Even An Office Isn’t Safe
Brian O Sutter
Workers’ Compensation
However, there’s a popular but understandable misconception about worker’s compensation and the odds of an injury occurring at the workplace. Many people mistakenly believe that this type of injury—and thus the associated legal responsibility—are only applicable in an industrial setting. They believe that only people that are exposed on a daily basis to physically hazardous situations, such as working in construction, or at a manufacturing plant with a lot of heavy machinery, need to be protected from workplace hazards.While it’s true that people who work under these conditions are exposed to greater risk, that doesn’t mean that people in “white collar” jobs like working in an office for an advertising agency, or accounting firm are at no risk at all. Even the so-called office job requires that employers execute certain responsibilities for worker safety.
Floor Surfaces
One of the most common ways for office workers to sustain a preventable injury is improper layout of walking surfaces. Some offices may use tile, or other surfaces that can be very slippery under certain conditions. Other offices may vary their walking surfaces, from carpet to tile and back again, which can create uneven walking If you’re an employer, or an employee, then it’s easy to forget that beyond the important business goal of staying profitable, there are also certain legal expectations that aren’t just tied into running a business honestly. The safety of employees at the work place is another legal responsibility that employers must maintain, and if they don’t, and a worker gets injured as a result of negligence, then an accident lawyer may step in to help an injured employee get workers compensation or other damages, as a result of negligence at the workplace surfaces that may result in tripping.
The exact construction of floor surfaces in a workplace—even an office—can mean the difference between people being able to safely walk without giving it much thought, and people that must take extra care to navigate an office or slip and fall. And this can result in injuries and possibly lost days of work, or even a lost job entirely if the injury is permanent.
Electrical Infrastructure
Today’s offices are far more reliant on electricity than at any point in American history. Where offices of old required electricity only for lights and telephones, while other equipment, such as type writers were mechanical, today’s offices require electricity for computers, photocopy machines, modems, servers, televisions/displays, recharging stations for various mobile devices and much more.
This means it’s important to make sure the electrical capacity of a building is up to the task of handling modern 21st century electrical requirements. If it’s not, accidents can happen, such as short circuits or even power outages that can be both inconvenient and result in injuries. If an employer knows that the lights will go out when the photocopier is used, and ignores this, resulting in someone falling down the stairs as the lights go out, that is negligence at the workplace. In such cases, you would be able to talk to workers comp lawyer about your workers compensation case.