"The guard had been removed from the machine."

The 50%, and why it is fought so hard

Labor Code § 4553 increases your entire award by one-half where the injury was caused by the employer's serious and willful misconduct.

Insurance Code § 11661 forbids insuring against it. The employer writes that check personally — not the carrier. That is precisely why these are defended so aggressively, and it is also why they are worth pursuing.

What has to be shown: more than negligence. Knowledge of a dangerous condition and a conscious failure to act on it. A guard that was removed on purpose to speed production, a prior complaint that went unanswered, or a Cal/OSHA citation for the same condition is exactly that evidence.

Twelve months from the date of injury to file. How these work.

The case against the manufacturer

Workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy against your employer. It is not the exclusive remedy against the company that built the machine.

A product liability case does not require you to prove anyone was careless. It asks whether the product was defective — including whether it lacked a guard, an interlock, an emergency stop, or an adequate warning. And it pays for pain and suffering, which workers' compensation does not.

In a machine injury the civil case is frequently larger than the comp claim. When a third-party case exists.

Preserve the machine. Today.

This is the single most time-critical thing on this page.

Equipment gets repaired, re-guarded, modified, sold, or scrapped within days of a serious injury — sometimes within hours. Once it is altered, the case against the manufacturer is enormously harder and sometimes gone.

Ask, in writing, today, that the equipment be preserved in its current condition and not modified. Send it to your employer and to the claims administrator. Keep the copy. A written preservation request that is ignored is itself powerful evidence.

And photograph everything now — the machine, the missing guard, the mounting points where it used to be, the serial plate, the model number. From several angles.

What else to gather

The Cal/OSHA report, if one was made. Serious injuries are reportable, and an investigation produces findings.

Prior complaints. If anyone had raised the missing guard before, that is the knowledge element of § 4553.

The maintenance and repair records for that machine.

Witnesses. Coworkers who knew the guard was gone, and how long it had been gone.