Man’s injury at port leads to payout, but payer is secret

Lawyers say value over $4M; county office shields terms

Two lawyers with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna in Albany say they negotiated a $3.75 million court settlement for a client who was injured while working at the Port of Albany.

Whiteman Osterman attorneys Dick Walsh and Paul Davenport filed the case in state Supreme Court in Albany on behalf of Ronald Smith.

Smith was an operating engineer for Callanan Industries, which operates an asphalt plant at the port.

In March 2019, Smith was 50 feet in the air on a lift repairing a piece of equipment on a silo when the lift got caught on a loose hanging rope attached to a pulley located above him, his attorneys said.

Callanan leased the facility and the equipment involved in Smith’s injury from the port.

The pulley fell onto Smith, knocking him out. He was rushed to Albany Medical Center but he remained unconscious for two weeks before having to go to Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital with serious injuries. He spent six weeks at Sunnyview but suffered “significant cognitive deficits” and permanent damage to his shoulder, his attorneys say.

Davenport and Walsh said they were able to establish that the incident involved violations of state labor laws that protect workers on industrial sites.

It is unclear who is paying the settlement. The full terms of such civil lawsuit settlements are rarely disclosed to the public, and the Albany County clerk’s office has blocked viewing of all of the documents in the case.

Neither the Port of Albany nor Callanan Industries returned phone calls seeking comment.

Smith’s attorneys said that they were also able to get Callanan to waive a $400,000 workers compensation lien it had filed after the incident, which Walsh and Davenport say brings the practical value of the settlement to well over $4 million.