Philadelphia Warehouse Accident Lawyer

A Warehouse Injury Lawyer Can Help You Get Compensation

Warehouses, with their large, busy spaces and heavy equipment such as forklifts, are hazardous places to work or even visit. While warehouse owners are supposed to keep their facilities safe, accidents from falls, crashes, being crushed, or getting hit by falling objects are not uncommon and can result in serious injuries and death. Survivors may be left with mounting medical and rehabilitation bills at a time they are unable to work, and life may never be the same again.

If you or a loved one has been injured or someone has died from a warehouse accident injury in Pennsylvania, you may be entitled to compensation through workers’ compensation or a personal injury lawsuit. However, Pennsylvania personal injury laws are complicated, making mistakes can be costly, and insurance companies will try to deny your claim or get you to settle for the lowest amount possible.

At this difficult time, when you are trying to recover from your injuries, dealing with insurance companies or filing a lawsuit can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the Philadelphia warehouse injury attorneys at Wapner Newman are here to take the burden off you by handling all investigations, negotiations, and legal hurdles involved with getting you the compensation you deserve. Our attorneys know the law, the system, and how to combat the tactics insurance companies use. We can determine whether you can go beyond workers’ comp and file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit that can greatly increase the compensation you receive.

We serve clients throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey and offer a free consultation to discuss the facts of your individual situation and determine the best way to help.

Call us today at (215) 569-0900

How a Warehouse Accident Attorney Works for You

Our Warehouse injury Attorneys Investigate and Build Your case

Warehouse owners and their insurance companies have powerful attorneys on their side, so it makes sense for you to have an attorney who can aggressively fight for your rights to a fair settlement. When you retain Wapner Newman, we will discuss the physical, emotional and financial impact your injuries have on you and your family and start working for you right away. We will:

Listen to your version of what happened, determine who the at-fault parties may be and what your case may be worth
Ensure that you get proper medical care
Investigate the warehouse accident and gather evidence such as police reports, medical records, previous complaints against the warehouse, photos, and videos
Interview eyewitnesses and first responders
File all required forms and paperwork in a timely manner
Hire expert witnesses to reconstruct the accident and other experts such as accountants and psychologists to testify as to how your life has been negatively affected and what your future care and expenses may be
Deal and negotiate with insurance companies for a fair settlement
Build your case and take it to court if necessary and argue on your behalf.

We will be there for you throughout the entire legal process, answering your questions and addressing your concerns.

Getting Workers’ Compensation for a Warehouse Accident

Workers’ comp insurance in Pennsylvania is intended to provide medical, rehabilitation and income benefits for workplace-related injuries, but, too often, awards are disputed or denied altogether by employers and their insurance companies. Workers’ comp is insurance, with premiums paid by employers, and since premiums go up when benefits are paid out, employers often try to avoid paying out claims.

Workers’ compensation coverage is mandatory for most employers under Pennsylvania law. If your employer participates in workers’ comp, this insurance should pay for reasonable and necessary medical treatment and provide partial wage replacement if you miss time from work or disability payments if your injuries leave you partially or totally disabled, and our workers’ comp attorneys can help make sure you get these benefits. In return, workers’ compensation generally protects employers from direct lawsuits by employees.

If your employer does not have workers’ comp, or if a third party was at fault for your injuries, you may be able to pursue a lawsuit for your warehouse accident injury. A lawsuit can provide coverage for all your lost wages and costs, and also entitle you to seek additional non-economic damages for pain and suffering or lost quality of life.

When You Can Bring a Warehouse Accident Lawsuit

When you contact Wapner Newman, we will evaluate your situation to see if you can bring a warehouse accident lawsuit. To win your case, our attorneys will have to prove that someone else was negligent, at fault, and therefore liable for the accident. These cases are complicated, because there may be multiple parties who can be held liable, such as:

Your employer, if the employer does not participate in workers’ comp, or was negligent, or did something intentional to cause your injuries
Owners of the warehouse, property managers and maintenance workers, if the property was not kept safe or hazards were not fixed
Co-workers at the warehouse who caused your injuries, through reckless behavior or intentional actions
Third party workers or vendors.

These parties have what is known as a duty of care not to cause harm to others. If they are negligent and you are injured due to this negligence, you should have a valid warehouse accident injury case. Our attorneys will strive to prove that any or all of the parties (the defendants in the case), were negligent and at fault, as they all may have insurance and assets that can go toward a settlement.

To win your case, our attorney must be able to establish that the following legal elements exist:

Duty – The defendant owed you a duty of care not to cause harm.
Breach – The defendant breached this duty through actions or failure to act.
Cause – This breach caused your accident.
Damages – You suffered damages as a result.

Often, the defendants, their insurance companies, and their attorneys will try to shift liability and attempt to show that you were careless and at fault for the accident. Our warehouse accident lawyers anticipate this and are fully prepared to combat these arguments though our investigations, use of expert witnesses, and producing evidence showing negligence.

