Philadelphia jury awards $68.5 million to family of worker killed in Center City construction site fall

A Philadelphia jury has awarded $68.5 million to the estate of a construction worker who was killed in a fall while working at a construction site in Center City three years ago.

Siarhei Marhunou, 38, died in December 2021 after falling nearly 50 feet from a balcony of a five-unit townhouse development at 2330 Sansom St. Months after his death, in May 2022, Marhunou’s widow and estate administrator, Hanna Marhunova, filed a lawsuit against OCF Construction LLC, Fitler Construction Group, and 2330 Sansom Street LLC, all of which are affiliated with Philadelphia developer Ori Feibush.

Subcontractors on the project, HSC Construction Inc. and Hammers Contractors Inc., were also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Marhunou, who had recently immigrated to Philadelphia from Belarus at the time of his death, had been working on a fifth-floor balcony of the development installing siding ahead of the accident, according to court documents. During his work, he was “suddenly and unexpectedly caused to fall,” and “came into contact” with a temporary wooden guardrail attached to the balcony, the complaint claims.

The railing was allegedly “grossly inadequate [and] defectively installed,” and gave way, resulting in Marhunou’s fall, the complaint alleges. Marhunou, who was working for an independent contractor for siding company DPSY Inc., which was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, was also not equipped with a “personal fall-arrest system” at the time of the accident.

“As a direct and proximate result of the carelessness, negligence, gross negligence, recklessness and other liability-producing conduct of the defendants, plaintiff was forced to suffer fatal injuries,” the complaint alleges.

Attorneys for Marhunou’s family claimed that OCF Construction served as general contractor on the project, and was primarily responsible for the job site conditions contributing to the accident that ended in the construction worker’s death. The defendants, the complaint argued, should have known that workers like Marhunou were “regularly required to work in areas that exposed them to fall hazards,” and that “fall protection was required to ensure” their safety.

In court documents, OCF Construction’s attorneys denied that it was the project’s “general contractor or construction manager,” and maintained that Fitler Construction Group filled that role. The Inquirer previously reported that DPSY was a subcontractor of Hammers Construction, which itself worked under Fitler Construction. Feibush last year said that he typically fires contractors he finds subbing out work, noting “that’s where accidents happen more often than not,” but added that policing job sites remains difficult.

“While nothing can make the family whole, I am hopeful the verdict, in addition to the previous settlements will allow the family to begin to rebuild their lives,” Feibush said in a statement. Several defendants settled with Marhunou’s family ahead of the trial, including two companies affiliated with Feibush, according to the Legal Intelligencer.

After a four-day trial, the jury issued a verdict allocating 50% of fault in the incident to OCF Construction, and another 20% each to Fitler Construction and 2230 Sansom Street LLC. The remaining 10% was split between the project’s subcontractors, which are not affiliated with Feibush, court documents indicate.

“Management of the construction project was a labyrinth of corporate structure designed to protect the developers,” said Marhunou estate attorney Jeffrey Goodman, of Philadelphia-based firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. “Instead, construction projects need to be set up to protect workers. The jury saw through OCF’s shell games.”

An attorney representing OCF Construction did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The jury’s $68.5 million award was split between Marhunou’s estate, and his wife and 3-year-old son as individuals, according to court records.