A roofing contractor in Rockland County is facing approximately $244,000 in penalties for repeatedly exposing residential roof workers to potentially deadly falls from heights of 18 to 20 feet, officials with the U.S. Department of Labor stated. According to a report on Insurancejournal.com, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) identified nine willful violations in its inspections of the contractor’s worksites.
Workers Placed in Serious Danger
The violations include employees working without the required fall protection as they performed roofing work and workers lacking protective headgear, face and eye shields to prevent injuries from falling or flying debris, plywood, nails and other objects.
Under New York’s Scaffolding Law, workers must be protected from falls with guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems when they work 6 feet or more above lower levels. Workers must also be provided with personal protective equipment to safeguard against any bodily injury that may occur in construction site accidents.
OSHA had sited the contractor at three other worksites in New York and New Jersey between 2019 and 2021 including one in Kiamesha Lake where a worker died from a fall in February 2019. OSHA officials mentioned that the company’s repeated failure to install required fall protection systems continues to place its workers at risk of fatal or disabling injuries.
OSHA has repeatedly sent out the message that fall-related deaths are preventable when construction companies and contractors plan ahead to do the job safely and provide their workers the required training and equipment.
What Should Be Done to Protect Workers?
Construction companies, contractors and other responsible parties must set up, assess and maintain the worksite carefully in order to prevent employees from falling off scaffolds, overhead platforms or other structures. OSHA requires that fall protection be provided at elevations of 4 feet in general industry worksites, 5 feet in shipyards, 6 feet in the construction industry and 8 feet in longshoring operations. OSHA also requires that fall protection be provided when working over dangerous equipment or machinery regardless of the fall distance.
Here are some of the other steps OSHA recommends to prevent falls:
• Guard every floor hole by using a railing and toe-board or a floor hole cover.
• Provide guardrails and toe boards around every elevated open-sided platform.
• Provide guardrails and toe boards to prevent workers from falling and getting injured.
• Use other means of fall protection such as safety harnesses, safety nets, stair railing and handrails, depending on the nature of the job.
• Keep floors and work areas clean and dry to avoid slip and fall or trip-and-fall accidents.
• Provide required personal protective equipment at no cost to workers.
• Train workers about job hazards in a language they can understand.
Protections Under New York Law
Construction workers in New York, including roofers, are covered by Section 240 of the New York Labor Law, which charges construction companies, contractors and other parties with the responsibility of providing workers with proper fall protection while constructing, demolishing, remodeling or doing other types of work such as roofing on structures. This law assigns strict liability for accidents to the parties responsible for assigning and managing the work.
Therefore, a worker who suffers a fall — including laborers such as ironworkers, steelworkers, carpenters, electricians, bricklayers, painters, masonry and pointing workers, etc. — can seek workers’ compensation benefits from his or her employer. In addition, victims and their families may be able to file a third-party lawsuit for substantial money damages against a number of at-fault parties, and thus have two sources of compensation.
Third-party claims are filed against parties other than the employer or co-employees and may include general contractors, sub-contractors, building owners, managing agents, construction companies, etc. In cases where a worker dies from injuries suffered on the job, surviving family members may seek death benefits through workers’ compensation and/or file a wrongful death claim against a third party.
Contacting an Experienced Lawyer
If you have suffered injuries in a construction-related accident, the experienced New York personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm can help you better understand your legal rights and options, and also fight hard to recover just compensation for you.
Our law firm recovered $3,375,576 for a construction worker (an undocumented immigrant) who was injured on the job — one of the highest construction case settlements in New York that year. Our law firm also recovered $3,000,000 for a man who fell and suffered two broken legs when he walked into an open elevator shaft. Also, one of our clients obtained a verdict for $43,940,000 and another of our clients got a verdict for $23,500,000, both in medical malpractice cases.
Please contact us TOLL FREE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). WE CAN EVEN COME TO YOU. There is no attorneys’ fee unless we recover money for you. We can also help with personal injury and/or medical malpractice cases in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been seriously injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
Other TOLL FREE phone numbers for us are:
1-800-RADIO-LAW, 1-888-WYPADEK, OR 1-800-LAS-LEYES
Please visit us at: www.WORK4YOULAW.com
Source: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2021/12/20/646361.htm