subject: California Third Party Lawyer: Using Osha Regulations To Win Your Third Party Work Injury Case [print this page] Under California law, an injured worker may use California Occupational Safety and Health (Cal-OSHA) rules and regulation in order to prove liability in a work accident. An injured worker is allowed to use Cal-OSHA provisions to establish standards and duties of care in negligence actions against third parties.
Generally, in California an injured worker can not sue their employer if they are injured at work. Instead, most California workers' only remedy against their employer for a work injury is workers compensation benefits. Unfortunately, California has some of the lowest workers compensation benefits in America.
Under California law, if someone other than the employer is legally responsible for a workers injuries, then the worker can bring a third party work injury lawsuit against them. These are called third party cases or third party work injury cases.
One way to establish liability against a third party is with the use of Cal-OSHA regulations. When an injured worker uses a California Labor Code or Cal-OSHA regulation in order to establish negligence, it is called negligence per se. This is very important because proof of a statutory violation may be used to create a presumption of negligence in specified circumstances. That is, when the third party defendant violates a Labor Code Section or Cal-OSHA regulation, the third party may be presumed to be negligent.
Under California work injury law, the failure of a person to exercise due care is presumed if:
(1) He/ she violated a statute, ordinance, or regulation of a public entity;
(2) The violation proximately caused death or injury to person or property;
(3) The death or injury resulted from an occurrence of the nature which the statute, ordinance, or regulation was designed to prevent; and
(4) The person suffering the death or the injury to his person or property was one of the class of persons for whose protection the statute, ordinance, or regulation was adopted.
Once the injured worker is able to prove the foregoing, then the burden shifts to the third party to rebut this presumption.
Negligence per se is a very powerful concept. In essence, it prevents the third party from arguing or proving that it's actions were reasonable. Instead, the act is considered negligent because it violates a statute or regulation.
Disclaimer:
The foregoing is not legal advice. This article is simplistic in order to achieve clarity. The circumstances of your case may differ from those described herein. It you are seriously injured in a work accident it is very important for you to determine whether you have a viable third party case. Be sure to consult with a third party lawyer.
by: William Turley
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