Removed Rail On Protective Cage Surrounding Gantry Leads To Trial Following Asphalt Plant Worker’s Injury

While attempting to fill a tanker truck with asphalt at a West Virginia asphalt plant, a worker fell and incurred serious injuries.  The worker sued the plant owner for negligence including in part because one of the bars on the protective cage surrounding the gantry used to fill the tanker had been removed after it had been installed.  The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia denied summary judgment to the plant owner earlier this week and indicated that the case will proceed to trial.  The evidence produced by the worker to survive summary judgment included that the missing rail was removed while in the plant owner’s possession, the manual for the gantry recommended monthly inspections but the recommendation was allegedly ignored, the gantry was unsecured based on testimony and photographs, and a chain allegedly needed to be affixed to the protective cage for safety reasons but none was provided.

Moreover, the absence of expert testimony did not doom the plaintiff’s case.  According to the court, the allegations under the plaintiff’s raised gantry theory concern the operation of commercial machinery but the dangers posed by that machinery may be readily apparent to a lay jury, as would be the dangers associated with a missing rail.