When you are seriously hurt on the job, you may have many questions. Who’s going to pay for my medical bills? Who will pay for my lost wages? How will I pay my bills and put food on my family’s table?
If you’ve been seriously injured on a construction site, you don’t have to go through it alone. There is help out there for you. The best decision you can make is to contact a law firm with the knowledge, skills, and experience of helping seriously injured construction workers. We are here to help you through this difficult time. If you have questions about a construction injury claim, our Grapevine construction accident attorneys are just a quick phone call away.
Types of Construction Site Injuries
Construction site accidents happen all the time. The construction industry has the most work injuries every year. And that makes sense if you’ve ever worked on a construction site. There are many ways that a worker could get hurt with a construction site injury, whether it’s a slip and fall, lifting or twisting back injuries, falling objects, construction machine malfunction, heavy machinery accident, or excavation collapse. So many things can happen.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the government agency that compiles the statistics on workplace injuries, including work-related fatalities. They measure the statistics by the number of fatalities per 100,000 employees. In 2020, there were 4,764 work-related fatalities. Construction and extraction occupations accounted for 967 work-related deaths. In 2019, there were 136 construction industry deaths in Texas alone, with thousands more work-related construction site injuries.
What to Do Immediately After a Construction Site Injury
- The first thing to do is inform your supervisor of the accident and injury. Make sure an accident report is properly filled out and submitted to the appropriate people. If you don’t do this immediately and wait several days, your supervisor and employer might not believe you and deny your claim.
- Seek medical treatment as soon as possible. Not only will this help you get a diagnosis and be put on a treatment plan, but it will also help any type of case that you may have. Without medical support, no one will believe that you have a work-related injury.
- Do not give any kind of recorded statement to anyone, either at your employer or from a request by an insurance company adjuster. A recorded statement without having your attorney present is risky. You could state something that could come back to hurt your construction injury case.
- Contact an experienced construction injury claim lawyer as soon as possible. The Grapevine construction accident lawyers at the Hartley Law Firm are here to fight for your rights to receive the full and fair compensation for your injuries.
Having an experienced workers’ comp and construction injury team on your side goes a long way to making sure you are protected and the employer and insurance companies are doing what they are supposed to.
Workers’ Comp vs. Third-Party Negligence Claims
With most construction site injuries, the employer will be covered under their workers’ comp insurance. With this, you will have your medical bills paid and any wage loss reimbursed. But you won’t get any other benefits— you especially won’t get money for any pain and suffering.
If your work injury was caused by the negligence of a third party, you can file a workers’ comp claim. But you can also file a separate lawsuit against the negligent party. For example, let’s say you’re a laborer on a construction site. Another crew from a sub-contractor is doing excavation work. If one of these excavation workers negligently hits you with a back-hoe and injures you, not only can you get workers’ comp, but you can also file a lawsuit against the other sub-contractor for their employee’s negligence.
The settlement amount for a Texas construction site injury will depend on the facts and the severity of the injuries, so there really is no reliable average settlement amount. But here are the types of damages you can recover under a third-party negligence claim that you can’t get under a straight workers’ comp claim:
- All past and future medical expenses not covered by workers’ comp,
- All lost income and diminished future earning capacity if your injury caused a permanent disability,
- Loss of consortium for your spouse,
- Pain and suffering and loss of life’s pleasures, and
- A wrongful death claim.
Be warned, though. You have a specific time period to file a personal injury claim against a third party for negligence. The statute of limitations is two years for injuries. If you go beyond the two years from the date of the injury, then you may be forever barred from receiving compensation.
Get Help from a Grapevine Construction Accident Attorneys Today
When you’re fighting for your rights after a construction injury, you need a law firm that focuses its practice on helping seriously injured construction workers in Grapevine, TX. There is no downside in contacting us to get your questions answered because the initial consultation is free. Call or reach us online today.