Construction Accidents

Work Injury Lawyers Assisting Residents of Middlesex and Mercer Counties

Construction sites may be very dangerous. Dangers on a construction site often include falling objects, falls from heights, crushing due to machinery or equipment, cuts, lacerations, burns, electrocution, exposure to toxic chemicals, and more. Although there are many strict workplace safety standards in place, these standards are often ignored, sometimes resulting in serious injuries or even death. At Siegel & Siegel, our Middlesex County construction accident lawyers may be able to help you recover compensation if you were hurt due to the negligence of others on a job site. As workers’ compensation attorneys and personal injury lawyers, we can help people in Middlesex and Mercer Counties pursue both benefits through an employer and damages from a third party.

Understanding Your Next Steps After a Construction Accident

There are many opportunities for a small mistake to result in catastrophic injuries on a construction site. The injuries that result are widely varying. In most cases, you may bring a workers’ compensation claim against your employer if you are an employee injured in a construction accident. Benefits are available if the accident happened in the course and scope of your job, regardless of who may have been responsible for causing it.

However, construction sites are busy places, and accidents are often caused by more than one entity. You may be able to recover compensation through a personal injury lawsuit against entities other than your employer that were negligent, such as a subcontractor or a manufacturer of defective equipment.

In order to establish another construction entity’s negligence, a construction accident attorney at our Middlesex County firm can help you try to show that it is more likely than not that the defendant owed you a duty of care, breached that duty, caused the accident in breaching the duty, and forced you to incur damages. Traditionally, a general contractor is not liable for a subcontractor employee’s injuries caused by the condition of the premises or the way that the work is performed. However, the immunity does not apply if the general contractor keeps control over the way in which the contracted work is performed, knowingly contracts with an incompetent subcontractor, or enters into a contract to perform work that is inherently dangerous.

When looking at whether a general contractor is liable, courts will consider the likelihood that someone would be injured as severely and in the same manner as the plaintiff. Whether the general contractor is found to have a duty will depend on identifying, weighing, and balancing factors such as the relationship of the parties, the nature of the risk, the opportunity to exercise care, and whether there is a public interest in the solution being proposed. We can investigate the accident scene to determine which parties are most likely to have been responsible. For example, when an accident is a result of a fall from heights, there may be responsibility on the part of the plaintiff’s employer, subcontractors performing work in the area, and the manufacturer of safety equipment. In some cases, it may be necessary to retain an expert to establish causation. The expert opinion must be supported by the facts on the record. Sometimes the expert relies on OSHA standards to form an opinion.

Damages that you may be able to recover if you successfully establish liability include noneconomic as well as economic (or tangible) damages, such as medical bills, hospital bills, medical mileage, past and future wage loss, lost earning capacity, scarring, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment, and pain and suffering.

Contact an Experienced Construction Accident Lawyer in Middlesex County

Construction accidents may be the fault of multiple parties. Our firm focuses on helping victims seek the compensation that they need so that they can focus on healing. Our Middlesex County construction accident attorneys represent people in Plainsboro, Cranbury, South Brunswick, North Brunswick, New Brunswick, Edison, Piscataway, Trenton, Princeton, Hamilton, West Windsor, and other areas of Middlesex, Mercer, Burlington, Monmouth, and Union Counties. Contact us online or call us at 609-799-6066 for a free appointment. We also can assist you if you need a car accident lawyer or representation in another type of personal injury case.