Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

A fatal accident earlier this month at an Eastern Oregon railroad crossing where collisions involving trains and vehicles have occurred in the past raises serious questions about corporate responsibility and road/rail safety.

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting (citing an article that originally appeared in the East Oregonian), a 63-year-old county worker died earlier this month “when a train struck a road grader on Canal Road south of Hermiston” in the Eastern part of the state. The worker was using the grader to spread gravel along one side of the tracks at the time of the accident. According to OPB “the train dragged the grader about 100 feet before it stopped.” The grader operator died at the scene of the Oregon train and car accident.

What makes this tragedy especially noteworthy are facts indicating it was ultimately preventable. As the article explains, at the crossing in question “motorists cannot see trains coming from the west until they emerge around a nearby curve. The crossing is uncontrolled, meaning it does not have traffic control arms.”

When one adds in the fact that there have been accidents involving vehicles at this particular crossing in the past it is difficult to avoid asking why the railroad company has not seen fit to install crossing arms in such an obviously dangerous location.

Private companies have a special responsibility to ensure that their products and services pose no threat to the public in situations where the public has no choice but to interact with the company – such as when a road crosses railroad tracks. From the perspective of an Oregon vehicle accident attorney it is especially important that ordinary citizens know that they have rights, and that they should not be intimidated by the rich or the powerful when it comes to claiming them. We all deserve to know we are safe when taking appropriate care as we cross train tracks. Doing so requires that the railways, too, take appropriate precautions concerning motorists’ safety.

OPB News: County Equipment Operator Killed in Canal Road Train Collision

An Idaho mine operator says it plans to contest citations and fines totaling $1 million levied by the federal government in the wake of a miner’s death earlier this year, the Associated Press reports in an article reprinted in The Oregonian. The violations that led to the citations, in turn, raise wrongful death questions and are a reminder for us here in Oregon that mine operators and other employers in hazardous industries have, at all times, both a legal and a moral obligation to do everything they can to keep employees safe.

The 53-year-old victim, a 12-year veteran of the mine according to AP, died last April after a cave-in at the place where he and his brother were working, approximately one mile underground. The two “had just finished watering down blasted-out rock and ore in the mine in the Idaho Panhandle before the collapse,” the news agency writes.

The miner’s job involved “drilling holes in a rock face, blasting it to rubble, then carting the debris to the surface to be processed into silver, lead and zinc.”

The news agency reports that the federal report “has not yet been made public,” but that did not stop the company’s president from speaking to the media to reject the four reported citations and accompanying fines. Clearly any company employing people in so inherently dangerous an occupation has a special obligation to do whatever it can to keep its employees safe.

The citations and the criticism the company has encountered in the federal report are reminders to us here in Oregon that mining can be a dangerous business. An Oregon industrial accident attorney can offer victims and their families invaluable assistance in the wake of a disaster, helping survivors to sort through the complexities of state and federal law related to Oregon wrongful deaths and Oregon industrial accidents as a first step toward ensuring that justice is served.

AP via The Oregonian: Idaho company disputes federal citations following miner’s death

Early reports that an Oregon industrial accident in North Portland left a worker critically injured have proven to be premature, according to The Oregonian. The newspaper, quoting an emergency services spokesman, reported that it was originally believed an explosion at SiC Processing had left a worker there with life-threatening injuries.

Several hours later it became clear that the victim was expected to make a “full and rapid recovery,” the paper reports.

The fact that the worker’s injuries were not as serious as was originally thought is a relief. But as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigates what the paper reports was a hydrogen blast a number of potential legal questions need to be considered.

Workplace explosions can often fit the legal definition of an Oregon industrial accident, especially when a third party (such as a vendor supplying the explosive material) is found to be at fault. People who handle dangerous chemicals or who operate heavy equipment for a living need to know not only that their employer has taken every proper precaution to ensure their safety, but that the equipment and materials they work with are also properly manufactured and maintained.

Failure to do these things often lies at the root of Oregon industrial accidents, particularly when explosions are involved. Contacting a Portland industrial accidents lawyer as soon as possible in the wake of a workplace explosion can be a critical first-step for victims trying to put their lives back together and get a better sense of their rights.

The Oregonian: Man injured in North Portland explosion expected to recover fully

A recent announcement that insurance giant Allstate is buying the Esurance and Answer Financial brands from the smaller, less well-known, White Mountains Insurance Group raises several troubling questions.

