MEDIA – A man is suing a pair of companies in Pennsylvania and Florida responsible for designing, manufacturing and maintaining a trash compactor/bailer unit, which he says crushed his left arm and resulted in him sustaining permanent injuries.
Patrick Adams of Lansdowne filed suit on Jan. 17 in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, against Waste Away Systems, LLC of Tampa, Fla. and Advanced Hydraulic Systems, of Chester.
“On or about Feb. 3, 2015, plaintiff Patrick Adams was operating a trash compactor/bailer unit at a Wawa convenience store, located in Woodlyn. Plaintiff was instructed by defendants that in order to operate the compactor to make bail, the user must put his or her arm inside of the machine to secure a strap. The machine is not supposed to operate while the user is securing the strap. However, on the above-mentioned date, the machine malfunctioned, and began operating while plaintiff’s arm was still in the machine,” the complaint details.
“Plaintiff attempted to press the ‘Stop’ button on the compactor several times, but the machine could not stop and continued to operate, crushing plaintiff’s left arm. Immediately after plaintiff’s injury, defendants stripped the machine down and cleaned it before plaintiff could make reasonable inspection of it,” the complaint continued.
The plaintiff believes the defendants’ collective negligence, strict liability and failure to warn of the danger associated with the compactor/bailer unit resulted in his accident and him suffering serious and permanent injuries to his left arm, including loss of function, loss of use and upper-extremity impairment, all of which required surgery.
The plaintiff is seeking damages in excess of $50,000 in this matter.
The plaintiff is represented by James M. Duckworth of Keller & Goggin, in Philadelphia.
Delaware County Court of Common Pleas case 2017-000571
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nickpennrecord@gmail.com