Houston Machinery Injury Attorneys

Have you been injured by a piece of machinery while at work?

A “machinery injury” refers to a work related injury which an employee suffers on the job as the result of contact with a mechanical device.

In addition to the obvious reasons, usually the injuries caused by machinery are particularly devastating because the victim is usually exposed to the injury inducing components for an extended period of time. Rather than an instantaneous impact, such as the kind you would experience in a car accident, the machine usually does not turn off on its own, and as such, hands, arms, and other limbs can be “drawn” into the machine leaving the employee to suffer until the machinery can be powered down.

The Alarming Trend of Employer Negligence and Machinery Accidents

Many of the more recent work injury cases coming out of Houston have involved machinery-related injuries whereby the employer removed safety covers or safety guards from the machinery making it possible for an employee to put his hands or other extremities in places that the manufacturer of the machine did not intend for hands to go.

This safety equipment is most often removed by the employer in order to speed up production even if it greatly increases the risk of one of its employees getting hurt. The safety guards are put in place by the manufacturer of the machine because one of its engineers felt it was necessary for the protection of the people who operate the machine. So for an employer, who usually has no engineering expertise, to summarily remove any safety cover or guard is certainly negligent if not grossly negligent.

Lack of Training

Another tremendous factor in a machinery accident is whether or not the employee using the machinery has been properly trained. In most of the machinery related accidents our firm has handled, we have found that employee training was severely lacking. This creates a scenario where the employee is put in a situation that they may not realize is dangerous. One of our most recent such cases involved a young man whose hand became caught in a meat skinning machine. As it turned out, the employee was simply operating the machine in the exact manner he had been been taught by his supervisor. The problem was that the supervisor was not properly trained and had shown him an incredibly dangerous way to perform his duties. Most employees that become injured by machinery are made to feel as if it is there fault. Sadly, many of these injured workers never seek out the legal help they need.

Defective Machinery

In some instances of machinery-related injuries, the manufacturer of the machine contributes to the injury. While most manufacturers of factory and processing machinery build in all of the required safety features, they don't always hit the mark in terms of engineering. It is not uncommon for a piece of machinery to severely injure an employee simply due to a malfunction or defect resulting from poor design. In other words, the manufacturer may create a machine that has a guard keeping the employee's hands from getting caught in a belt, but that doesn't mean that the belt won't snap under tension and take out the employee's eye.

Additionally, the machinery may become defective due to improper maintenance. Failure to follow the manufacturer recommended maintenance procedures is a recipe for disaster. In some instances, this maintenance is conducted by the company using the machine, and in some instances, a third party company is used to maintain the device.

It is absolutely imperative that as soon as an accident that involves a piece of defective machinery occurs, the victim must get legal representation in order to have the authority to preserve the evidence by filing for a subpoena to pull the machinery aside for an investigation.

Some Common types of machinery that cause severe injuries all manner of conveyor belts, power tools, CNC machines, lathes, drill presses, sorters, canning machines, presses, brakes, compactors, cutting and tearing devices, etc.

Naturally, when pursuing any type of injury case related to machinery in use on the job, the issue of whether or not the employer has workers' compensation coverage must be determined first. Please see our other pages on “workers compensation” and “non subscriber cases” for more detail with regard to the importance of making that determination.