After a construction accident, injured workers may be entitled to a recovery through a workers compensation claim. However, these benefits are limited. In some cases, you may be able to collect benefits in addition to workers comp through a third party claim or lawsuit against parties other than your employer.
Quite often there are other remedies that are available on a construction site. Your average construction site, particularly a major construction site, has many different subcontractors, along with a general contractor. Based on the law in the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires that the general contractor have the duty for overall jobsite safety. What that means is that as between the contractors, there should be certain things that are done to make sure that the jobsite is reasonably safe, for the purposes it was intended.
At Regan Zambri Long PLLC we were privileged to handle a very unfortunate case where a worker fell three stories and was seriously injured. He was using a scaffold on the third floor of a building while putting in insulation on the building. As he was walking along the scaffolding one of the supports for the scaffold was missing. He fell three stories and was very seriously injured. In a situation like that, you would look to the duties of the other subcontractors, as well as a general contractor to see if there was some responsibility.
If you have a legal concern, we’d very much like to assist you with it. You can call us at (202) 960-4596 or complete our online form.