March 19, 2019 | 5:35pm | Updated Enlarge Image
Richard MarchhartSupplied
A widow has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of a Soho building where a metal fire escape step fell seven stories striking her husband in the head and killing him.
Andrea Marchhart, 57, filed the suit this week, just over a year after her husband, Richard Marchhart, died in the freak accident that happened while he walked along Broadway near Howard Street on the afternoon of Feb. 16, 2018.
Workers had been conducting a safety inspection of the fire escape at 434 Broadway when an inspector stepped onto the ladder and the person’s “body weight caused an individual stair tread to break off from the fire escape and fall approximately seven stories to the sidewalk below,” the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit says.
The inspector was not identified by name in the papers.
The “heavy” 4-foot-by-2-foot step “fell to the ground at the same fateful moment that [Marchhart], traversed the portion of the sidewalk beneath the subject fire escape,” the court papers explain.
Marchhart, a lighting design engineer, had been in Soho for work at the time he was hit, the family’s lawyer, Andrew Maloney said. The 58-year-old father of three from Garden City died from the injuries the next day.
Marchhart’s wife is suing the building owner and manager, the company that carried out the inspection, a construction company and a maintenance company for unspecified damages.
Maloney said, “this accident really shined a spotlight on a problem in New York City. Most new buildings don’t have exterior fire escapes … because they are hard to maintain.”
Maloney said the fire escape in this case was rusted and and was covered up with a fresh coat of paint rather than being properly repaired.
A second woman was struck in the incident but she survived and filed her own lawsuit in Queens which is still pending, Maloney said.
A lawyer for the company that carried out the inspection, Cany Architecture and Engineering, said it was a “very unfortunate accident” but added that his company had conducted a proper inspection and repair previously.
“The prior job was a comprehensive review, evaluation and repair of the existing fire escape,” said Cany lawyer David Kosakoff.
A lawyer for the building management company declined to comment and lawyers for the other parties did not immediately return requests for comment.
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