Safety insight: If you have to change your crew’s job assignment at the last minute, be sure to consider the safety implications of the job switch and double-check that all equipment needed for the new task is in good working order.
What happened: A supervisor was forced to change his crew’s work plan for the day because materials needed for the originally scheduled task hadn’t yet arrived. The new job duty required the crew to climb onto a scaffold that had been red-tagged out of service due to missing components.
What people did: When the crew needed to reposition the scaffold, one of the staffers climbed down and began to push the structure while the others remained on the equipment. As the scaffold was being moved, its wheels slipped into a hole and it toppled over. The men fell from the scaffold, and one of them was killed.
Legal challenge: The family of the deceased crew member sued, claiming that the family was entitled to damages beyond workers’ comp because the victim’s manager knew an injury would happen.
Result: The company won. The court said the family was eligible for workers’ comp only.
While the manager made several mistakes, there was insufficient evidence that he knew the scaffold would be rolled into a hole and that someone would die, which is the legal bar the family needed to meet in order to get damages beyond comp.
The skinny: While courts are usually willing to let injured employees or their families receive workers’ comp benefits, they’re less likely to rule in favor of injured staffers in court because it’s hard to prove a manager intended to injure or kill someone.
Citation: Caceres v. Preload, Inc., U.S. District Court, W.D. Louisiana, No. 2:21-cv-03834, 4/24/23.
(From the May 8, 2023, issue of Safety Alert for Supervisors. To start your no-obligation trial subscription to the publication right now, please click here.)