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A stuntman seriously injured while attempting to perform a stunt for the DVD release of the 2011 movie Ghost Rider 2 has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Sony Pictures Entertainment and two other companies. The stuntman, Michael Gaboff, says in the suit filed Friday (read it here) that he was hired in April 2012 as an independent contractor to perform a stunt for the movie’s DVD release that the production teams knew or should have known involved serious risks and failed to take proper safety measures. Gaboff’s suit says he was to ride a motorcycle up a ramp after being set afire and leap across a lake and land in the water. The suit also alleges members of the production teams exhibited “conscious disregard” for Gaboff’s concerns about the risks. The stunt went wrong and Gaboff landed on hard ground, breaking numerous bones including his lower back and neck and suffering other injuries including second-degree burns. The suit says Gaboff was “rendered sick, sore, lame, disabled, and disordered, both internally and externally and suffered … numerous internal and external injuries, severe fright, shock, pain, discomfort and anxiety.”
Gaboff says he incurred as much as $1 million in medical expenses for treatment of his injuries, some of which he contends will likely be permanent. He also says he suffered loss of income that resulted from his inability to work. Alleging “negligence, peculiar risk, ultrahazardous, breach of contract”, Gaboff’s suit seeks general damages, medical and related expenses, loss of earnings and earning capacity, costs of the suit and interest as well as punitive damages.
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I pray you get well and as strong as you can Mr. GRaboff. I was hurt in 1994 and was an Executive for one of the largest food compsnies in the world. They hurt me, fired me, and turned their backs on me! I thought I was having ONE neck surgery but, it ‘failed’ and long story short neeed 7 SEVEN suurgeries plus my low back was injured and I didn’t know at the time as the Neck ‘Pain’ was so horrific I was in shock. 2 More surgeries Low-Back. What they don’t tell you the OTHER DISCS have to take over the job of Lost Discs. Tissue, Muscle is CUT. Loss of WORK causes depression. Get the help you need now. It can really sneak up on you. Stay strong internally. I was an Athlete too and FIT or I wouldn’t have made it. Bio-Feedback helps, Acupuncture, Pool Therapy, massage, walking, Meditation and Positive Thinking. What hurt the most the Company I loved and worked 18 hour days for for over 10 years ‘turned its back 100%’. Employee’s, friends did too because they didn’t know what to say to me and thought they’d lose their jobs reaching out. Everything changes! The CHRONIC PAIN is the real issue. Meds I Hate but, must use to function even at 50%! As an Athlete ‘A’ Tennis Player, world traveler it really takes a toll long term! The body slowly gets worse if you’re not being TREATED by Pro’s. Long term! The surgeries take a toll so get the help you need my friend.Bless you, hope it all turns out better for you. Giacomo, US Army Veteran, ex food exec.
I feel bad for the guy, but ultimately, if he thought the jump was unsafe, he should have walked away. He should have also had a medical clause in his contract, in case he got injured. I would think that in the stunt business, that you cover all the safety aspects before you take the job. I hope he gets well soon, but maybe go into future stunt work with better conviction as to not taking an unsafe stunt or get better lawyers to work out contracts in case of injury.
It is true that he is also responsible for his safety but his employer is obliged to provide the safest work environment possible and they should be held liable since according to the law suit ‘members of the production teams exhibited “conscious disregard” for Gaboff’s concerns about the risks’
That’s just one side of the story — his side of it.
It doesn’t make sense that he went through with the stunt if he thought it was that dangerous. Not smart at all on his part.
As well as a law of contract there is a law of tort.
I don’t know the facts but it seems as though an out-of-court settlement might be suitable. I am sure this claim is for a lot less than is regularly shelled out for the “big names” who make little contribution to the action.
Why the heck is anyone paying for an expensive stunt promo tied to the DVD release of any movie, let alone Ghost Rider 2? Seriously, in an era when DVD revenues have long since declined, why blow good money on a marketing event that no one would find interesting? Considering GHOST RIDER 2 did mediocre business in theaters, it’s not like the world was super-excited about its release to home video.
I’m confused. What is he having to pay for anything for? If this was an on-set injury, it’s all on the production company’s dime (and ultimately their insurance company). He shouldn’t be out of pocket one penny. Or is there something that’s missing in the story?
Why would the production team know the risks? It’s up to the stunt team to determine risk assessment and engineer a safe stunt. If the stunt wasn’t safe, why would Mr. Gaboff continue with it? Or was it beyond his capability where other stuntmen could have pulled it off?
Too many questions. Something’s amiss.
“It’s up to the stunt team to determine risk assessment and engineer a safe stunt. If the stunt wasn’t safe, why would Mr. Gaboff continue with it? Or was it beyond his capability where other stuntmen could have pulled it off?”
^This. A thousand times this. Something is uber shady about this.
