An article written by Larry Booth, a founding partner of Booth & Koskoff, on helmet safety guidelines was published in Advocate, the monthly publication of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. In it, Mr. Booth details how our dependance on hard hats for safety on jobs and while playing sports actually provides little protection.
Some years ago, we had a client who was hit in the head with a large chunk of concrete which had fallen several stories on a construction project. He was, of course, wearing the almighty hard hat. The hard hat (Exhibit 1) had a clean hole in it, as did his head. Since the typical hard hat is built like a World War I army helmet, it offers no protection from objects coming from any angle except directly down. Then why, may we ask, are hard hats mandatory where workers are not exposed to any overhead risk at all, such as digging a ditch? The better question is whether hard hats prevent any injuries at all to the brain or skull.
How does the effect a personal injury case? Attorneys shouldn’t assume that failing to wear a helmet would have prevented or decreased the injury because brain injuries do not always occur due to impact on the head or helmet.
To order a copy of the article, please visit the CAALA website.