The Role of OSHA Violations in Workplace Injury Claims

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also known as OSHA, a section within the Department of Labor (DOL), protects employees’ workplace safety and health. OSHA was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) legislation in 1970. To achieve this goal, OSHA conducts activities like monitoring and enforcing workplace regulations and injuries, collecting and analyzing workplace safety data, and educating employers on preventing workplace hazards. Here are the complete details about it; learn more.

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What is OSHA?

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been a well-known agency within the United States Department of Labor. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Nixon, 1970), OSHA has existed since December 1970 to ensure safe working conditions as a human right. At that point, as much as this agency and the OSH Act were termed, such unclaimed laws in the history of the United States, national laws, and even safety regulations aimed at protecting the working environment were non-existent. To be precise, in 1970 alone, more than 14,000 workers died while going about their work, and close to, if not more than, 02 million were subjected to injuries or diseases that rendered them incapable of working. Statistics indicate that OSHA has significantly lowered the number of injuries, illnesses, and deaths caused by work and the number of employed persons in the United States, which is 146 million.

OSHA’s statistics register that in the year 2018, around 5250 individuals were reported to have perished at their places of work, which calculates to about 14 individuals on average every day; a 1970 comparison indicates a figure of 38 daily deaths. The latter was attributed to the high index of reported serious and disabling work-related injuries and illnesses among workers.

In what ways do OSHA violations lead to construction accidents?

Any form of OSHA infractions may result in construction injuries or, in some extreme instances, wrongful death. Scenarios of some OSHA infractions and how they lead to some of the accidents on a construction site include but are not limited to Electric shock hazards, Working away from the ground without proper cage or elevation protection, Equipment operation without safety guards Falling from defective or excessive conventional plywood formwork system Chemical inhalation poisoning due to lack of protective hearing aids or goggles Spills on the surface causing slipping Respiratory burns in cases of poor ventilation and Asbestos inhalation.

Among other things that help in proving the case of construction accidents, OSHA rules and fines are rigidly applied to help people in construction cases that are tortious against the property owner or the employer.

How Does a Violation of OSHA Standards Affect My Workers’ Compensation Claim?

When considering employee injuries, workers’ compensation is concerned with their rights to medical treatment or monetary compensation due to injuries sustained while performing their duties. In contrast, OSHA looks strictly at how safe an employee is within occupational boundaries. OSHA violations will not necessarily result in the uplift of any compensation that a worker is entitled to, even if the employee can demonstrate that an employer has violated an OSHA standard, resulting in an unsafe workplace. In almost all situations, the injured worker is limited only to the benefits prescribed by law, thereby minimizing the employer’s liability. Suppose a serious injury was caused by an OSHA violation by an entity, not the employer. In that case, such a violation can be introduced in a personal medical malpractice case and a work injury case against the employer.

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