Plant injuries are rarely close calls. A guard was missing, a lockout was bypassed, a line restarted while somebody’s hand was in it. The injury is severe, the cause is usually identifiable, and there is usually a company involved that is not your employer.
Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers handles industrial accident claims in Philadelphia, including the second claim that frequently sits behind the comp file. Call +1 (215) 875-7030.
What Counts as an Industrial Accident?
Industrial accidents are injuries that happen in production and processing environments: plants, refineries, foundries, food processing facilities, chemical operations, printing houses, mills, warehouses and heavy manufacturing.
Machinery injuries
Amputations, degloving, crush injuries and fractures from presses, conveyors, mixers, rollers and saws. Guarding and lockout failures are the recurring cause.
Falls from height
Mezzanines, catwalks, tank tops, ladders and platforms. Fall protection that was never installed, or was installed and not used because the job could not be done with it on, shows up repeatedly. Job site falls are covered in more depth on our Philadelphia construction accident lawyer page.
Crush and caught-between injuries
Forklifts, pallet movement, tipping stock and equipment that moves while a worker is inside its path.
Chemical exposure
Burns, respiratory injuries and long-latency illnesses from solvents, acids, gases and dusts. These follow the occupational disease provisions of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act rather than the ordinary accident rules, which changes the deadlines that apply.
Electrical injuries
Arc flash, electrocution and burns. Arc flash injuries in particular are frequently catastrophic and frequently traceable to a maintenance decision made by someone other than your employer.
Fires and explosions
Ignition of flammable material, failed pressure vessels and dust explosions, which are among the few plant events that injure several workers at once.
Who Else Can Be Held Responsible for an Industrial Accident?
Your employer is protected from suit. The equipment maker, the contractor working next to you and the company that owns the building are not.
Defective equipment. A press that cycles without a guard, a conveyor with a missing emergency stop, a lift whose hydraulic line fails, a machine that restarts after a power interruption. Those are product liability claims against the manufacturer, the distributor, or whoever modified the machine after it arrived.
Subcontractor negligence. Plants run on outside labor. Maintenance crews, riggers, electrical contractors, cleaning companies and installers all create hazards for workers who do not work for them.
Property owner liability. When your employer leases space, the building owner may still control the loading dock, the freight elevator, the fire suppression system or the structure itself.
How this works in practice. A packaging line operator reaches into a jam. The machine restarts because the interlock has been bypassed. Comp pays the surgery and two-thirds of his wages, and the comp claim ends there. A separate claim against the machine’s manufacturer, and against the contractor who bypassed the interlock during a service call, reaches the pain, the permanent loss of grip strength and the earnings he will never make again.
The comp insurer will have a lien on that second recovery. How the lien is negotiated decides what actually reaches the worker.
If a machine, a contractor or a landlord was involved in your accident, call +1 (215) 875-7030 before the equipment is repaired.
What Injuries and Damages Do These Cases Involve?
Industrial accidents produce the most severe injury profile in the comp system: amputations and loss of limbs, spinal cord injuries and paralysis, traumatic brain injuries, significant scarring and disfigurement, internal organ damage, hearing and vision loss, occupational illness, and death.
On the comp side, that means medical treatment and wage loss benefits, plus a specific loss award where a body part is permanently lost or rendered useless.
On the third-party side, it means everything comp will not touch: pain and suffering, loss of quality of life, emotional distress, the wage gap comp does not replace, and future earning capacity for a worker who cannot go back to the same job.
Benefit amounts, wage calculations and comp deadlines are covered on our Philadelphia workers’ compensation page.
How Does the Firm Work an Industrial Accident Case?
The first weeks decide most of it, because the evidence in these cases is physical and it does not stay put.
We investigate what failed and why, identify every company that touched the equipment or the area, and send preservation demands before the machine is repaired or scrapped. We obtain the maintenance records, the service logs and the inspection history, and we pull the OSHA inspection file where there was one.
Alongside that, we handle the comp claim so treatment gets paid and wage benefits start, and we track both deadlines, which are not the same.
Questions About the Second Claim
If I take workers’ comp, do I give up the right to sue the machine’s manufacturer?
No. Accepting comp benefits bars a suit against your employer, not against a third party. Product claims against a manufacturer run alongside the comp claim, and they reach damages comp does not pay at all.
How long do I have to bring a claim against an equipment manufacturer?
Pennsylvania generally allows two years from the date of injury for a personal injury lawsuit under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5524, which is shorter than the three-year window for a comp claim petition. Working from the comp deadline is how third-party claims get lost.
The machine that hurt me is still on the floor. Does that matter?
Very much. The machine, its guarding, its control wiring and its maintenance records are the case. Equipment gets repaired, retrofitted or scrapped quickly after a serious injury, and a preservation request sent early is often the difference between a provable claim and a theory.
What if OSHA investigated my accident?
An OSHA citation is not automatically admissible and does not decide a civil case, but the inspection file, the interviews and the abatement record are useful evidence, and they are obtainable.
Find Out Whether Someone Outside Your Employer Is Liable
Comp will cover the surgery. It will not account for a hand that no longer closes, and it will not ask who bypassed the interlock.
Tell us what machine was involved, what failed, and which outside companies had been in the building. Call +1 (215) 875-7030.
Reviewed by the workers’ compensation team at Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers, which handles plant and machinery injury claims and the third-party cases that arise from them in Philadelphia County and the surrounding counties.
