Santa Clara, CA — A worker was hit in the head and a customer’s hand was injured after a major accident at California’s Great America amusement park on Friday, June 12, 2015. Authorities said that the train on the Flight Deck roller coaster ride was pulling back into the main station when it struck an employee in the head.
A customer on the ride also said that his hand was hurt. Apparently, the worker was trying to pickup a cellphone that someone had dropped when the incoming roller coaster train car hit him in the head.
The customer with the injured hand was believed to be okay, but the employee with the head injury was taken to a hospital in serious condition. Park officials have stated that they are cooperating with authorities and have shut down the ride, though they aren’t sure what happened yet.
Map of the Accident
Commentary:
A customer being injured at an amusement park is a bit different from an employee being injured, as my law students, because of their relationship to the park. I’m talking about the labor laws in California, which dictate that a worker injured on the job shall be given workers’ compensation benefits as applicable, but they give up the right to file a lawsuit — which would be with the rights of any other person.
Is that fair? Well, there are responses from both sides of the argument, but the general consensus is that, for the employee, it is not fair. But I’m not here to talk about the ups and downs of California’s labor laws, I want to draw peoples’ attention to the fact that there might’ve been a malfunction on that roller coaster. Has anyone looked into whether everything was working correctly that day? Were there any kind of safeguards in place to prevent this employee from putting himself in a dangerous position?
— Grossman Law Offices
