NEW YORK (AP) — On the sixth anniversary of a deadly construction crane collapse, two slain workers’ families watched Friday as a judge declared a mistrial in a wrongful-death case, saying it couldn’t proceed with the crane owner hospitalized.
He’d been injured in a car crash his lawyers disclosed only after the trial opened.
Opening statements had been underway for days when James Lomma’s lawyers asked Thursday to halt the trial, saying he had been severely hurt in a wreck before jury selection concluded last week. Attorneys for the workers’ families pushed to continue the trial, but Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez said Friday he felt he had no choice but to stop it.
Lomma suffered multiple fractures in a multi-car wreck May 20, was hospitalized immediately, has had several surgeries, and isn’t expected to be able to come to court for two to three months, Mendez said after seeing a police accident report and talking to Lomma’s surgeon.
“It is only fair to allow Mr. Lomma … to be present at trial,” Mendez said, saying Lomma had been “incapacitated through no acts of his own.”
While Lomma wasn’t required to be at the civil trial, his lawyer had argued that he was a key witness and that his absence would harm his defense.
As the workers’ relatives — some of whom had flown in from Kosovo — looked on with tears and sighs, their lawyers urged the judge to keep the trial going and see how Lomma’s condition progressed. They asked to have another doctor assess his recovery timetable, and they suggested the defense had played a tactical game by not revealing Lomma’s hospitalization before hearing the families’ case outlined in opening statements.
Lawyer Susan Karten said the families might appeal Mendez’s decision. In the meantime, the judge dismissed the jury and set a Sept. 9 date to start over with new jurors.
Lomma’s lawyer, Glenn Fuerth, declined to comment. He has said the extent of Lomma’s injuries wasn’t clear in the first days after the wreck.
Mendez didn’t release the police report or describe the accident or its location, and the report couldn’t immediately be obtained.
Crane operator Donald C. Leo and Ramadan Kurtaj, a sewer worker and immigrant from Peja, Kosovo, were killed when a 200-foot crane snapped apart in Manhattan on May 30, 2008.
Their families are suing various companies and agencies but largely blame Lomma. They say he got an inexpensive repair to an important crane component that failed and caused the collapse.
“It’s been six years, and we’re still waiting for justice,” Leo’s mother, Maria Leo, said as she left court Friday.
Lomma’s lawyers have said others were at fault. He was acquitted of all charges in a 2012 criminal trial.
The collapse came two months after another Manhattan crane toppled and killed seven people. The two accidents prompted new crane safety rules.
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Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @ jennpeltz.
