Hard Fought $6.250 Million Construction Injury Settlement
Clark Law firm recovered a combined $6.250 million for the family of a worker killed and another injured on a transmission tower painting project in Edison, New Jersey. The project involved the painting of 344 transmission towers. The work included scraping off the old lead paint, applying a layer of red primer, and then applying a coat of green paint. The paint to be used was an Anodic Self priming paint that contains zinc and is highly conductive of electricity. The utility hired a subcontractor to do this work that was deemed “Unacceptable” from a safety standpoint according to the utilities own internal safety standards.
These high voltage transmission towers are extremely hazardous and the utility company is duty bound under several laws and industry standards to manage safety on its transmission tower painting project. The utility has a responsibility of providing a safe work environment to everyone on its property.
The process by which the workers were directed to paint the towers was to clip two large, open buckets of paint to their belts and climb the tower. They would then dip large hand mits into the buckets and slap the paint onto the tower. The workers would literally be covered in paint. Shortly before 12 noon on the date of the incident, six tower painters had just finished one tower and were moving onto the incident tower, which is 100 foot+ high carrying high voltage lines with a 26,000 kilovolt charge.
The worker who was killed was one of the first to climb the tower and get into position. It was quite common for the paint to spill and splash all around. The 26,000 kilovolt death wire was only about 2 feet away from the edge of the tower the workers had to paint. A stream of paint from the worker’s paint mit hit the 26,000 kilovolt line and there was a loud, terrifying explosion. Given it contained zinc and was conductive, the charge ran up the paint stream, entered his body through his hand. The harness clips of the painters were frozen in the open position from the sticky and dried paint and the shock knocked him off the tower. On his way down he struck another worker, knocking him off the tower as well.
One worker fell 70 feet from the tower and eventually died from his injuries. The other fell about 40 feet and sustained catastrophic injuries.
The case alleged that the utility company made a conscious decision to have its towers painted in violation of state and federal safety regulations, industry safety standards, and its own safety rules . It was maintained this incident happened for two main reasons. First, simple math shows it was not possible to paint these towers with the power on and maintain the minimum approach distance requirements, regardless of whether or not the workers were “qualified” under 29 C.F.R. 1910.269 (a)(2). The architectural plans show the 26kv line a mere 2.66 feet from the edge of the tower, which had to be painted. The minimum approach distance for qualified workers to this line is four feet. It is ten feet for unqualified workers, such as these painters. The utility was well aware of all this.
Second, the utility knew it was impossible for the workers to maintain 100% fall protection utilizing harnesses to paint these towers. Many areas of the towers do not have suitable attachment points, thus requiring the workers to “free climb.” Furthermore, the utility knew the clips would freeze in the open position. So even when they were attached, they were still not protected. The utility having the work done while the deadly current was flowing through the lines within inches of these workers caused the inevitable contact and electrocution. Having it also done in violation of the 100% fall protection rules made it worse and resulted in one worker being killed and the other permanently injured.
After a hard fought litigation, the matter settled for a total of $6.250 million, with the funds being distributed to the family of the dead worker and the surviving worker. The case was handled by Gerald Clark and Mark Morris of the Clark Law Firm.