According to an Associated Press article, Allstate expects to pay about $1 billion for the two brands. The acquisition will allow Allstate to broaden the offerings available under its corporate umbrella. AP cites an Allstate press release claiming “the deal will help it tap consumers who prefer certain brands along with consumers who want choices among insurance carriers.”

Leaving aside the dubious claim that one company’s marketing of its products under different names actually constitutes “choice” from a consumer’s perspective, customers might also want to consider what a company really has in mind when it makes acquisitions like this at below-market-value. Notably, White Mountain told the AP that the sale “will increase its book value by $80 per share.” Yet in trading after the deal was announced White Mountain’s stock rose by only $51 (about 15%) – indicating that the market thinks White Mountain should have gotten more money from Allstate for the deal to raise the company’s valuation as much as the White Mountain claims.

So Allstate seems to have obtained Esurance and Answer Financial at a cut-rate price. Combine this with Allstate’s PR statement announcing, according to AP, “its first-quarter profit more than quadrupled as it paid out less money for damage claims” and one has to wonder who, exactly, Allstate is keeping in “good hands” – its investors or the customers who count on it for insurance coverage.

From an Oregon personal injury attorney’s perspective, this is a near textbook example of the mindset consumers often find themselves struggling against when seeking a just settlement following a Portland auto accident, a severe injury to the brain or spinal cord or an industrial accident. Fighting for your rights against a company more concerned with its bottom-line than with fair play or justice is never easy. Severe injuries here in Oregon should not lead to a series of battles with an insurance company over the benefits you deserve, but when they do it is important to have an experienced Portland personal injury lawyer in your corner.

Associated Press: Allstate buys Esurance, Answer Financial for $1B

The death of a Forest Grove resident in an Oregon explosion near Gaston raises critical safety issues. According to television station KGW, the blast at the Stimson Lumber Company also injured at least two other workers. The incident may fit Oregon’s definition of an industrial accident, depending on what investigators determine to be its precise details.

The station, quoting local fire department officials, reports that the accident took place when “a six-foot-tall hydraulic accumulator machine exploded… as three workers were trying to dismantle it.” The incident also led to other parts of the mill complex being evacuated, KGW notes, “as a safety precaution.” State OSHA officials were reportedly on-site to begin their investigation shortly after the accident occurred.

Complex incidents like this one may fit the definition of an Oregon industrial accident if the equipment involved can be shown to have been defective or if the suggested procedures for operating it offered inadequate safety protections. Oregon explosions and similar industrial accidents often require specialized legal knowledge to litigate, because of the complex – often overlapping – layers of accountability on and off the job site that need to be examined as part of any court proceeding.

An Oregon industrial accident attorney can help loved ones and survivors make their way through this legal thicket, undertaking the often-complex task of carefully examining all of a case’s particulars in an effort to determine the parameters of a genuinely just settlement.

Any time a worker dies on the job the state of Oregon, acting on behalf of all of us as Oregonians, must look carefully at the circumstances involved in an effort to protect workers and other citizens, and to prevent similar tragic deaths in the future. Oregon and Washington industrial accident lawyers are part of this system, helping ensure that irresponsible or negligent companies take responsibility for their actions.

The Oregonian: Three injured after explosion at Stimson Lumber in Gaston

KGW.com: Worker dies in Stimson lumber mill explosion

Earlier this week Notre Dame University wrapped-up its investigation of an accident last October in which a 20-year-old student was killed when the mobile lift from which he was filming football practice toppled over amidst high winds. In a news conference the school’s president announced, in effect, that because everyone involved was partly to blame for Declan Sullivan’s death no one in particular was actually responsible, according to an account by sports columnist Mike McGovern.

The idea that universal blame for this tragedy means no one is individually responsible is disturbing – especially since, in many respects, it clashes with the findings of Indiana’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration. That organization fined the university for a list of workplace safety violations related to the accident. According to McGovern: “Notre Dame was cited for failure to properly train the students, failure to have the lift serviced and inspected as required, failure to have an operator’s manual on the lift and failure to have warning labels displayed.” IOHSA has levied over $77,000 in fines for these violations, which the university is contesting.

At a more basic level, however, someone made the decision to send Sullivan up an unsafe lift “in known adverse conditions.” Someone decided that videotaping football practice overrode legitimate concerns about a student’s safety.

