Work Injuries and Regulations

09 Nov Work Injuries and Regulations

There are regulations designed to keep workplaces and the people who work in them safe. These are mostly administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). There are also specialty branches of this regulatory agency, such as the branch that works with mine safety. State regulations come into play at most worksites, as well. Employers have to follow these rules and regulations to keep their employees safe and, when they don’t comply, injuries sometimes result. In some cases, people are killed.

Some cases where workers are injured are truly egregious. If you’re working with chemicals, you have to be notified of all the hazards they pose. If you were working at a toxic waste dump, you’d know enough to ask if something was unfamiliar to you. The majority of injuries, however, don’t occur at facilities as dangerous as this. In many cases, they occur because someone is given a cleaning product that they didn’t know was hazardous or because they were required to work with materials that require protective equipment that isn’t provided. These all create cases where the employer may be guilty of negligence and where the injured party may be able to seek compensation through the courts.

Workplace injuries are sometimes so severe that lives are lost. When this is the case, a wrongful death attorney can step in and represent the survivors in court. Some people have very dangerous jobs and there are some risks that cannot be avoided. Every firefighter, for instance, understand that they may be burned to death or asphyxiate on the job, even when they’re following safety procedures to the letter. Other jobs, however, don’t necessarily entail this level of risk, unless the employer tries to cut corners, that is.

If you’ve been hurt on the job or have lost someone due to sloppy employer practices, contact a personal injury attorney. There are laws that are definitely on your side in these matters and it makes sense to have your case heard. If you don’t have a case, an attorney who works on contingency will let you know as much. They only get paid if you win, so they have no motivation in pursuing losing cases. If you have a good case, however, they’ll take it for no upfront fees. This allows you to go after the company that wronged you, or that caused you to lose a loved one.