Contact With Objects And Machinery

New Jersey Death Claims Resulting From Falling Objects

While people who work in industrial and construction-related jobs are exposed to many more hazards than most other wage earners, those who work around heavy equipment or operate large machinery face their own particular hazards on a daily basis. As workers’ compensation attorneys who regularly help clients seek rightful compensation for injuries associated with contact with objects and machinery, the legal staff at New Jersey Workers Compensation Lawyer with the Law Offices of Jonathan F. Marshall understand how one simple mistake can have tragic and lasting consequences for victims and their families.

Compared to relatively low-risk working environments, such as retail outlets, business offices, grocery stores and restaurants, those employees who work in manufacturing plants, rail yards and shipyards, residential and commercial construction sites, and highway work zones/bridge repair are all subjected to multiple on-the-job hazards throughout the workday.

All across the Garden State, hundreds of husbands and wives, mothers and fathers go to work each day in heavy industrial and construction jobs that offer little peace of mind when it comes to personal safety. Fatal job site accidents and deaths on the factory floor take place daily throughout the U.S. These tragic events often happen to those individuals who work near or operate heavy machinery.

Because of the nature of large machines and heavy equipment, fatal work-related injuries are fairly commonplace. If you have lost a loved one as a result of an on-the-job accident, our workers’ compensation death benefit claim experts are available to assist you and your family. We offer guidance when applying for workers’ comp death benefits and can provide aggressive legal representation in cases where a third-party may be at fault in the death of your loved one.

Construction workers and those employed rail yards and as stevedores at New Jersey ports and shipyards are often some of the most at-risk individuals. Heavy machinery and large, bulky cargo and shipping containers represent constant dangers to any employee working in these potentially hazardous occupations.

Even when used properly, large machines and other heavy equipment pose a nearly constant risk of injury or death to those who operate them. Federal and state safety regulations help to keep workers from being injured due to careless mistakes or unexpected accidents, yet the nature of heavy industrial jobs makes the potential for fatal injury an ever-present threat.

On-The-Job Fatality From A Machinery Accident

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C., estimates that nearly 5,000 workers die each year in workplace-related incidents. This translates to over 13 job-related fatalities every workday. A percentage of these accidents involve workers being caught in between the working parts of large construction machines or manufacturing equipment.

The basic design of industrial machinery makes these kinds of equipment more than capable of injuring or killing a person in a number of ways.

• Moving parts. Most every large piece of industrial or construction machinery is typically composed of dozens of large, often fast-moving parts that can easily snare and catch a worker’s clothing, drawing the victim into the mechanism and crushing the person or amputating arms/legs. The resulting massive blood loss from such traumatic injuries can cause death long before help can arrive.
• Hot surfaces and scalding liquids. Equipment powered by internal combustion engines or steam power produce enough heat to make the parts and surfaces of the machinery so hot that touching them can cause first- and second-degree burns to exposed skin. Superheated liquids (as well as caustic agents) can also cause traumatic injuries that have been known to lead to death after the fact. Depending on the extent of the burns or exposure to caustic or toxic agents, victims can succumb to their injuries days or weeks following an industrial accident.

At New Jersey Workers Compensation Lawyer with JFM Law, our workers’ comp death benefit claim lawyers are ready to assist survivors in avoiding financial difficulty following the job-related death of a family’s primary income earner. We understand the emotional turmoil that can surround the loss of a loved one, and we know how family finances can spiral out of control following the loss of a breadwinner’s much-needed income.

When workers’ compensation benefits are involved, the family of a victim cannot sue the deceased person’s employer, even if it can be shown that the company failed to properly inspect, maintain or repair a machine or piece of equipment. However, with the help of a skilled products liability attorney, the victim’s family may be able to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against a third party, such as the manufacturer of the machine, if a defect or other cause can be shown to have resulted in the victim’s death. There may be other grounds for a claim against a third party; therefore, it is often useful to consult with a workers’ comp law firm to explore all options under the law.

Another reason to retain a qualified workers’ compensation death benefit claims attorney has to do with the claims process itself. More than a few New Jersey on-the-job death benefit claims have been rejected by workers’ compensation insurance carriers for less than legitimate reasons. Instead of having their claim processed quickly and efficiently, some victims’ families find that the insurance company has denied a valid claim simply to protect that company’s bottom line.

The lawyers at New Jersey Workers Compensation Lawyer understand the pitfalls of workers’ comp claims and know that while it is possible to appeal an insurance company’s decision, the process can sometimes be made easier with the help of a knowledgeable New Jersey heavy machinery death claim attorney.

Workers’ Comp Death Benefit Claims

Although being injured or killed by a falling object at work may seem a remote possibility, there are numerous instances every year where lives are lost in factories, shipyards, railroad stockyards and on construction sites all around the U.S. When compared to fatal motor vehicle accidents or slip-and-fall deaths, falling object accidents are less common, but they do occur, often with tragic results.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has reported that in the construction industry alone, deaths from falling objects represent eight percent of all fatal industrial-related accidents across the country. But work-related injuries and deaths due to falling objects don’t only occur on residential or commercial construction job sites. These kinds of accidents are also a threat to employees at big-box stores and warehouse retailers, such as Costco, Sam’s Club, IKEA, Home Depot and Lowes, to name just a few.

The New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act provides for accidental death benefits for the survivors of victims killed on the job by a falling object. Severe injuries that often lead to death when a worker is struck by a heavy falling object include, but are not limited to, crushed arms and legs, complete amputation with serious loss of blood, broken neck, severed spinal column and traumatic brain injury.

If your family has lost a loved one due to an on-the-job accident involving a falling object or fatal contact with machinery, we encourage you to contact a qualified workers’ comp death benefit claims attorney. Our legal team at New Jersey Workers Compensation Lawyer is ready to offer assistance to victims’ spouses and dependent children in Monmouth, Morris, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Bergen, Passaic Union, and Mercer counties.

If you have lost a family member due to an industrial accident or occupational exposure to hazardous or cancer-causing agents, please contact our law firm at 866-916-3549 and ask for Mr. Santarsiero. We will arrange for a free, no-obligation consultation, after which you can decide if you would like us to represent you and your family.

If you choose to retain our firm, we will work on your death benefit claim case on a contingent fee basis, which means that we will not charge any legal fees unless we make a recovery on your behalf. As workers’ compensation experts, our legal staff will guide you through the process and help your family receive the compensation due under New Jersey law.

Frequently Asked Questions About Workers’ Compensation Claims