Chicago – April 28
Examining the Structural Work Act: A Historical Perspective
Enacted in 1907, SWA provided legal protection to employees injured in falls from scaffolding. The 1911 enactment of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Law established a comprehensive employee compensation system for workplace injuries. Thus, workers’ compensation was considered to have superseded SWA, and the act was dormant until the 1950s, when an Illinois court decision struck down a provision prohibiting third-party lawsuits.
From that point until the repeal of SWA in 1995, a worker could collect benefits under workers’ compensation and then file suit under SWA, regardless of fault, against each party involved in the project, including owners, suppliers, contractors, subcontractors and designers.
In that same time period, the courts expanded the legal meaning of scaffold to cover almost anything on a construction site, including scaffolds, trenches, ladders, the floors of a building and even the building itself. “The expansion of the meaning of ‘scaffold’ expanded the number of cases that could be covered by the Structural Work Act,” Williams said.
The 1995 repeal of SWA made Illinois like 48 other states that rely on workers’ compensation laws to provide a single, no-fault means of recovery for workplace injuries. The 1995 repeal kept in place the ability of injured workers — even while recovering under workers’ compensation — to sue defendants for damages, based on fault. Under SWA, even the most nominal contractors on a jobsite could be held liable for an award because SWA is interpreted as a “should have known” standard nearly impossible for many contractors to overcome.
Program Manager – OE / Talent Management
Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems in El Segundo, California is currently seeking a Program Manager – OE / Talent Management.
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