Long Beach Welding Accident Attorney

Welders play an important role in our society. Whether they are creating large-scale infrastructure, aiding in manufacturing, or working in mining, welding is a key component to many of the industries that make our country run properly. It’s an essential, respected profession that touches every area of our lives, whether we notice it or not.

If you are a welder, you know that the job is not only essential, but it’s dangerous as well. Welding professionals run the risk of suffering from burns, exposure to toxic materials, electric shock, and more. In order to complete essential tasks, you put yourself in harm’s way, risking your body and your health for the sake of others.

If you have been injured at work as a welder, you may be able to take legal action. Just as with any industry, your superiors or contractors are legally obligated to provide you with the equipment to stay safe. If you get hurt because they fail to do so, or if someone else acts negligently, you have the right to seek compensation.

Pratt Williams: Your Long Beach Welding Accident Attorneys

As with any personal injury case, welding accidents require proper legal representation. This is especially true if you wish to receive the compensation that you deserve. Our team at Pratt Williams is here to be that representation for you.

Our team has decades of experience in personal injury and welding accident law, so you know that you are getting proper expertise when you work with us. We take the time to tailor your case to you, giving you a much higher chance at a favorable outcome. We believe that the unique details of your case will allow the court to see why you deserve maximum reparations for what happened to you.

When you work with our team, you can trust us to give you honest, upfront legal advice. We don’t hide details from you, nor do we tell you what you want to hear if it isn’t true. You can trust us to be completely open with you about your case, including if we think that a settlement would be a good option. Unlike many other law firms, we don’t lie in order to win your business.

With a diverse firm of driven, passionate lawyers, you are guaranteed to the best legal counsel when you work with us at Pratt Williams.

What Is a Welding Injury Case?

You have the right to remain healthy and happy while you’re at work. As a welder, there are many hazards that occur as part of your profession. Some injuries occur because of a freak accident or an unavoidable situation. Many times, however, injuries are preventable. This is because employers have legal standards for job sites that they must meet to ensure your safety. These include:

• Providing proper safety equipment
• Ensuring that your tools work correctly and are updated
• Providing proper training and refresher training when necessary
• Preventing workers from using equipment without required licensing
• Allowing time for proper breaks, meals, and rest times between shifts
• Ensuring that there is no roughhousing, drug or alcohol use, or any other dangerous activities occurring on the job site

Depending on your job site or project, there may be additional guidelines that your employer needs to follow. These keep you safe, and ensure that the project can go smoothly.

Because these safety standards are a legal obligation, your employer must ensure that they are in place. If they do not and you are hurt on the job, you can seek compensation for medical bills, time off work, and suffering that resulted from their negligence. This is where a welding accident case comes in. There are specific sets of laws that allow you to take action against an employer who has failed to protect you as they are required. This is similar to many personal injury and workplace injury cases, simply more specific to your industry.

Why Do I Need a Long Beach Personal Injury Lawyer?

When it comes to personal injury law, it’s important to have proper legal representation when you go to court. This is true for many reasons, the most important of which is your health. When you are fighting for compensation for an injury, you are simultaneously healing from that injury. The trauma that you’ve suffered takes a lot of time and energy to heal, and it’s important that you rest and allow your body to do its work. The added stress of representing yourself in court only stands to impede the healing process, and can even prevent you from healing altogether.

From a legal standpoint, representing yourself is never a good idea. Though you may believe that your case is straightforward, your workplace’s attorneys will do everything in their power to make it seem otherwise to the court. Their job is to create a story about what happened and convince the court that it’s true. Many people are surprised by how convincing these stories can be, and how easily they can sway the court.

Ultimately, if you want to receive proper compensation and avoid paying for medical bills and lost wages yourself, you need an attorney on your side.

When Should I Hire a Lawyer After an Accident?

It is important that you get legal services right away when you’re in a welding accident. The injuries in this field are often severe, and many people need medical attention right away. It is especially important to hire an attorney quickly because the evidence does not last forever. Companies can easily clean or retroactively repair their facilities, so the evidence of their negligence is not so obvious. They can also falsify records or create checklists that they never actually completed. It’s easy to lose your argument the longer you wait.

