Worker Sues After Suffering Disfiguring Injuries

A worker has filed a lawsuit after he claims he suffered disfiguring injuries while working at a waste treatment facility. The lawsuit claims that the contractor was not offered adequate assistance while unloading pipes. As a result of the accident, he lost his right thumb and other permanent injuries. Will his lawsuit succeed? Let’s try to answer that question.

The plaintiff’s argument 

The plaintiff argues that the lack of machinery forced him to unload the pipes manually. However, he was injured in the attempt. The plaintiff contends that had the machinery been provided to him, as would be expected of most large deliveries, the accident would never have occurred and the plaintiff would still have a thumb. Essentially, the lack of machinery led to the plaintiff’s injury.

Elements of negligence 

The township of Hamilton contracted with the plaintiff’s company to perform emergency repair work. The plaintiff is thus not an employee of the township but a third-party contractor. Since the township is not his employer, he can file a lawsuit against them. Since the injury occurred off-site, the employee’s own company’s workers’ compensation insurance may not have covered the claim.

However, the question of negligence is not firmly established. Would a delivery-person conducting business of the sort the plaintiff was doing naturally expect to have equipment to aid in the process of unloading the pipes? The question of whether or not the facility operator owed the employee that duty of care will form the backbone of the lawsuit against the township.

In cases where a property manager creates conditions that are dangerous, a third-party contractor can sue if they are injured. If the property manager knew about dangerous conditions and then neglected to remedy them, the property manager can be sued. If the property manager neglected to determine the safety of conditions on their premises, they can also be sued.

However, what happens when a property manager fails to afford an independent contractor with equipment that would have made his job easier? Does the township owe the contractor a duty of care? The better question is: Would a similar contractor doing similar work for a similar entity expect to have specific equipment so that he didn’t have to unload the pipes manually? Those questions are much less clear.

Proving negligence would require that the employee show that the work he was asked to perform was unreasonably dangerous and that unreasonably dangerous task was the proximate cause of his injury. The defendants will likely blame the contractor for causing his own injury by arguing that the work could have been performed safely, but the plaintiff took several shortcuts.

Talk to a Miami, FL Personal Injury Attorney 

If you’re injured on the job, you can still file a lawsuit against a third-party for their negligence. Call the Miami personal injury lawyers at Payer Law today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about how we can help.

Resource:

trentonian.com/news/lawsuit-hamilton-township-s-negligence-caused-pipe-worker-to-suffer-disfiguring-injuries/article_c8ab8df6-9e35-11eb-99c7-afb317b43bfb.html