As DOB investigates Tuesday's beam buckling at 235 East 42nd Street, a review of civil lawsuits finds twelve workers injured at the site over the past year and a half — nine of those accidents with no record of the required Buildings Department notification.

Diana Ruiz Cabrera was several hours into her shift at 235 East 42nd Street in mid-February when she slipped from a step ladder on the seventh floor and fell roughly five feet, tearing ligaments in her ankle. She left the site in tears via hoist, was driven to urgent care, and hasn't returned to work since. "I live with a lot of pain, still, in my everyday life," she told The City Reporter. There is no record that the incident was ever reported to the New York City Department of Buildings.

Ruiz Cabrera's case is one of twelve civil lawsuits filed by workers injured at 219 and 235 East 42nd Street — a $700 million office-to-residential conversion the city bills as its largest of its kind, targeting 1,600 units on a block near Grand Central Terminal. The lawsuits have come into focus this week as DOB investigates the July 8 buckling of steel columns on the 21st floor that triggered emergency evacuations of the site and eight surrounding buildings.

City rules require the general contractor's site safety team to notify DOB when a worker is transported by ambulance or receives emergency treatment at a hospital or clinic. A review by The City Reporter found that site safety managers logged three accidents with the agency since May 2025. The remaining nine, including Ruiz Cabrera's, carry no DOB notification record. The outlet noted it could not independently verify whether each of those nine cases met the notification threshold — but Ruiz Cabrera's circumstances, a serious injury and transport to an urgent care clinic, appeared to fall within it.

"If you go to the emergency room, you've got to report it, if you went to CityMD, you've gotta report it" to DOB, said Charlene Obernauer, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. "Not doing so could result in a violation."

The building had already accumulated seven Department of Buildings enforcement actions and $32,530 in civil penalties between July and December 2025, according to city records reviewed earlier this week by The Dissent. DOB has also filed a complaint against the owner of record, 235 Fee Owner LLC, for exceeding approved construction plans. The site remains under a partial stop-work order; only emergency stabilization work is permitted.

The notification gap matters because DOB uses accident reports to flag sites for inspection and pattern review. Nine incidents that never reached that record mean nine data points the agency didn't have when Tuesday's columns gave way.