Injured worker says contractor offered him $100,000 to skip a Scaffold Law suit

Jose Briones was working for OneTeam, a subcontractor to Skyline, on March 16, 2020, when he lost his balance climbing the base of a water tank at a Bronx public housing complex, Documented reported. He says he had no harness. He fell several feet onto the roof, was knocked unconscious and spent two weeks in the hospital with injuries to his head, neck, back, shoulders, hip and knees.

Once he was home, two men from the companies kept dropping by his Queens apartment with groceries. In June, Briones recorded a visit of nearly 25 minutes in which, according to the video he shared with Documented, a field supervisor from Skyline and a site supervisor from OneTeam handed him a $100,000 check on condition that he not sue OneTeam. On an earlier visit, he says, they had offered $10,000, and Documented obtained a photo of that check. Neither man mentioned New York's Scaffold Law (Labor Law 240), under which, Documented reported, his claim could be worth more than $1 million. Offering a lump sum for not filing an injury suit is not illegal.

Briones sued both companies in 2021. The case has not settled, he can no longer walk far, and he lives on workers' compensation. Skyline did not respond to Documented.

Skyline is also working to change the law. In 2024 it hired Gotham Government Relations to push a bill from Assemblyman David Weprin and Sen. Neil Breslin that would make staging a construction accident a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison. Ionian Re, a reinsurer whose president founded Skyline, and related companies have filed racketeering (RICO) suits against injury lawyers and doctors; one targets the firm representing Briones, which denies the allegations. Documented found little evidence of widespread fraud beyond the group's own claims, and two of its RICO cases were dismissed on procedural grounds. On May 20, Andromeda, a Skyline-affiliated company, hosted Gov. Kathy Hochul and 50 industry figures under signs reading "Scaffold Law Enables Fraud." Assemblymember Diana Moreno told Documented she opposes any effort to weaken the law.