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Woman Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit against Nail Gun Company
April 14, 2008

The manufacturers don't want them to be called "guns", for obvious reasons, and insist that accidents that happen with their air powered nail guns are mostly due to the fault of the persons using them. That claim seems to be getting more hollow by the day as air powered nail guns that fire on contact, come under fire themselves from safety experts.

In 2006, Manuel Mirillo, a construction worker, was at work at a log cabin near Portola, when his contact nail gun fired when he bumped it accidentally. The nail that was fired lodged into his chest inside a coronary artery. The nail was at least 2 ? inches deep in his chest. His crewmate rushed him to hospital as fast as he could, but it was too late. Doctors couldn't revive him; the nail was wedged just too deep.

Now, Manuel's widow is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Hitachi Koki USA, the company that manufactures the nail gun, accusing it of selling a nail gun that was flawed in design.

Manuel's case is a tragic one, but it's far from the first one in recent times. In California alone, between 2003 and 2006, there were 1,890 nail gun injuries that were reported, with "reported" being the keyword here. Many injuries are unreported, and it is suspected that the actual numbers of construction workers being rushed to emergency rooms across California with nail injuries is far higher.

Industry experts, who say that nail injuries cost the state in emergency room expenses every year, also say that nail gun companies are putting safety fon the backburner to boost sales of these super fast nail guns. Demand for the guns is extremely high, because it loads into magazines to be fired quickly, similar to a gun, and provides super fast delivery.

The targets, however, are not always restricted to the woodwork - incidents of nail guns firing nails and injuring bystanders and persons who were unlucky enough to be around the vicinity are quite common. The Sac Bee reports of one man who was injured in his left eye after a nail fired from a nail gun in a construction site across the street hit his eye as he was sitting in his car. The man lived to tell the tale, although his eyesight has been severely impaired. Others are not as lucky. One man was left partially paralyzed after a nail from a nail gun that fired accidentally lodged into his skull.

Safety experts have begun calling for a ban on the contact mode feature altogether. Some manufacturers have introduced guns that can only be fired by pulling the trigger, but the guns also come with an option that can be used to convert them into contact firing mode - the gun fires when it's pressed against surface - any surface, even a chest or an eye.

The demand for these nail guns is huge, and there is a belief that the lawsuits that are piling up against manufactures will be paid out of special payout funds from the substantial profits that the companies make each year from these guns. Paying off injured people seems to be less costly than banning the gun altogether. So what if people lose their eyes, or get nails lodged into their hearts in the mean time?

If you have been injured in a products liability case, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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