One of the main reasons why we have civil courts – why our system of laws allows individuals to seek justice independent of the criminal prosecutions system – is to ensure that victims and their families can demand accountability at moments such as this. As an Oregon wrongful death attorney I am committed to helping families achieve the justice they deserve in situations where those who bear responsibility cannot, or will not, own up to their responsibilities.

Regardless of whether the tragedy at Notre Dame constitutes wrongful death, or fits the legal definition of an industrial accident, it is a painful reminder of the responsibilities all universities have to see to the safety of their students. That lesson is one that is as important here in Oregon as it is in Indiana.

Reading Eagle: Seems no one is to blame for death at Notre Dame

SB Nation: Promoting Declan Sullivan’s legacy more important than firing those responsible

A truck driver from California died last week in an Oregon truck accident on I-84 near Rufus, east of Portland, according to The Oregonian.

The victim, identified by police as Lino Domingo Lopez-Hernandez, died as a result of an unusual chain of events that began with a blowout on his own vehicle. Sorting out any resulting Oregon personal injury or wrongful death claims that may eventually arise from the accident is likely to be a complex business.

According to the newspaper, the accident began to unfold shortly after midnight last Thursday as Lopez-Hernandez was driving his big-rig west on I-84. The truck lost two tires and an axel for reasons that remain unclear. Lopez-Hernandez immediately pulled over. He was walking along the side of the road looking for the missing pieces of his truck when a pick-up, also traveling in the westbound lane, hit the truck debris, hurling it into Lopez-Hernandez. “The flying debris sent him over a guardrail and about 200 feet down an embankment, where authorities found his body,” The Oregonian reports.

The potential legal issues raised by this tragedy are legion. Could the driver of the pick-up reasonably have avoided the debris? Was Lopez-Hernandez searching for the lost pieces of his truck in a reasonably safe way? Was the truck itself defective or improperly maintained – a fact that, if it were proven to be true, could leave the truck’s manufacturer or owner subject to an Oregon industrial accident claim (exactly who might be liable would depend on who owned and serviced the truck and their legal relationship to the victim).

In cases like this, it is the role of a Portland truck crash lawyer to sort through exactly these sort of complex issues, helping victims and their families achieve the justice they deserve. Our legal system can be confusing for outsiders, but that does not mean that victims should surrender their rights. An Oregon personal injury attorney can act as both our advocate and your guide through every level of our court system.

The Oregonian: Police identify California trucker killed on I-84 near Rufus

Salem Statesman-Journal: 1 dead in early morning crash on I-84

Nine months after an explosion in a West Virginia coal mine left 29 mine worker dead, the Wall Street Journal reports that many families torn apart by the tragedy remain unsure of their next legal steps forward. Their stories contain many lessons for Oregon families thrown into similarly tragic circumstances as the result of an Oregon wrongful death or industrial accident.

As the paper reports, within days of the mine explosion the board of Massey Energy Company, one of the largest and most powerful companies in West Virginia, offered each family a settlement: $3 million in compensation for the death, lost wages and lost companionship of their loved-one, in exchange for giving up any right to sue the company. The Journal reports that, at present, only seven families have agreed to the company’s settlement, and that “in at least two cases family members are at odds and plan to let a court decide which path they should take.”

For the families the choice is a painful one. As the Journal quotes one victim’s father, himself a miner, saying: “I don’t think it’s justifiable that they want to put a dollar sign on my boy.” As the article notes, the families of workers involved in other industrial accidents often face similarly agonizing choices.

For working families, the compensation offered can seem like an overwhelming amount of money, but accepting it, and foregoing the opportunity to file a wrongful death lawsuit, can leave relatives feeling that they have traded cash for accountability.

For those left behind, there are never any easy answers when confronted with choices like these. That is why taking time to explore, and carefully consider, options makes so much sense. Talking with a personal injury or wrongful death attorney does not, in and of itself, commit you to any course of action, but can offer both information and legal insights that are crucial when making such an important decision.

Wall Street Journal: Dead Miners’ Kin Wrestle With Choice to Settle or Sue

A scathing statement released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board cites “a series of improper actions” by a Grant’s Pass, Oregon contractor leading up to a 2008 crash that killed nine firefighters in California. According to a report in The Oregonian, the NTSB’s chairwoman found some actions by the company, Carson Helicopters, “so distressing that the NTSB has alerted the Department of Transportation’s inspector general to investigate in more detail, looking for possible criminal wrongdoing.”

