Workplace Injury Lawyers

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York

Accidents can and do happen on the job. Each year, thousands of workers are seriously hurt and killed in mishaps at mines, factories, agricultural operations, construction sites and at various other workplaces.

Among the most common causes of serious work injuries are accidents involving falling objects, workers falling from elevated equipment or structures, highway accidents and those involving cars, trucks, forklifts, factory machinery and other devices.

Other causes include electrocution, carbon monoxide poisoning and trench cave-ins.

More than three million occupational injuries each year are serious enough to require hospital treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In one year alone, 2004, the agency recorded 5,703 deaths attributable to work injuries.

Kline & Specter, P.C., attorneys have represented clients who suffered severe work injuries in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. If you or someone you know suffered a severe injury or death in a work-related accident, you may want to contact a work injury lawyer for a free evaluation of your case.

Kline & Specter, a Philadelphia law firm, even offers a free booklet titled Injured At Work -- A Guide To Your Rights, which provides basic information about what you should do if you suffer a construction or work-related injury as well as information about an array of available benefits if you are hurt on the job. (Get the free booklet.)

If you or someone you know was seriously hurt on the job, you may want to contact a workplace injury lawyer for a free evaluation of your case.

Workplace injuries range from broken limbs to those involving more severe brain injuries and spinal cord injuries, even death. Among Kline & Specter's legal victories for working men and women are several with spectacular settlements or jury verdicts. They are:

• A lawsuit in which the firm won a $36.4 million settlement for a worker killed in an explosion at a Delaware oil refinery (see Davis/Motiva) The settlement, announced in September 2003, is considered the largest for a single-victim fatality ever reported in the United States.
• Two months later, in a case that spanned seven years and several appeals, an Allegheny County jury handed down a verdict of nearly $7.9 million for a Pittsburgh worker seriously injured in a fall from a forklift. (Drum)
• On Jan. 21, 2004, a jury in Luzerne County handed down a $19.1 million verdict for a woman who was struck and seriously injured by a van as she worked on a roadside construction job. (McManamon).
• In September 2008, Tom Kline won a $5.5 million jury verdict for the family of an 18-year-old man who was fatally shot while working as a parking lot attendant at Hahnemann University Hospital. The hospital had failed to improve safety and security after an armed robbery at the same booth only 12 days earlier. (Palmer)

In 2007, the firm won an $8 million settlement for a worker killed when he fell into a high-temperature pulping pit at a Manayunk paper mill. The case involved a lengthy dispute over which corporations were responsible. (Green.)

The firm also won two major cases for ironworkers. In November 2006, a jury awarded $3 million to a Philadelphia ironworker who sustained neck and shoulder injuries in a fall down a stairwell after temporary lighting failed at a construction site. (See McCormick 1 | 2) In December 2006, Kline & Specter negotiated a $1.7 million settlement for a Lehigh County ironworker severely injured in a fall at a cold storage facility. (Broadbent.)

In an earlier case, the family of a man crushed to death in a crane accident settled a suit against the manufacturer, seller and installer of the crane's control system. The settlement, reached in November 2002, was for $4.4 million. (Yankosky).

A workplace injury case was among one of Kline & Specter’s first victories as the firm secured settlements totaling $1.25 million in 1995 for Demetrius Atwood, a Philadelphia hotel employee injured by a malfunctioning elevator.

Click here to contact a work injury lawyer for a free evaluation of your case.

For other Kline & Specter litigation results, click here to see our list of Major Victories.

Click here to see Tom Kline interviewed about "cancer clusters" on Good Day Philadelphia on Fox TV, 3/8/07