NEW YORK (AP) — A construction crane owner is seeking to halt a trial over a deadly crane collapse, saying he’s hospitalized with severe injuries from a car wreck, but a judge called Thursday for proof.
Opening statements had been underway for days in the wrongful-death trial when James Lomma’s lawyer said Thursday that the crane owner had been hospitalized since last week and wasn’t expected to recover for two to three months.
Lawyers for the families of two construction workers killed in the 2008 collapse suggested Lomma was malingering, and state Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez told Lomma’s lawyers he needed a police report and medical documentation to decide.
After being acquitted of all criminal charges in the May 2008 collapse, Lomma is a key defendant in the civil case. The families’ attorneys say he got an inexperienced company to do a cut-price repair on an important crane component, which then broke and sent the top parts of the 200-foot-tall rig crashing to the ground on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Lomma’s lawyers have said others involved in the project are to blame for the accident.
Lomma hadn’t attended any of the opening statements, which started May 23. He wasn’t required to be there. His absence was explained only Thursday, when Lawyer Glenn Fuerth said Lomma was severely injured in a car accident May 21.
“Mr. Lomma is a necessary and material witness and would be greatly prejudiced by not having the opportunity to defend himself,” Fuerth wrote in legal papers, asking the judge to declare a mistrial or delay the proceedings.
But a lawyer for slain worker Ramadan Kurtaj questioned why Lomma’s condition wasn’t mentioned earlier and how serious it truly is.
“We don’t believe it,” attorney Susan Karten said, suggesting Lomma was just trying to avoid the trial.
The extent of Lomma’s injuries was unclear at first, Fuerth said. He didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about the circumstances of the accident and the nature of the injuries. It couldn’t immediately be determined where the accident happened or whether there was a police report.
Messages left at possible home numbers for Lomma weren’t immediately returned.
The collapse also killed crane operator Donald C. Leo. Another Manhattan crane collapse had killed seven people two months earlier, and the two accidents stirred concerns about crane safety and led to new regulations.
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Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @jennpeltz
