Dallas Caught-in/Between Accident Lawyers

An Award-Winning Team Behind Your Case

When you hire Hamilton Wingo, you get the full strength of our firm:

• Led by founding partners Chris Hamilton and Paul Wingo, two of Texas's most accomplished trial attorneys
• More than 200 years of combined experience across our team of trial lawyers
• Recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® and Texas Super Lawyers, and named Best Personal Injury Law Firm by Texas Lawyer three years running
• Respected by clients, peers, and opponents as a firm that prepares every case for trial

Learn more about our team and our results.

What Is a Caught-in or Caught-Between Accident?

Caught-in and caught-between accidents happen when a worker is squeezed, pinned, crushed, or compressed between two objects, or pulled into machinery. Safety regulators count them among the leading causes of serious and fatal workplace injuries. They tend to occur in a handful of recognizable situations:

• Being pulled into or caught in unguarded moving machinery, such as gears, rollers, augers, or conveyor belts
• Being crushed between a vehicle or piece of equipment and a fixed object, like a wall, dock, or another vehicle
• Being caught in a collapsing trench or excavation
• Being pinned under equipment that tips over or a load that shifts
• Being struck and trapped by a swinging or rotating machine part

These accidents are common in North Texas manufacturing plants, warehouses and distribution centers, and on excavation and utility crews, where heavy equipment and moving machinery are part of daily work.

Common Safety Failures Behind These Accidents

Caught-in and caught-between accidents are almost always preventable, and the cause usually traces back to a safety failure by a company that should have known better. Understanding what went wrong is central to holding the right party accountable.

• Missing or removed machine guarding. Moving machine parts are required to be guarded so workers cannot reach into them. When a guard is missing, defective, or removed to speed up production, a worker's hand, arm, or clothing can be pulled into the machine.
• Lockout/tagout violations. Machinery is supposed to be shut down and locked out before anyone works on or near it. When equipment is left energized or is switched on while a worker is still exposed, the results are often catastrophic.
• Inadequate trench protection. Excavations must be protected against collapse with shoring, trench boxes, or proper sloping. A cave-in can bury and crush a worker in seconds when those protections are skipped.
• Unsafe equipment operation. Backing vehicles without a spotter, operating equipment in tight spaces, and failing to control loads can pin a worker between machinery and a fixed structure.

Who Is Liable for a Caught-in/Between Injury

Liability depends on how the accident happened and which company created or allowed the hazard. On a job site with several employers, more than one party is often at fault. Depending on the circumstances, a claim may involve:

• A general contractor or site owner responsible for overall safety
• A subcontractor whose crew created the dangerous condition
• A manufacturer that produced defective machinery or an inadequate guard
• A maintenance or equipment company that left a machine in an unsafe state

Where an employer's own negligence caused the injury, an additional path may exist. Many Texas employers are non-subscribers who carry no workers' compensation coverage, and a non-subscriber can be sued directly for failing to provide a safe workplace. Identifying every responsible party is often what determines the full value of a claim.

Compensation for a Caught-in/Between Injury

Caught-in and caught-between accidents tend to cause severe, permanent harm, from crush injuries and amputations to internal injuries and spinal damage, and compensation should reflect the full weight of those losses. Depending on your claim, you may be able to recover:

• Past and future medical care, including surgeries, rehabilitation, and assistive devices
• Lost income and reduced future earning capacity
• Pain, suffering, and mental anguish
• Permanent disability and disfigurement
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Wrongful death damages, when a family loses a loved one

We build each claim around the long-term reality of the injury, not just the immediate bills, so any recovery accounts for what a worker and their family will face for years to come.

Frequently Asked Questions