Construction Accident Claims
Construction workers fatalities in 2016 rose to 991; the construction industry also has the highest number of on-the-job deaths compared to other vocations in America.
Working with heavy machinery, the building at considerable heights and many other unsafe construction environments can further bring about site accidents that often lead to serious injuries. Recovering from construction site harm is lengthy and costly and may alter a worker’s enjoyment of life, future wage earnings, and personal careers.
Typical Construction Accidents
Victims are usually not the individuals to blame when construction accidents happen. General contractors, construction bosses, and engineers can stop most construction accidents from arising by rigorously following governmental occupational safety and health standards.
Employers and landowners further hold implied contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual legal duties to communicate workplace safety criteria affirmatively at construction sites and to make sure that workers understand it.
When safety is lacking and/or when communication breaks down, the following life or death construction accidents may take place:
- Construction Falls: In the US, thirty percent of construction-associated deaths each year stem from construction falls. Wrongful death is also the number one pleading in construction fall claims in modern courts.
Unsafe scaffoldings are largely responsible for construction fall injuries, but faulty guardrails, failure to mark open depressions and unsafe ladders further must accept the burden of producing this harm as well. Construction fall victims frequently suffer spinal and neck injuries, broken bones or head trauma.
- Electrocution Injury: Construction workers commonly labor with electricity and electrical circuitry. Electrocution, unfortunately, accounts for half the casualties in construction site accidents; circuits sometimes go live without warning or individuals may leave exposed hot wires lying around for one to touch unknowingly. Electrocution may further arise when supervisors fail to disseminate safety policies or neglect to maintain electrical tools.
- Falling Debris: Falling debris from equipment movement or material overhead may likewise put construction workers at risk of harm. Even a small metal bolt can produce fatal harm if it strikes a worker from great heights. Falling debris damages can include brain trauma and smash injuries, often times leading to death.
- Overexertion: General contractors and construction employers hold standard duties of care to make certain their workers do not overexert themselves during hours of arduous labor, especially when performing their tasks in exceptionally hot or clammy occupational surroundings.
Dehydration or heat exhaustion from overexertion contribute to almost twenty percent of construction accidents. These injuries typically emerge: from supervisors failing to allow for work or water breaks; from employers eliminating or barring supply water sources at work for hydration; and from managers not educating their workers on proper bending, lifting, and carrying approaches for preventing overexertion.
- Fires and Explosions: Many folks do not know fires and explosions are normal occurrences at construction sites. Leaking gas or defective electrical wiring often produces personal injuries due to fire.
- Machinery Accidents: Heavy equipment and construction work go hand in hand. Workers need tools like heavy lifts, construction vehicles and jackhammers to get jobs done. But, assigning for dangerous vehicle and machine use obligates employers to make sure workers carry the competence and experience to handle the harmful gear. General contractors also hold duties to maintain heavy equipment and make them ready for a specific use.
Construction Accident Damages
General damages are harms that arise naturally from construction accidents. Pain and suffering, loss of life or limbs and emotional distress are examples; victims rarely plead these harms with specificity because the construction accident itself gives defendants notice that complainants will prove them at trial.
Construction claims further redress special compensatory damages; emergency care expenses, diagnostic tests, medication costs, wage loss and physical or vocational therapy are examples of special damages that plaintiffs need to itemize in their pleadings so defendants have notice they exist.
Workers’ Compensation and Third-Party Lawsuits
Workers’ Compensation: The law obliges employers to carry workers’ compensation (WC) insurance to cover on-the-job injury damages. WC benefits may indemnify medical expenses and lost wages and may provide for subsequent death benefits to family members.
Contributory negligence likewise does not relate to most WC claims, unlike in personal injury lawsuits where plaintiffs may see their damages reduced or denied when their acts assist in their injuries.
WC, however, does not protect non-monetary general damages, such as pain and suffering; the coverage also prevents construction accident victims from naming their employers in negligence lawsuits.
Third-Party Lawsuits: Many construction accidents go beyond WC claims when third parties contribute to the accident or wrongful death causation.
Third-party liability can flow to equipment manufacturers, architects, general contractors, engineers, property owners and transporters when they fail to produce safe working environments or when they place defective or unsafe building products into construction areas.
WC may further not cover construction workers if contractors do not regard them as “employees.” In such cases, only third-party lawsuits can redress compensation from construction accident harm.
Construction Accident Attorneys
Expert construction accident attorneys like Sanders Phillips Grossman thoroughly investigate construction accidents for redressing injured worker damages. Our team further identifies at-fault third-parties and files WC claims on behalf of construction accident victims. Sanders Phillips Grossman knows Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation and our lawyers are authorities in discovering when contractors or employers violate federal law.
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