A recent article I read interested me from a professional standpoint towards workplace safety but I thought it missed a major point about litigation. This article of interest explores the dangers of being a farmer, but ignores the contribution of civil trial lawyers. With this I take exception.

The article written by Rick Ruggles of the World-Herald out of Omaha, explores the dangers, past and present, of farming in rural America. While the article points to engineering as making farming safer it fails to point out how lawyers have contributed to pressuring the re-engineering of farm equipment to make it safer.

Like it or not, lawsuits have done much to make farming a safer profession.

  The three examples that come to mind are unshielded PTO shafts, augers and tractors sold without rollover protection (ROPS). Those three pieces of farm machinery did more damage to limbs and took more lives than probably any other dangers in farming; one still does. Manufacturers packed the standard writing organizations with like-minded engineers who argued changes weren’t feasible. Farmers continued to die while lawyers poured their own funds into litigation suing manufacturers to force loftier engineering standards that ultimately resulted in safer farming equipment.

Of course farmers should hug us not hate us. 

So say you hate us all you want, but we ain’t going away and it has everything to do with life and limb compromised by unsafe products and services. And as personal injury lawyers we know better than to simply catalogue the progress without following the money; our money and what it’s done for farm safety. Turn us away from the courthouses and you shortchange yourself and increase the risks you face while farming. It's pretty simple and sometimes referred to as the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Farm Dangers and Accident Causes

• Suffocation from quick sand like corn or beans in a bin
• Unshielded PTO shafts
• Tractors on uneven ground and rolling over crushing the driver
• Unshielded Auger Power Shafts
• Being kicked by an animal
• Being overtaken by cold weather in an unprotected location
• Being crushed by machinery
• Losing a limb from working around pinch points and other moving parts
• Being overcome by anhydrous ammonia
• Falling from heights without a fall protection harness
• Being in an accident on the rural farm-to-market roads while driving heavy equipment
• Dying from exhaustion after putting in long hours during harvest

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ARTICLES OF INTEREST

• NSC: Data Still Shows Dangers of Farming, Editorial Staff
• Danger on the farm, Rick Ruggles, World-Herald Staff Writer
• Farmed And Dangerous, Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform
• Accidents a reminder of farming dangers, Jennifer Ewoldt, The Quad-City Times
• Farm Safety, Kids Health
• The Dangers of Farming, Local Harvest
• The Dangers of Industrial Farming, Bryan Welch, Mother Earth News