Potential Injuries in a Welding Accident Claim

Personal injury is a large facet of the legal system, and therefore can include many different kinds of injuries. However, welding accidents are a bit more specific. Because your industry involves a finite set of actions and risks, there are a few injuries that are more common in welding accidents. These include:

• Vision or hearing loss from bright lights and loud noises
• Inhalation of toxic fumes
• Exposure to harmful UV light
• Burns from sparks, flames, and hot materials
• Electrocution
• Eye injuries, including foreign objects in the eye, damage from light exposure, and more

Though these are the most common injuries, it is still possible to be injured in other ways on the job site. If you get hurt at work, it is worth exploring a welding accident case with an attorney.

Potential Points of Compensation

Though the details of your injury are unique to you, there are some standard expenses that we consider when determining how large your settlement should be. Though the sum will vary depending on your situation, the factors used to determine your settlement will not.

The first category of compensation, and perhaps most significant, is for your medical bills. This sum should cover any medical expenses from any part of the injury aftermath. This means that ambulance rides, ER visits, surgeries, and hospital stays that occurred as a result of the injury should be included. Additionally, we include lasting care expenses. This means that follow-up visits, specialist referrals, physical therapy, and mobility equipment should be considered when determining what your employer owes to you.

The second aspect of a welding accident settlement includes income that you lost because of your injuries. For example, if your injury caused you to miss work for two months in order to heal, your settlement can include the total of your income for those two months. If you do contract work or run your own company and are suing a job site foreman that you worked for, you can include missed job opportunities as part of this sum.

Many people also wonder whether they can include “pain and suffering” as part of their compensation amount. Unfortunately, there’s no singular answer to this. Pain and suffering compensation is usually granted to those who underwent an extremely traumatic or malicious event. For example, if your employer got angry with you and used your welding torch to burn your skin on purpose, pain and suffering is definitely on the table. However, if you suffered from an accident, pain and suffering isn’t always considered.

The best way to determine how you will be compensated is by talking to our attorneys. When we review your unique situation, the evidence, and your position, we will be able to give you an amount that is more accurately tailored to your situation. Without knowing the details, it’s difficult to say exactly how much your settlement will be.

How to Establish Fault in a Welding Accident Personal Injury Claim

In order to successfully win your case, it’s important to show the court that your employer is at fault for the accident. If no one was at fault, you are more likely to earn basic workers’ compensation rather than a settlement. Establishing fault can be difficult, depending on the circumstances of your accident.

Video surveillance is one of the most reliable ways to establish fault. First-hand accounts can be inaccurate or tainted by the chaos that often follows an injury. Video surveillance gives us an unbiased account of what happened, which is a great way to begin building a case of fault. Unfortunately, video surveillance is not always available. If you are working in an established studio or location in which welding occurs regularly, you may have more luck. Construction sites do not always have proper surveillance.

Firsthand accounts are not ideal as the only proof. However, they are still important to building a case. If you are injured, take note of who is nearby if you can. This will help later when we assemble your case, as we know who to contact.

Photos can make up a significant amount of evidence for your case. This is especially true if equipment malfunctions, an employer fails to implement safety protocol, or safety equipment is missing or damaged. These can all implicate an employer and prove fault. If you are in an accident, it is important to take photos of the following:

• The surrounding area, including any signs in view
• The damaged machinery (if applicable)
• The damaged safety equipment (if applicable)
• Injuries
• Debris, including tripping hazards

These can all help to piece together fault in a welding accident case. If you can’t take pictures at the time of the accident, your attorney can go back and take them for you if the debris is still there.

Finally, medical records can provide vital information in a personal injury case. Your medical records paint a picture of what happened on the scene, as well as the extent of the damage. Both for your personal records and for the case, it is important to ask for copies of new medical forms following any appointments.

Negligence in a Welding Accident Case

Fault and negligence can be very similar in welding accident cases, but it’s important to establish the difference between the two. Negligence is important on its own, as it is often the basis of an argument of fault.

