New York Machinery Accident Attorneys

Industrial accidents are the third leading cause of injury and death in the workplace and recent statistics have shown that mechanical equipment is involved in 80% of the fatalities.

Here are some of the alarming facts regarding workplace injury and death:

• From 1980 through 1995, approximately 93,338 workers in the U.S. died as a result of trauma suffered on the job.
  
  
• An average of 16 workers died each day in workplace related accidents.
  
  
• In 2000, the number of traumatic injuries suffered in the workplace contributed to approximately 5,600 workplace deaths.
  
  
• total of 5.2 million injuries and illnesses were reported in private industry workplaces during 2001.

Industrial injuries are often caused by faulty equipment or by machinery that is unguarded or inadequately guarded. Many of the accidents occur during cleaning or maintenance work when simple precautions have not been taken to ensure the safety of the workers or when effective guarding of the machinery has not been given priority.

Catastrophic injury and death occurs every day to workers even though many state and federal regulations, as well as industry standards, require corporations, their executives, managers and plant supervisors to implement a wide variety of safety measures. In many cases injured workers have no recourse against their negligent employers and although workers' compensation aides employees while injured on the job, it is usually not sufficient to fully compensate injured workers for all damages sustained as a result of their work-related accident.

Under New York State Law, employees cannot sue their employers for damages sustained as a result of a work-related accident. In order to receive reasonable compensation for their injuries, workers must commence third-party lawsuits against parties other than their employer. Equipment manufacturers may be held responsible when a machinery accident occurs. In addition to workers' compensation benefits, additional damages that can be recovered in third-party lawsuits include pain and suffering, additional wage loss benefits, additional medical benefits and loss of consortium.

Industrial machinery is comprised of moving parts that include rotating members, reciprocating arms, moving belts, meshing gears, cutting teeth and any parts that impact or shear. Although these hazardous mechanical motions and actions are present in nearly all machines, many workers have not been adequately protected from the dangers they present. Contact with any moving machine parts may be extremely hazardous to workers and can result in catastrophic injuries including crushed limbs, amputations, burns, electrocutions, traumatic head injuries, spinal injuries and blindness.