PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas has granted a motion for extraordinary relief seeking case deadline extensions in a construction worker’s personal injury action.
On Monday, Judge Mark I. Bernstein approved the relief motion filed by Sean T. Stadelman on Sept. 3, which asked for a 60-day extension of all case management deadlines in Philadelphia resident Timothy Dooley’s litigation against Jacobs Engineering, Jacobs Program Management Company, Ryder Truck Rental & Leasing and Ryder Truck Rental, Inc. of Philadelphia, plus KMK Enterprises and Kenneth R. Long Jr. of Jackson, N.J.
Stadelman filed the motion due to the case’s parameters involving out-of-state witnesses and the taking of necessary depositions from those witnesses. Per the new deadlines, the case will be set for trial on March 7.
Still pending in this lawsuit is a motion for summary judgment, filed by Michael Luongo on behalf of KMK Enterprises and Long on Oct. 5. Luongo’s motion argued KMK Enterprises and Long’s base and residence in New Jersey, as opposed to Pennsylvania, left Pennsylvania courts with no jurisdiction over those defendants.
On Aug. 7, 2012, Dooley was working as a pile driver affiliated with Local Union 454 at a job site on the Garden State Parkway, at mile marker 39.3 in Galloway Township, N.J. At that site, a 50 foot-long steel pipe that weighed approximately 4,000 pounds allegedly rolled off a tractor-trailer and crushed him.
Dooley alleges the negligence of the defendants in not properly inspecting the quality of the equipment used at the site led to his accident, and filed suit for that charge and for strict product liability.
When the pipe landed on him, Dooley suffered a communited fracture of his right calcaneus and an injured right shoulder, non-communited fracture of the cuboid and severe atrophy in his right shoulder, he says.
Dooley underwent open reduction internal fixation on Aug. 30, 2012, leaving him with a five inch-long scar on his right heel where surgical screws needed to be implanted in his foot, he says.
The plaintiff is seeking a sum, jointly and severally, in excess of $50,000 in compensatory damages, plus delay damages, interest and allowable costs of suit in this case.
The plaintiff is represented by John T. Dooley and Sean McMonagle in Pennsauken.
The defendants are represented by Sean T. Stadelman and Michael Luongo of Goldberg Segalla in Philadelphia, Samuel D. Hodge Jr. of Huntington & Franklin in Southampton, David Sideman of Gluck Walrath in Trenton, N.J. and Robert M. Hanlon Jr. in Princeton, N.J.
Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas case 131102651
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nickpennrecord@gmail.com