If you work manual labor, odds are that you work with tools or heavy equipment on a regular basis. We trust that all products are in good working order, but if they aren’t, you can be at risk for an injury. How this product became defective and who is to blame is often up for debate and interpretation, but it can have a significant effect on your injury compensation. Today, we look at some examples of negligence and defective machinery in the Minnesota injury compensation process.
Negligence and Injury
If you are hurt at work, you can take solace in knowing that you have a valid workers’ compensation claim. However, if it turns out that your employer willfully ignored scheduled maintenance or was negligent, you may be entitled to more compensation. We’ll explain through a bunch of examples to help clarify.
The example will be divided into three similar but slightly different scenarios. Although it is a specific example, the underlying principles can be applied across all industries.
1. You’re a pizza delivery man working on Friday night. In order to save on paying drivers for mileage in their own vehicles, the company provides two company cars to deliver pizzas. You jump in a company car and drive to the customer’s house, but on the way, the brakes give out, you hit a light pole and injure your neck. There were no warning signs that the brakes were bad before they gave out.
1a. The same situation occurs, but in this scenario, an employee driving the car the night before noticed a funny noise when pressing the brakes. The owner checks the car and notices that while the brakes are a little loose, the car still stops fine. He schedules a brake check on Tuesday and tells the employees to continue using the car since it’s still driving and stopping. The next night, you drive the car, the brakes give out, and you injure your neck.
1b. The same situation as 1a, but in this case, the boss has repeatedly been told that the brakes are bad and he tells employs to continue using it until he can sell it on Craigslist. Before he can sell it, the brakes give out and you are injured.
How would these cases play out? In the first situation, you could collect workers’ compensation because you were injured on the job and your employer could not have easily prevented the injury from occurring. In situation 2a, it’s unlikely that you could collect any damages other than workers’ compensation. Although your boss suspected something may be wrong with the brakes, he had taken reasonable steps to fix the problem and wouldn’t be viewed as negligent in the eyes of the court. However, the man in the third scenario may be able to sue his employer because the boss knew of the problem for a while and was not really taking tangible steps to fix the problem. That being said, his lawyer will likely argue that his intention to sell the car was actually a reasonable attempt to rectify the situation, so it’s not a slam dunk case. You’ll want a good lawyer if you’re pursuing a third party claim in this instance.
Product Defect Injuries
Let’s look at some more examples, but this time we’ll look at defective product injuries and manufacturer liability.
2. As a roofer, you are required to bring your own hammer to work every day. You’ve used the same hammer for 20 years, and the head is a little loose. You go to hammer a nail and the head flies off and strikes your hand, breaking a finger. You would be eligible for workers’ compensation, but you wouldn’t likely be able to sue the hammer manufacturer, since wear and tear is expected over that duration, you knew the head was loose and still decided to use it, and it was your personal hammer.
3. You’re back in the pizza parlor, but this time you’re cleaning the kitchen at the end of the night. You go to put the extra dough in the walk-in cooler after everybody leaves for the night. The cooler, which is only supposed to lock from the outside, ends up locking behind you. By the time the manager comes in the next morning and opens the freezer, you’ve suffered frostbite in your fingers and toes. In this case, you’d give us a call and we’d retain a locksmith to examine the mechanism and provide an explanation as to why the freezer locked behind you. If the lock was faulty and locked when it wasn’t supposed to, you could seek a big payday from the cooler manufacturer for your pain and suffering. However, if it turns out another employee accidentally locked you in there because they thought the cooler was empty, you’d only be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.
There are a lot of things that you need to prove in order to seek a third party claim against either your employer or a product manufacturer. Should you feel that you have a valid case for either, your best bet is to hire a Minnesota law firm that had handled similar cases. We’ve worked a number of third-party claim cases, and we can help you too. Call Hey Workers today.
