Dennis Packard, a Depew roofer whose career ended when he suffered spinal injuries in a fall off a roof, was awarded $3.1 million Monday by a State Supreme Court jury.

In the trial before Justice Rose H. Sconiers, a jury ordered insurance carriers for Marrano Marc Equity Corp. to pay Packard, now 40.

John F. Maxwell and William B. Collins, Packard’s lawyers, said their client fell about 15 feet on Feb. 8, 2005, while working on a residential roof in Rushford Hollow in Cheektowaga.

Sconiers had ruled in August that Marrano Marc Equity was legally responsible for the unsafe workplace. The just-completed trial was held to determine how much Packard — who underwent spinal fusion surgery in October 2006 — would receive.

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A Pennsylvania ironworker who suffered career-ending leg injuries in a fall at a Chautauqua County construction site four years ago has accepted a $3.1 million cash insurance settlement from carriers for two construction firms, his attorneys said Thursday.

The client will receive the settlement from insurance carriers for Summit Construction Group of Buffalo and Amthor Steel of Erie, Pa., within two weeks according to attorneys William B. Collins and John F. Maxwell of the Buffalo firm of Collins & Maxwell.

Collins and Maxwell said their client slipped on rain-soaked steel and fell 18 feet to the concrete floor of a bus garage he was helping to build for the Chautauqua Lake Central School in Mayville on October 4, 2000.

The client suffered a shattered left pelvis, femur and left ankle, and he now must wear a full leg brace, his attorneys said.

Maxwell and Collins said State Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Glownia last August ruled the two construction companies were financially liable for the accident because they didn't have scaffolding or any protection for falls at the construction site.

A former Cheektowaga resident who suffered severe knee injuries when a minivan struck his sport utility vehicle head-on after being rear-ended, was awarded $4 million by a Buffalo jury Friday.

Following a two-week negligence trial before State Supreme Court Justice Rose H. Sconiers, the jury ordered the payment by Chrysler Financial Co. of Syracuse. The accident occurred on May 16, 2001, on Union Road in Cheektowaga.

The former Dennis Lane resident who later relocated to Orlando, Fla., had to be pulled out the driver's window of his vehicle after the head-on crash that severely fractured his right kneecap. The client's Buffalo attorneys, John F. Maxwell and William B. Collins, said their client has been told by doctors he will face periodic kneecap replacement surgery for the rest of his life.

Insurance carriers for an Indiana contracting firm were ordered Thursday to pay a disabled West Seneca ironworker $2.3 million for back injuries he suffered during the construction of HSBC Arena seven years ago.

The client, 51, got the award following deliberations by a Buffalo jury of four women and two men after a three-week trial in the unsafe workplace case before State Supreme Court Justice Kevin M. Dillon.

Shawn W. Carey, the client's lawyer from the Buffalo firm Collins and Maxwell, said his client was foreman for a crew working for Mull Iron of Cleveland on the arena. On February 1, 1996, he tripped on loose scrap steel left scattered over pre-cast concrete seating tiers near the rink-level of the arena and in the fall severely injured his low back.