A former construction employee has been awarded what could be a record-setting workers’ compensation settlement more than two years after he fell four stories at a California work site.

Tina Eshghieh

A Division of Workers’ Compensation administrative law judge on July 24 approved an $11.25 million settlement for Omar Ramirez, guardian of Salvador Ramirez Morales, 35, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and related complications following an accident in April 2018.

The total settlement amount might be an unofficial record for California’s workers’ compensation system, which has rarely seen awards reach eight figures.

The structured settlement includes a one-time payment of $500,000 followed by monthly payments of $33,000 for the rest of Ramirez Morales’ life.

“Unfortunately, in light of booming construction in California, the number of catastrophic injuries each year continues to rise,” said workers’ compensation attorney Tina Eshghieh, of Los Angeles-based Law Offices of Arash Khorsandi. “However, results of this magnitude rarely occur in the personal injury arena, let alone in workers’ compensation.”

Eshghieh represented Ramirez Morales in the case. She said she hasn’t come across another workers’ comp case in California that rivals the $11.25 award her clients received.

“I was really proud to be able to secure him the type of compensation that will be able to take care of him for the rest of his life,” Eshghieh said. “It is not often that you are able to secure a settlement large enough to be able to close out future medical care and properly compensate a catastrophically injured worker for the rest of his life.”

Administrative law judge Dean Stringfellow signed off on the workers’ comp settlement, which was based on Ramirez Morales’ disability, rest-of-life health care plan and “the best interests of the employee’s lifetime needs,” according to case documents.

United Wisconsin Insurance Co., the construction company’s carrier, will pay out the settlement.

On April 11, 2018, Ramirez Morales was working at a construction site in Irvine when he fell four stories through an elevator shaft, according to a case summary. He was transported to an Orange County hospital, where doctors performed an emergency craniotomy.

Ramirez Morales suffered a “severe” traumatic brain injury and was unconscious for more than 24 hours. He sustained neurological damage that affected his bodily functions, along with fractured ribs, a broken jaw and multiple orthopedic and internal injuries, according to the case summary.

While he was in the hospital, he suffered from complications including acute respiratory distress syndrome and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection more commonly known as MRSA.

Ramirez Morales was transferred to a hospital in Santa Ana before being taken to a neurorestorative center in Tustin. In August 2018, doctors performed a cranioplasty in an attempt to repair his skull, but Ramirez Morales began suffering from further complications that required the placement of a shunt.

In January, Ramirez Morales was moved to the renowned Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare in Pomona to continue his rehabilitation, Eshghieh said.

As of the settlement, Ramirez Morales continues to suffer from cognitive defects, including impaired emotional and behavioral regulation, impaired vision, impaired motor skills and “multiple other complaints,” according to the case summary.

If Ramirez Morales’ settlement is the largest workers’ compensation award in state history, it could be difficult to verify. There is no official California database that tracks settlement amounts.

At least one case also reached the eight-figure plateau.

In 2017, a workers’ comp judge approved a $10 million settlement for a claim involving Boram Teresa Choi, an assessor for Ernst & Young whose car veered down an embankment and crashed into a tree on Interstate 10 in June 2013.

Los Angeles attorney Chris Asvar, of Asvar Law, represented Choi in the case and also oversaw another settlement that netted an $8.9 million payment from the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

Asvar offered Eshghieh kind words for securing the potentially record-breaking settlement.

“I wholeheartedly congratulate Tina Eshghieh on this accomplishment. This is a testament to the prevailing spirit of our brothers and sisters in the applicant bar fighting in the trenches every single day to bring medical and financial benefits to their clients,” Asvar wrote in an email. “We operate in a legal system inherently rigged against the injured worker, and that is why Tina’s accomplishment should be celebrated as a rising tide that lifts all boats for all injured workers.”

Asvar said getting high-dollar settlements isn’t the sole goal in these types of cases.

“It is about the very difficult task of meeting the financial needs of your client so that they can continue in their present state with an ounce of comfort, if that is at all possible, with an ounce of dignity and with as little reliance on their family and friends as possible, because over time these catastrophic injuries become a catastrophe in the lives of anyone that cares for the injured individual,” he wrote. “And so you try to take as much burden as possible off the shoulders of the spouse, child or parent. Their love should never be forced to serve as a substitute for someone else’s legal and financial responsibility.”

Outside of California, Illinois-based firm Taxman, Pollock, Murray & Bekkerman reportedly garnered a $12.4 million settlement for an ironworker and his wife after he suffered a brain injury from a fall. The firm also boasts that it won a $67 million jury verdict for a client who was burned in a grain bin explosion.

Another Illinois firm, Anesi, Ozmon, Rodin, Novak & Kohen, said it negotiated a $12 million settlement for a “catastrophically injured” ironworker who required a handicap-accessible home and vehicle.