Injuries to Non-employees at the Warehouse

If you are a someone not an employee who was injured while at a warehouse, you could bring a personal injury case against the warehouse owner. The warehouse owner has a duty to maintain the property in a manner that allows those visiting the warehouse to remain safe and to provide adequate warnings of hazardous conditions to those visitors. If owners and managers fail to do so and you are injured as a result, you may bring a personal injury lawsuit.

Amounts of Damages Our Warehouse Accident Lawyers Can Help You Recover

There are a wide range of damages amounts you may recover in a successful warehouse accident lawsuit, from the thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the individual factors involved. Factors that are considered in determining amounts include:

the extent and permanence of your injuries and whether they are disfiguring, such as facial scarring or loss of a limb
whether you will need continuing care
whether you will be able to return to work and earn a living
your age, earning capacity, and family situation
how you are affected mentally and emotionally, such as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and nightmares.

Other factors include the inclination of an individual judge and jury to grant generous awards and the skill and negotiating ability of your attorneys to build your case and argue it effectively.

In a successful case, you should be entitled to the following types of damages:

Economic damages for your monetary losses and costs such as:

Medical and rehabilitation expenses
Lost wages and future earning potential
Property damaged by the accident.

Non-economic damages for restitution for damages that do not have a specific dollar value but negatively impact your life, such as:

Disfigurement
Disability
Emotional distress
Physical pain and suffering
Loss of quality of life.

Punitive damages. In some rare cases where there was gross or willful negligence that caused your injuries, you may also be awarded punitive damages. These are meant to punish a defendant that acted in a willful, malicious way and with a wanton disregard for others’ safety.

When a Warehouse Injury Results in Death

Our Philadelphia warehouse accident injury lawyers can bring a claim for wrongful death if a warehouse accident resulted in the death of a close family member. This is brought by the personal representative of the deceased family member’s estate. Our attorneys would have to prove that another party was at fault for the accident leading to death by showing the following:

The defendant had a responsibility to not injure the deceased, failed to live up to that responsibility, and a death occurred.
There is a connection between the other party’s responsibility and the death due to negligence or intent to harm.
The surviving family members suffered damages, or a financial loss, as a result of the death.

In a successful case, the settlement goes to the survivors or estate of the deceased.

Common Types of Injuries in Warehouse Accidents and Their Causes

Warehouses are hazardous places, and there are many ways that accidents and injuries can occur. Some of the most common causes of warehouse accidents our attorneys deal with include:

Slip and fall injuries from slippery surfaces and spills; falls from heights due to broken ladders, railings, and scaffolding
Crushing accidents from falling items, such as unbalanced items and failures of the storage shelves, or from machines or vehicles striking or pinning people
Forklift accidents – From inexperienced forklift operators or an off-balance heavy item shifting as the forklift moves, causing the forklift to tip
Chemical spills and toxic exposures leading to chemical burns, explosions, fires, or inhalation of dangerous fumes
Failed warehouse infrastructure, such as faulty electric wiring, plumbing, lighting, and leaking roofs.

Common injuries suffered by warehouse and factory workers include:

Overexertion and repetitive stress injuries
Soft-tissue, sprains and tears of muscles, tendons, and ligaments
Broken bones
Amputations
Brain, head, neck and spinal cord injuries
Burns
Hearing loss
Respiratory illnesses
Eye injuries.

Any one of these injuries can be life-changing and mean the end of your working career. Let our Wapner Newman warehouse injury lawyers fight for the financial compensation you need and deserve. Call us today at (215) 569-0900.

Examples of Warehouse Injury Settlements

While every situation is different, the following are some examples of settlements in warehouse accident cases:

Rice v. 2701 Red Lion Associates LP – A jury awarded $12.4 million to Rice, a forklift operator who was partially paralyzed in a warehouse accident. Leroy Rice operated a forklift at a frozen food warehouse where the food was stored on racks made by defendant Interlake Material Handling Inc. Rice alleged that the racking was not affixed to the wall and stabilizing floor bolts had been sheared off. When Rice knocked into the racking while operating his forklift, the racking broke and frozen food dropped on him, causing massive spinal cord injuries.

Settlement against an international, U.S.-based industrial equipment manufacturer. A union equipment operator was rendered quadriplegic in 2015 following a workplace accident in a warehouse in Philadelphia. This was a product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer of the equipment being operated at the time of the accident. The plaintiff alleged that the equipment’s occupant restraint system was defectively designed and caused the operator’s catastrophic injuries which would have been prevented with an alternative design.

Call Our Warehouse Accident Lawyers for Help

The Philadelphia warehouse accident injury attorneys at Wapner Newman know that being severely injured in a warehouse accident is a terrifying situation that brings physical and emotional suffering and major fears and worries. Let us take the burden off you and handle all legal hurdles necessary to help you get the settlement you deserve so you can go on to rebuild your life.

If you or a loved one has suffered a warehouse accident injury in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania, or anywhere in the state of New Jersey, please contact Wapner Newman to schedule a free consultation. There are no costs to you unless and until we win your case.

Do not delay, as Pennsylvania has a deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit. According to Title 42, Section 5524, you generally have two years to file or the courts will refuse to hear your case. Call us today to get started while evidence is fresh and witnesses can be found.

Call now (215) 569-0900