Negligence occurs when one person, or a group of people, fails to do something that is expected of them. In order to prove this, we must show that:

1. The defendant had a duty or responsibility
2. The defendant failed to perform that duty or responsibility, either accurately or at all
3. The defendant’s failure to perform that duty led to the injuries at hand
4. The defendant should have or could have foreseen the consequences that would result from their failure to accurately perform their duty
5. The plaintiff truly suffered as a result

This may seem like a lot, but it’s easier to understand in the context of an actual case. For example, let’s say that your supervisor is supposed to do a safety check on a scaffolding each morning. However, they decided to not do their safety check, so they missed the fact that a board was loose on one of the levels. As a result, you fell and broke your leg. We would need to prove:

1. Your boss had a responsibility to check the scaffolding. This information is usually found in a contract, on a checklist, or in a safety protocol handbook.
2. Your boss decided not to do their safety check. This can be confirmed through video surveillance, eyewitness accounts, and/or a checklist of that day’s duties.
3. Your boss’s check would have prevented you from falling if they had properly checked the scaffolding.
4. Your boss knew the importance of their safety checks, and the potential consequences if they failed to perform them.
5. You actually suffered from the accident. This can usually be determined by medical records and your statement.

If you think about all of the tasks your employer is responsible for, you can see how many opportunities there are for negligence to occur. In personal injury cases, negligence is often used as an active offense, rather than a passive one. By neglecting to do something, your employer is actively putting you in danger. For that, they need to be held responsible.

Settlement vs. Litigation in a Welding Accident Case

When most people consider legal action, they envision a courtroom with a judge and a jury. This is called litigation. Though this is certainly how personal injury cases are displayed by the media, this is not always how real cases proceed. Sometimes, the attorneys in a case come to an agreement outside of the courtroom, and litigation isn’t necessary. This is called settlement.

The benefit of settlement is that you do not spend extra time and money on fees and time in court. The drawback is that you may receive less compensation than you had originally hoped, or could have received in court. However, you must keep in mind that we will never advise you to settle outside of court if we believe that you can get substantially more in litigation. We will only use settlement if the agreement is in your favor, and we believe that the money spent on litigation would offset any additional settlements you may receive.

In some cases, settlement occurs because the case is so clear and obvious that one side has no case. If this is the situation for your employer, you are more likely to get the compensation you were originally asking for.

What to Expect From Good Welding Accident Injury Attorneys

Many people hire a construction accident lawyer for the first time when they suffer a welding accident, and therefore don’t know what to expect. Though this is natural, it’s important to be prepared so that you know what to expect of your attorney, and what you can ask of us as well.

A good welding accident attorney will:

• Assemble evidence and necessary information to prove fault and guilt
• Advise on document deadlines and requirements
• Communicate clearly about developments in the case
• Remain patient and understanding of the vulnerability of a personal injury situation
• Fight tenaciously in negotiations and in the courtroom for what is best for you

It’s important that your attorney works for you and fights for your best interests. In order to do that, you need to feel comfortable having an open dialogue with them. You should feel heard and understood, and able to speak freely with them. If you don’t, it’s best to continue your search.

Here at Pratt Williams, we pride ourselves on our inclusivity, open-mindedness, and tailored approach. No matter who you are or what your background is, we will listen to your story and create an argument that supports your experience. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that you receive financial compensation for your injury, so that you may begin to heal.

Why Is My Personal Injury Lawsuit Taking So Long?

Sometimes, the legal process is not as swift as we’d like it to be. Ideally, you’d be able to file and end your case in the same week. However, this is never how it works. It takes a while for your filing paperwork to go through the court system. After that, it may take some time for negotiations to occur. If the attorneys involved avoid a settlement, a court date must be scheduled, and the case could last a few days or weeks.

The pace of the legal system is mostly out of our control. Though we can help you submit paperwork on time and meet deadlines, we may have to wait for other systems to process your case. We know that this can feel discouraging, especially when you’re faced with medical bills and other financial hardships.

In the meantime, you may be able to apply for disability benefits. Please note that this system also takes time to process, so it isn’t always worth it to apply. Your attorney can help you understand your options in this regard. Otherwise, it’s best to simply keep your medical records and receipts and focus on making a full recovery. Try to eliminate stress as much as you can, and allow the legal system to do its job.

Our firm will work with you to establish a communication method that feels comfortable to you. As there may be weeks in between updates to your case, we can talk to you about having regular check-ins, or simply contacting you when there’s something new. Everyone is different, and we are committed to making you as comfortable as possible when things are moving slower than you’d like.

If you or someone you love has experienced a welding accident due to someone else’s negligence or malice, we are here to help. With decades of experience in this field, we are your best hope at achieving proper compensation for what you have suffered. Though we cannot bring your health back, we can help you to fight for the compensation that will allow you to heal financially.

If you want dedicated, experienced, relentless attorneys on your side, contact our office today.