Manufacturer Settles with Injured Worker Struck by an Unguarded Counterweight on a Textile Wash Box

The Injury:

A textile worker was severely and permanently injured when a counterweight struck him in the head.

The Machine:

The machine was a wash box used in a textile dying operation. A single laced textile sheet passed through a wash box with a counterweight roll that kept the cloth tight. The counterweight was located directly over an access door.

Circumstances of the incident:

The cloth being dyed had broken and one end had wrapped around the compensator roll. The worker was helping a co-worker remove the wrap up while crouched outside the machine. He had his hands and head inside the access door pulling on the end of the cloth that was hung up. The two workers were pulling the fabric out of the "wrap up." When the wrap up came free, the worker rocked backwards out of the machine into the path of the counterweight, which fell quickly and without warning and struck him in the head.

Codes, Standards and Safety Literature:

The machine violated basic safeguarding principles published in the following literature:

1. The 1916 Edition of Industrial Accident Preventionwritten by David Stewart Beyer.
2. State of New York, Department of Labor, Board of Standards and Appeals, Industrial code, Rule No. 19, entitled Guarding of Dangerous Machinery Vats and Pans, dated February, 1966, Section 19.28 Counterweights.
3. ANSI L1.1.-1981 Safety and Health Requirements for the Textile Industry, Section 14.22
4. OSHA 1910.212 General Requirements for all machines (a) Machine guarding.

The Warren Group Opinions:

1. A wash box that contains an access door that places the operator directly under the counterweight contains an uncontrolled hazard.
2. A wash box with an uncontrolled hazard will in time cause its share of injuries.
3. It was technologically and economically feasible at the time of manufacture to relocate the compensator counterweight to prevent the weight from falling onto an employee attempting to remove a wrap up created by a break out of the cloth being washed through the wash box door.
4. A wash box with an uncontrolled hazard is unreasonably dangerous, and therefore defective, if technologically and economically feasible means of eliminating the hazard are available.
5. The defective and unreasonably dangerous condition of the counterweight on the washing machine was a direct cause of the plaintiff's injury.

Success Story: The manufacturer settled with the injured worker prior to trial.

The Warren Group engineers can assist you with your machinery and equipment injury cases. Please call us toll free at (888) 827-7823 to discuss an injury case you have.