Brooklyn Personal Injury Attorney Upholds Construction Workers’ Rights
Construction projects are high-risk ventures where there’s no margin for error and worker safety is at a premium. When certain dangers are present and you’re in the line of fire, your fight for justice needs all the legal ammo you can get. Such is the case in workplace related incidents in construction sites like the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
In many cases, workplace accidents could have been prevented had proper safety measures been put in place. In instances like this, the injured workers have the right to seek compensation, with the help of a Brooklyn personal injury attorney such as one from The Law Offices of Joseph M. Lichtenstein.
There had been news of worker injuries at the World Trade Center site that had led to lawsuits against the site’s construction company and the Port Authority, which controls the WTC buildings. One involved ironworker Robert Deacy, who fell one-third or one-half down an 20-foot ladder, which, he claimed in a report by NY Daily News, had “a very severe pitch and at the bottom of it there were a bunch of unprotected rebar sticks sticking up”. Deacy suffered multiple injuries and spent several months in rehab as a result of the fall. He currently has a pending suit against Phoenix Construction and the Port Authority. According to the NY Daily News report, this incident was not reported to the OHSA.
Unreported workplace incidents are quite a dangerous fact of life in the construction industry. Some studies say that at least 25% of all construction accidents in the U.S. are never reported.
Another WTC site incident was that of a 23-year-old apprentice who suffered multiple injuries after an improperly-stowed steel beam hit him during a shift at 3 WTC in July 2012. OSHA was alerted and fined the company that provided the steel beam $3,500 – the worker settled for $3,150, but finds it hard to walk because the beam crushed his legs.
There are many kinds of accidents that can take place in a construction project, and amassing evidence will be vital to marking who’s liable for it. A Brooklyn injury lawyer is schooled in the workings of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and how it deals with workplace safety issues. Safeguards can be set up to protect a reporting employee against employer retaliation.
The life of every construction site employee, from project manager to the crane operators, is just as important as the quality of materials and skills allocated to the project. It’s never too late to seek redress especially when one accident deprives you of the capability to earn a livelihood.
(Source: Dozens of injuries at World Trade Center construction site went unreported, New York Daily News, 3 November 2014)