Featured Case
Product Liability - Scaffolding
When a scaffold was assembled improperly with a defective safety mechanism, a construction worker fell 6 stories. The Plaintiff suffered severe injuries as a result. Iconographics created a series of animations to show the mechanical failure, how it then caused the Plaintiff’s fall, and alternatively how a properly working safety device would have prevented injury.
CHALLENGE
The scaffolding was enormous and comprised of many smaller, but critical components. One of those parts– the frame drop lock–was crucial to fasten supporting members in place. The case presented a challenge to demonstrate the full height of the scaffolding, to locate which bay on the 6th floor the fall took place from, and also to show how a very small part in the overall assembly caused the fall. How the fall itself occurred was not well understood at the onset of the case.
VISUAL STRATEGY
By combining deposition testimony, the OSHA report, and photos of the damaged droplock and scaffolding, Iconongraphics created an accurate 3D scale model of the Plaintiff and scaffolding, was able to piece the failure back together and recreate the tragic fall, attributing it back to the product failure. Once the collaborative analysis was complete, Iconographics proposed a series of animations to address the product failure, the resulting mechanism of injury, and compare how the product failed to work against how it should have worked.
HOW A FRAME DROP LOCK WORKS
MECHANISM OF FAILURE
MECHANISM OF INJURY
ALTERNATIVE RIGHT WAY
RESULT
The animations helped the client explain the severity of the defective part and its devastating consequences to the Plaintiff to reach a successful confidential settlement for his client.
“The mechanism of failure which caused the fall was complicated in this case. The visuals created by Iconographics were effective at helping to explain our theory, and we settled for a very substantial confidential amount.”
–Jakob Norman, Esq., Trial Lawyers for Justice