A state court judge dismissed the claim of a worker who contended that he was injured when lightning struck a state-administered work site. The injured man, John Kiebzak, argued that he was tossed backward when lightning struck the backhoe that he was operating on Sept. 29, 1999, at a highway-renovation site in Buffalo. He contended that the state was liable because it did not order the workers to stop until the lightning had passed. In ruling for the state, Judge Jeremiah Moriarty III held that Kiebzak did not prove that lightning actually struck the backhoe. He also held that such an event would have been an act of God–not an instance of negligence–and that Kiebzak should have known to stop working.