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Last week, another Pennsylvania worker lost his life on the job. The Arcelor Mittal Steel Co. employee was unloading newsprint from a railroad boxcar at the Philadelphia Inquirer plant in Upper Merion when the workplace accident occurred shortly before 9:30 a.m. on Friday.
Officials said the 43-year-old worker was crushed to death when one of the rolls of newsprint weighing 1,500 pounds tumbled out of the railroad car after he opened the door. An initial investigation suggested that the rolls of newsprint had shifted during travel and that is why they were unstable.
A police spokesman said that the accident occurred as the deceased man and another worker were opening the doors of the seven boxcars before the rolls of newsprint were unloaded. He said that the death “appears to have been an accident,” and that there was “no indication that the rolls were left unsecured.”
Investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office are all working together to probe the scene of the accident. If safety violations are discovered, the plant owner could face OSHA fines.
Additionally, a wrongful death lawsuit is also a possibility if negligence on behalf of the employer put the worker at risk. On the other hand, if no one was at fault in the accident, the family of the worker who was killed may be able to collect workers’ compensation death benefits.
Unlike wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits, workers’ compensation claims do not take fault into consideration. In other words, even if an injured worker is at fault in a workplace accident, he or she is still able to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits.
Source: Montgomery Media, “Worker killed at Philadelphia Inquirer plant in Upper Merion,” Carl Rotenberg, May 18, 2012