Working in the California construction industry comes with many everyday risks. Most employees fully accept the risk of suffering construction worker accidents, but what happens when these accidents happen because of third-party negligence? For example, if the scaffolding that construction workers rely on each and every day contains defects, it needlessly adds to the risk of suffering injury.
In our practice, we have seen far too many construction workers injured because of substandard scaffolding. Our injury attorneys wonder why these types of construction accidents keep occurring. We decided to look into the matter and found some disturbing conclusions.
It turns out that scaffolds used in construction are very complex systems that require compliance with strict safety guidelines. When scaffolding manufacturers ignore safety in favor of increasing sales, the risk of accidents and injuries also increases. Some of the guidelines associated with scaffolds include:
- Frames on prefabricated scaffolds must also function as ladders with rung lengths of eight inches or more
- All scaffold platforms must be 18 inches wide at the least
- Scaffolds must have the ability to support four times the weight of its intended load
Sometimes, the way in which workers or supervisors erect a scaffold may be faulty on its own. In these cases, there is little an injured worker can do to find a solution. However, when the team erects the scaffold correctly, but its defective design or manufacture leads to construction accidents, victims can find a remedy by speaking with a legal representative.
We invite all construction workers to continue reviewing our website content. This helps you decide if you can take legal action when injured by defective industry tools or equipment.
