Woman Injured by Roller Door

Case Overview

This case involves a woman who suffered injuries while working at a warehouse facility located in Idaho. The loading docks were all outfitted with commercial roller doors. At the time of the accident the plaintiff was unloading various items on the loading dock. She was standing near the door when, without warning, the door came down and struck her on the head. As a result of the impact, the woman suffered severe and traumatic brain injuries. It is alleged that the door was not properly inspected and up to specification, causing it to close unintentionally and violently.

Questions to the Elevators and Escalators expert and their responses

Do you have extensive experience engineering/inspecting commercial roller doors?

My entire career has been devoted to inspecting/engineering commercial roller doors. I am a licensed professional engineer (including in the state of Florida).

What kind of steps and protocols need to be followed to ensure doors are working properly?

This injury is probably not the result of a manufacturing defect or a design defect, but an adjustment may have needed to be made. Springs weaken over time, so the manufacturer could have properly manufactured the door and the installer may have wound springs properly on the day it was new, but, years later, the springs may have weakened and the transition point changed. The location at which this occurred is responsible for maintaining and inspecting these doors, which it seems like they did not do in this case.

Please explain your experience working on similar cases?

I am currently working on two cases that are very similar to this one. Most of my early litigation experience comes from being trained as a defense expert during my time at Windsor and Overhead Door, but since early in my career my litigation experience is more 50/50 plaintiff to defense ratio. This seems to be a case I am extremely well suited for, and I am happy to help.

About the expert

This expert is an experienced mechanical engineer, skilled in product design, research, and manufacturing with 20+ years of door industry experience. Specific areas of interest include hurricane-resistant construction of garage doors, rolling doors, and automatic pedestrian doors. This expert is the former manager of structures for Overhead Door's R&D/Engineering division, where he provided engineering expertise on overhead rolling doors, dock levelers, truck doors, etc. He also served as the manager of research and development at Windsor Door where he further honed his door industry expertise. This expert is currently a door industry consultant with expertise across a wide range of door related topics.