Window Washer Gets $8M Settlement

Orbe's safety belt (seen on the sidewalk in front of the Council on Foreign Relations building) most likely saved him from being impaled as he fell, according to court papers. Click to enlarge.

Window washer gets $8M settlement for Upper East Side plunge: Faby Del Orbe suffered several fractures and fell into a coma for three weeks when he fell from the Council on Foreign Relations building on Park Ave. in September 2012, according to court papers.

The Council on Foreign Relations has paid an $8 million settlement to a Brooklyn window washer who plunged four stories from the venerable institution’s landmark building on the Upper East Side, the Daily News has learned. Faby Del Orbe had hooked his safety harness to the exterior anchors of a fourth-floor window of the Harold Pratt House on East 68th St. at Park Ave. on Sept. 1, 2012.

When Del Orbe leaned back to do his job, the anchors came loose, causing the worker, then 28, to fall more than 30 feet. He struck an iron fence on the way down — but his nylon webbed belt absorbed the brunt of that impact, preventing him from being impaled. Still, Del Orbe suffered fractures of the vertebrae, pelvis, rib and heel and was in a coma for three weeks, according to papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

A lawyer for the Council on Foreign Relations blamed Del Orbe for failing to check the window anchors, and also a contractor for removing the interior bolts several months earlier while installing a plexiglass cover over the window to keep out drafts. The contractor “didn’t advise the council that they have done so and in fact no one was aware that the bolt was cut until Mr. Del Orbe attached himself to it,” lawyer Lisa Fitzgerald argued in court papers.

Del Orbe was required to inspect the integrity of the window anchors he was hooking onto before washing, she said. That didn’t fly with a judge who found the council was liable, leading to the settlement reached last month.

Del Orbe’s lawyer Scott Rynecki said the window washer, a married father, can no longer work due to permanent injuries. “This settlement hopefully will send a message to building owners that they have an obligation to inspect all safety devices in their buildings so workers are properly protected,” Ryneck said. The Council on Foreign Relations, which declined to comment, is an independent think tank and publisher. Its board members include several former cabinet members, including Colin Powell and Robert Rubin.

Faby Del Orbe said the window anchors failed at the E. 68th St. building in September 2012.