The NTSB statement (see link below) paints a devastating picture of corporate negligence and deception. Referring to Carson, whose helicopters were contracted out to the US Forest Service for firefighting purposes, the NTSB writes: “The contractor’s actions included the intentional alteration of weight documents and performance charts and the use of unapproved performance calculations.”

Though the NTSB also found fault with actions by both the Forest Service and the Federal Aviation Administration, “Carson’s actions were so egregious – so egregious – that they have to go first,” NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told The Oregonian.

When government investigators believe the evidence of wrongdoing to be so overwhelming, the question has to be asked: what is the best way for the victims families to obtain justice? Criminal sanctions may deter Carson or other companies from similar activity in the future, but they offer little to the families of the dead and the injured.

In the wake of the NTSB report a strong case can be made that the firefighters tragedy is grounds for an Oregon wrongful death action in civil court. Though the helicopter crash took place in California, the fact that Carson is an Oregon-based company means that the bereaved families would be well-advised to speak with an Oregon wrongful death attorney as they consider their options in the wake of this needless tragedy.

The Oregonian: NTSB lambasts Carson Helicopters of Grant’s Pass in 2008 crash that killed 9 firefighters

NTSB News Release on Carson Helicopters and the Weaverville CA Crash

A logging accident in Chehalis, Washington late last week led to one worker’s death, according to a report by the Associated Press. According to the news agency, 47-year old Michael Messner of Longview, Washington died “while operating a logging processor.”

Quoting police sources, the agency says “Messner died Thursday when a chain broke and rammed through the windshield of the processor’s cab, striking him in the throat.” Washington state officials have begun an investigation. An official of the logging company for whom Messner was working says the company is also conducting its own investigation of the workplace accident.

All of this is noteworthy for Oregonians because of the reported circumstances surrounding Messner’s death. Had a similar accident taken place here in Oregon the victim’s family would be well-advised to consult with a Portland industrial accident attorney to see whether grounds exist for an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit.

Ordinarily, workplace injuries are handled under the workman’s compensation system – legally speaking, a different topic. But the involvement, or potential involvement, of a third party changes the situation under Oregon law. In such situations an Oregon wrongful death or Oregon defective product suit may be possible. In the case of Mr. Messner, for example, an Oregon wrongful death attorney would have to ask whether defects in the machinery he was operating led to the accident that killed him. Should the chain have broken in the first place and, once it did, was it reasonable to expect the windshield to stop it?

Legal issues such as these can be complex, and often require the specialized skills a Portland, Salem, Eugene or Corvallis personal injury attorney can offer to clients. If tragedy strikes a loved one while he or she is on the job, it is important to ask whether a defective Oregon product may have been partly to blame.

AP via The Oregonian: Longview man killed in logging operation near Chehalis, Wash.

Contracts between the Pentagon and defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root grant the company complete immunity in Iraq for harm its employees may cause to either Iraqi civilians or American and other coalition soldiers.

That immunity – cited by KBR in defending itself against an Oregon workplace injury lawsuit – has prompted Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat who represents much of the Portland area, to demand an explanation from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to The Oregonian. In his letter to Gates, Blumenauer called the blanket liability exemption “mind-numbing”.

The newspaper reports that the exemption came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by 26 Oregon National Guardsmen who served in Iraq in 2003. The troops were assigned to guard KBR employees undertaking reconstruction work. The guardsmen claim that “the contractor knowingly or negligently exposed them to a cancer-causing chemical” the newspaper reports. A similar suit is also being considered by courts in Indiana.

The company has argued that the exemption – which was originally kept secret – immunizes it from any liability concerning injuries the soldiers may have suffered while guarding its activities.

This case is a reminder of the important role an Oregon personal injury lawyer can play in resolving claims related to Oregon workplace accidents – especially those which may have resulted in a wrongful death. Consulting with a Portland industrial accident attorney can be an important first step in determining what recourse you may have following an industrial accident – particularly one whose origins can be traced to negligence on the part of the company. Holding powerful private-sector companies responsible for the damage they cause is one of the most important functions with which a Portland industrial liability lawyer can assist you.

The Oregonian: Blumenauer demands that Pentagon explain KBR immunity deal