the sidewalks because they’re unable to work, they’re unable to support their families.
That’s what attorneys like I do: we help people, we help families. We give them back the financial security that they’ve lost because they were injured, because laws were violated and owners and contractors didn’t care at all what happens to these people.
I’m Chris Correa. Thank you for listening to Hard Hats and Justice. I’ve enjoyed very much explaining to you some of what we do here, and if you want more information, go to our website, and I look forward to seeing you again and speaking to you about what we do here as a profession. Thank you very much.
About Gorayeb & Associates, P.C.
Founded in 1981, Gorayeb & Associates, P.C. is one of New York's leading personal injury law firms, specializing in construction accident litigation. The firm has represented more than 12,000 injured workers and secured over $2 billion in verdicts and settlements. The firm provides bilingual legal services and free community education to immigrant and working-class communities across the five boroughs.
For more information visit: https://www.gorayeb.com/en/