Articles Posted in Scaffold Fall Injuries

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a decision dismissing Six Flags from a Cook County lawsuit. The case arose following the death of Thomas Lee of Pleasant Prairie, Wis. Lee was a heavy equipment mechanic for a Wadsworth, Wis., contractor hired by Six Flags to dismantle the structure of its Splashwater Falls ride.

In March 2008, Lee and his co-workers disconnected and removed a motor on the ride’s platform, leaving an opening 43 feet above the ground.

As Lee was connecting cables from a crane to equipment, he fell through the opening and died. His wife, Donna Lee, filed a lawsuit against Six Flags in Cook County in July 2010 alleging that the theme park owner knew of the dangerous conditions and failed to exercise reasonable care to protect workers who were working on dismantling the ride.

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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has found five safety violations that carried a proposed penalty of $158,015 against an Illinois roofing company.  The company, Affordable Roofing and Exteriors, Inc. of Trenton, Ill., was cited after inspections at three job sites where workers were improperly using fall protection during the installation of shingles on residential roofs. Since 2009, Affordable Roofing has been cited in five inspections for similar violations by OSHA.

The inspections were carried out in 2013 in Granite City and Belleville, Ill.

At each job site inspection, OSHA found that there were willful violations for failing to ensure that workers used fall protection while doing their work on residential roofs. 

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Anthony Waring was a worker for a company that owned and operated an assisted-living facility. Waring was in the process of retrieving a snow shovel from a shed on the facility’s grounds. He fell on snow and ice as he was walking down the ramp leading from the shed.

Waring was 22 years old at the time and suffered herniated disks at L3-S1 and bulging disks at C4-6. He also developed radiculopathy, which caused pain radiating from his lower back into both of his legs. 

After the injury, Waring underwent four months of physical therapy and epidural steroid injections, but he continued to suffer pain. He might in the future require the implanting of a spinal stimulator to help with his pain problem.  Since the incident, he has not returned to work.

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John Baugh sustained a severe brain injury when the Cuprum ladder that he was using to clean his gutters buckled and collapsed. Baugh’s wife Sharon filed a lawsuit on his behalf against Cuprum S.A.de C.V. claiming that the defective design and the manufacturer’s negligence was the cause of her husband’s injuries.  John could not testify as to what happened to him because of his injuries.

About three months before the beginning of the trial, the defendant, Cuprum, informed plaintiff’s attorney that it intended to use an exemplar of the actual ladder at the jury trial. The exemplar ladder was new, but had been built to the exact specifications to the ladder that Baugh had used. In a pretrial conference on Feb. 1, 2011, Cuprum’s exemplar ladder was marked as an exhibit “for Demonstrative Purposes.”  The plaintiff’s counsel objected to any use of the new exemplar ladder at trial. Discovery had been closed for two years. The ladder had not been included in Cuprum’s expert disclosures. 

In response to the objection, Cuprum argued that the exemplar ladder was for demonstrative purposes and that it would be used during direct examination of its expert witness. It was not intended to be substantive evidence.  Cuprum also argued that the exemplar ladder would be used to demonstrate and help the jury understand the expert’s testimony. 

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Paul Junod, 51, a locomotive mechanic, fell from an elevated platform while changing shock absorbers at the Illinois Central Railroad’s Woodcrest shop in Homewood, Ill.  Junod suffered multiple fractures of his left wrist with median and radial nerve damage, which required open reduction internal fixation with a plate and screws inserted. Following the June 26, 2006 incident, Junod also developed post traumatic arthritis, chronic pain and increasing impairment of the hand. He will need future surgeries for hardware removal, nerve decompression and a possible wrist fusion.

Junod contended that the railroad chose not to provide him with adequate equipment to perform his job, which included a high-torque impact gun with deep well impact sockets, forcing him to use a breaker bar and box wrench to remove nuts from the shock absorbers. This made the task more difficult and allegedly caused Junod to lose his balance and fall off the platform.

Junod also argued that the platform was not equipped with handrails and a toe-board as required.

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James Miglore, age 58, was an electrician working at the construction site of a new Hoffman Estates park district ice arena.  The construction area was located at 1685 W. Higgins Road in Hoffman Estates, Ill.  The defendant, Harbour Contractors, was the construction manager for the project. Midwest Masonry was the masonry subcontractor.  Miglore was employed by the third-party defendant, American Electric, the electrical subcontractor.

In August 2004, Midwest Masonry built the scaffolding at the site to assist its masons in building a 10-foot interior wall.

Miglore alleged in his lawsuit that he was using Midwest’s scaffolding when he fell from it; he was working about 8 feet above ground. At the trial, Miglore testified that he had set his A-frame ladder next to the scaffolding, climbed onto the scaffolding without a problem and then took 3 to 4 steps when a board on the scaffold “flipped up” and caused his fall. 

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