Clearly you haven’t spent a lot of time on short shoots. Often, a larger company will hire (or set up) an umbrella corporation that dissolves the minute the shoot is over, leaving you not only with no physical entity to contact, but not even a single working phone number or email address to which one can express grievances. Often, the person in charge of the production isn’t qualified to be running a complicated shoot of that nature, but is hired or briefly promoted for the one-day gig because people who ARE qualified are busy doing other things (I can’t count the number of ADs/Production Managers/Producers I’ve worked with who don’t know workers’ comp from the back of their hand).
It’s frequent that those corporations don’t offer protection/workers’ comp to anyone, especially assuming a one or two day shoot. Of course, it’s your responsibility as a stunt performer to ensure that those elements are provided – but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they just simply weren’t considered or included in the shoot.
You aren’t given Work Comp unless you are an employee. IC’s have to have their own insurance. If you are paid by a payroll company, such as EP or C&C, you are covered under their WC. Gaboff was hired as an IC. It was his obligation to have his own insurance coverage. Clearly he didn’t. Clearly you don’t know as much as you think you do. Clearly the ultimate responsibility for the safe set up and execution of the stunt was Gaboff’s and only Gaboff’s. It’s the reason he was hired.
his case doesn’t have a chance in hell.
He is hoping to get this settled out of court and drag it through as many news outlets as possible until that happens.
This is a joke of a case, as an independant contractor it’s his responsibility to ensure that the stunt is safe to perform. That is why stunt men aren’t studio employees but independant contractors.
In short he was payed a premium and should have used that money to set up insurance and a competent stunt coordinator, he failed to do so and so he is now in this unfortunate position.
I wish Mr. Gaboff the best of luck in his rehabilitation but he shouldn’t be playing the blame game, he should have taken more steps to ensure that the stunt would be successful and if he wasnt comfortable with the stunt then it shouldn’t be performed.
Production companies fckover everyone. Why was it an independent contractor? Because it would never pass a safety inspection and the production co suckered some ind into it knowing the dangers. Why didn’t they hire a prof stunt company as an employee??? Exactly they f ed him knowing of the dangers.
Here’s a common f….. force the crew to work 16 hours and they have to drive home after that…. they fall asleep driving and crash and kill themselves….. it happened right down the street from me. Nice. Slaveship.
Did I miss something here? The stuntman is an independent contractor. I had them just say no, and tell me it’s unsafe. I feel for this man.
Employer obliged to provide the safest work environment possible. Let’s revisit what the task was again: “he was to ride a motorcycle up a ramp after being set afire and leap across a lake and land in the water.”
I don’t think “safe” and his task can co-exist in the same sentence. Yes, he ought to ride a motorcycle up a ramp after being set afire and leap across a lake and land in the water in the SAFEST way possible. That’s probably a given in the stunt field. But, it’s not like this guy was hired to get get coffee for the director.
He was hired to perform a patently unsafe act.
I wish him the best.
I have had several situations in my career where at the last second before the cameras roll the stunt man has said “Shut it down, I’m not good with this”.
No argument, we shut it down. It’s the stuntman’s personal responsibility to go forward, or not. It’s their decision, and their’s alone.
That’s the hard truth.
Something is missing here. Was there no stunt coordinator involved? If not then did the production company conceive of the stunt, have the ramp designed and built? I sincerely hope Mr. Gaboff gets better and is properly compensated if there was serious negligence involved. Be that as it may, if there was no stunt coordinator attached to the event, he should have walked away right off the bat.
I spent a few minutes googling this guy this morning. If he wanted to sue, he should have kept his foolish mug out of the media and not given statements acknowledging that he never saw the set up until he showed up for the shoot, etc. He was hired as an independent contractor, that means he’s not covered under the production company work comp, and should have carried his own insurance. ESPECIALLY considering what this douche does for a ‘living’. It appears he chose to roll the dice and not pay what would probably be a very high premium for the coverage he needed. Short-sighted now, isn’t it?
The fact that he showed up for filming having never seen the ramp (which he should have taken responsibility for designing at a minimum), or the lake tells me he was woefully unprepared. He’s responsible for rehearsals and dry runs and making any changes he deemed necessary in order to make the stunt safe. He has videos on YouTube where he does the exact same stunt successfully. This is probably the reason that he was hired by the production company (not Sony). He also had the responsibility to call off the stunt if he felt all conditions were not right. The stunt performer has the ultimate say for all aspects of a stunt. No one held a gun to his head and said “you have to do this right now”.
Who is responsible for this unfortunate accident? Gaboff and no one else. No doubt the lawyers will buckle and pay this guy off, and that’s too bad.
You are 100% correct. And the media and world should know that this man is not a stuntman, but rather a DAREDEVIL. His statements to the media demonstrate his level of unprofessionalism. If you look him up online there are several videos of him attempting stunts and injuring himself. My personal favorite is him breaking his face while trying to do a backflip off a vending machine. I have a feeling he wont win this one, he might get enough to cover a few bills, but I dont think he has enough of a case to take on Sony.
It’s your film, you pay. Putup a lemonade stand in front of Sony and sell poison. See who’s fault it is if someone drinks it.
You created it
You are selling it you are collecting the money you are responsible for everything that happens