Los Angeles Legal Issues Blog

Being injured on the job is stressful. Ideally, every employee will receive the health care they need to fully recover and return to work, but sometimes an injury prevents workers from performing their job duties.

When this happens, it can be overwhelming. How is someone supposed to keep earning money when they can't work?

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health reported that inspectors are investigating the death of a 29-year-old worker in San Diego County earlier this month. As in all fatal workplace accidents, the agency will determine whether safety violations on the work site played a role in this tragedy. The incident occurred in the yard of a metal fabrication business in the region of East County.

According to a report by the medical examiner, the incident occurred at about 10:20 a.m on a Wednesday when a forklift operator placed steel beams onto the bed of a trailer. In the process, he accidentally struck another stack of I-beams that were loaded earlier. Reportedly, the impact knocked three massive iron beams off the trailer, hitting the worker who was at ground level.

Workers in all industries are vulnerable, and although certain sectors like construction and manufacturing are known for the dangers employees face, workers such as janitors also face risks. Although most of the injuries they suffer would not qualify as workplace accidents, they could cause long-term health problems. The University of California designed a safety training program for janitorial staff to assist employers and employees in maintaining safe work environments.

Most of the duties of janitors involve cleaning, and they often work after hours when office workers have gone home. The fact that they might be alone makes workplace safety even more critical because there might be no one to help in the event of an injury. The most significant hazards include slip-and-fall accidents if they clean floors while wearing inappropriate shoes. Musculoskeletal injuries are also prevalent among janitors because they push heavy carts and lift heavy objects like boxes, equipment and garbage bags.

A group of nurses recently filed a class action lawsuit against Dignity Health, a health care system based in California. The nurses claim violations of their employee rights in the company's failure to pay them the overtime they earned. According to the complaint, the number of nurses in and around Sacramento that were deprived of overtime money totals at least 1,200.

Court documents indicate that the nurses allege the software that Dignity Health used to record work hours was programmed to prevent anyone from logging work hours that exceeded 12 hours. However, they claim that prep time before and wrap-up time after each 12-hour shift required them to work 50 extra minutes on every shift. The nurses claim that these supportive services formed part of their shifts and that they are entitled to overtime compensation to cover those hours.