Construction Site Falls: Contractors Must Follow Safety Regulations or Pay the Price
Our firm has seen a troubling phenomenon throughout the construction industry. There are several examples of contractors not only creating severe fall hazards on job sites, but the same contractor might also fail to take the proper precautions to ensure that their employees, subcontractors, and others are protected from those severe fall hazards. Why they do this is not a mystery, nor is it nefarious. Contractors engage in these shoddy practices only to expedite the construction process for loading and unloading purposes; however, when this is done, employees are often placed in grave danger.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created regulations that require contractors to provide all people on a construction site with guardrails, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems when working at heights of six feet or more with an exposed edge. 29 C.F.R. § 1926.501(b). This regulation serves a vital safety purpose for those working on construction sites. In fact, our firm has handled numerous cases where adherence to this simple safety directive would have prevented catastrophic injury.
For example, in one case, the general contractor had taken down a temporary guardrail on the third story of an apartment construction project to simply enable an easier unloading process of the permanent guardrails from a forklift below. Our client was asked to help unload a 350-pound iron guardrail from the forklift. When he went to unload it, the guardrail slipped due to movement from the forklift. This minor slip knocked our client off of the structure, and he fell more than thirty feet. This fall caused our client multiple surgeries and permanent disabilities. Sadly, our client’s injuries could have all been avoided if the contractor had provided him with a fall arrest system, or if the contractor chose to ensure a safe work environment over created dangerous short cuts.
In another case, our client—who was an electrician—was told to throw trash down from a height of 22 feet down through a space with an exposed edge that was cut out for the installation of French doors. Our client, doing as he was told, threw a heavy pallet to the ground through the exposed edge. Through no fault of his own, the pallet caught onto another piece of material and pushed our client through the exposed area, causing a twenty-two-foot fall. As a result, our client suffered massive and permanent injuries.
Construction site falls such as these are incredibly sad because they are largely preventable. Contractors that place their hardworking employees at risk should be expected to follow clear safety rules and held accountable when they do not.
If you or a loved one has been the fall victim on a construction site, give us a call to set up a free initial consultation. Construction workers deserve to be protected, and when they are injured in cases where a contractor chooses expediency over safety, they deserve fierce representation and adequate compensation.