As I discussed in Part A of this article, machine guarding is one of the most common issues litigated in industrial machinery accident lawsuits.
Part B of this article will discuss how machine guards cause injuries to operators and what you should do if you were injured by an industrial machine due to defective guarding.
Industrial machines are used in a setting in which management is always pushing productivity over safety.
These machines are also used in a setting in which dust, debris and product get jammed in the machine. When this happens, the operator is required, as part of doing his job, to sometimes stick his hand near the moving parts of the machine to remove the debris or product in order to keep the machine doing what it is intended to do.
When the machine guard is defective, improperly designed or ineffective, the machine operator's hand or arm is likely to get caught by the moving parts of the machine and cause the operator to sustain laceration or amputation injuries.
If you were injured by an industrial machine and believe that the guarding was ineffective, it is important that you hire a lawyer in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the machine.
The only way to get a proper gage on the effectiveness and the propriety of the guarding is to see the machine in operation. Therefore, your lawyer would set up an inspection to examine the machine with his industrial machinery consultants or experts in order to take a look at the machine and see the machine operating in a real life industrial setting.
It is also very important for the lawyer and his consultants to talk to other operators of the machine to see how the machine functions and inquire about the issues and problems the operators have with the machine during the workday.
After reading this article, feel free to contact our experienced industrial machinery accident lawyers to discuss your potential case. For more information, click on the articles below.
*Published: 10-25-12