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Machine operators, assemblers, machinists, welders, fabricators, platers and finishers, maintenance technicians, and quality inspectors.
THE SHORT ANSWER
If a machine did it, there are usually two claims: workers’ compensation is exclusive as to your employer, not as to the company that built the machine. Amputations and eye injuries are on the list that pays 240 weeks of temporary disability instead of 104. And aerospace exposure claims are still timely decades later — the clock starts at disability plus knowledge, not at exposure.
If a machine did it, there are usually two claims
Workers’ compensation is exclusive as to your employer. It is not exclusive as to the company that built the machine.
Where a guard was removed, bypassed, inadequate, or never designed for the foreseeable use of the equipment, there is a products liability case against the manufacturer — and unlike comp, it pays for pain and suffering and disfigurement.
The recurring defendants: press brakes, punch presses, and shears without functioning point-of-operation guarding; conveyors without emergency stops within reach; industrial mixers, balers, and compactors; injection molding machines; CNC equipment; robotic cells with defeated interlocks; and maintenance contractors on lockout/tagout failures.
Preserve the machine. Do not let it be repaired, modified, or scrapped. In a machine injury case this is the difference between a product claim and no product claim, and it has to happen in days.
The 240-week benefit
The law gives nine listed conditions 240 compensable weeks of temporary disabilityTD / TTD / TPD Temporary Disability, Total or Partial. Wage replacement while recovering. Two-thirds of average weekly earnings; 2026 maximum $1,764.11/week. instead of 104 — 136 extra weeks, up to about $240,000 at 2026 rates.
Four of the nine turn up constantly in this industry:
Amputations · severe burns · high-velocity eye injuries · chemical burns to the eyes
And the 104-week stop is an automated counter, not a judgment about your case. If nothing in the file flags § 4656(c)(3), benefits end on schedule and you are told that is the law. The full framework. · Amputation. · Burns. · Eye injuries.
The exposures
Metals. Hexavalent chromium in stainless welding and plating — a lung carcinogen. Cadmium. Manganese, which produces a parkinsonian syndrome. Lead. Beryllium, which causes chronic beryllium disease and is frequently misdiagnosed as sarcoidosis — a significant issue in aerospace.
Solvents. Trichloroethylene, methylene chloride, toluene, xylene, and n-hexane. Chronic toxic encephalopathy from long-term solvent exposure is real, ratable, and almost always attributed to age, stress, or depression instead. Establishing it requires formal neuropsychological testing. How brain impairment is rated.
Asbestos. Southern California’s aerospace and industrial footprint was large, and latency runs 20 to 50 years. The clock starts at first disability plus knowledge — not at exposure — so claims from 1970s and 1980s exposure are still timely today. Asbestos claims.
Silica, in blasting and finishing. Silicosis claims.
Isocyanates, in coatings — and sensitization can end a career. Chemical exposure claims.
Noise. And note the rating trap: the AMA formula averages 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 Hz, subtracts a 25 dB fence, and weights your better ear five times more heavily. The classic noise notch at 4,000 Hz is not one of the rated frequencies. Hearing loss.
And heat, in foundries, forges, and enclosed production areas — now covered by 8 CCR § 3396 since July 23, 2024. Heat illness.
The § 4553 petition
Where the employer knew about a danger and did nothing — a prior Cal/OSHA citation for the same condition, an ignored complaint, a removed guard, a defeated interlock — the law increases compensation by one-half, and the law forbids insuring against it. The employer pays it personally.
Twelve-month deadline from the injury. How.
Sources
Labor Code § 3602§ 4553§ 4656(c)(3)§ 5412Insurance Code § 116618 CCR § 3396
General information about California law, not legal advice about your case.
Reviewed by Jamey Teitell, Partner & Trial Attorney · Last reviewed
Law Offices of Solov & Teitell, APC · (213) 380-9310
Printed from https://www.solovteitell.com/industries/manufacturing-aerospace-workers/ · Last reviewed