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    $731,817 Jury Award for Hand Injury in Printing Press Accident

     

    Smith v. Dauphin Graphic Machines

    Case Summary:

    Our client, a mechanic in his late fifties employed by a printing company, had his hand crushed between the rollers of a printing press.  On the day of the accident our client had been greasing an offset printing press.  As he began to stand from a crouched position in front of the press, our client slipped and his left hand was drawn into the in-running nip point between the in-feed drive cylinder roller and the idle cylinder roller. His hand was crushed.

    The printing press, which was designed, manufactured, and installed by defendant Manugraph Dauphin Graphic Machines, was defective because it did not contain nip-point guards.  A nip-point guard would have prevented our client’s hand from being drawn into the machine’s rollers. Despite defendant’s contention that the machine was installed with a nip-point guard, there was no nip-point guard on the itemized list of building materials. Our client’s coworker testified that there was never a nip-point guard on the machine, and the assembly drawings did not show nip-point guards.

    As a result of the unguarded machinery accident, our client suffered a crush injury to his left, non-dominant, hand, a degloving injury to his index, middle and ring fingers, and fractures of the proximal phalanxes of the ring and middle fingers.  Our client endured surgeries, including irrigations, debridements and repairs and a percutaneous pin fixation to his procedure to his ring finger.  He also underwent a scar excision and a skin graft.  He client was out of work for more than six months as a result of the injury and now has functional impairments of the hand, including weakness and loss of dexterity.

    Outcome:

    A jury awarded our client $731,817 after a three day trial.   The case was handled by Philadelphia products liability attorney, Richard M. Jurewicz, of Galfand Berger. For more information on this case, please contact Mr. Jurewicz at [email protected] or call the law offices of Galfand Berger at 1-800-222-(USWA) 8792.