Construction Accident Claims Under Workers’ Compensation Laws

Construction killed 1,034 workers in private industry in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics count released this February. More than a third of those deaths, 389 of them, were attributed to falls, slips, and trips, and 95.9 percent of that group were falls to a lower level. Construction alone accounted for 48.8 percent of every fatal fall in private industry that year.

In the United States, building construction job sites constitute one of the most hazardous situations at work. These areas are prone to various forms of risks or accidents such as falls, blows from objects falling, defective machines, electrocution, and failure of the excavation structures.

If an employee suffers an injury at their place of work, they are eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. These benefits may include medical assistance, lost wages, and disability coverage regardless of who caused the accident. The formal provisions, the period for lodging claims, and the benefits available do vary from state to state.

The process of constructing the accident claims becomes more complex when parties such as subcontractors, property owners, equipment manufacturers, and other third parties are present. These parties may share responsibility for the occurrence in question.

Determining fault may warrant the expertise of a legal professional. Hiring a construction accident lawyer will help you identify the person or individuals to blame and those who should be held liable for the injuries you have sustained.

Let’s take a look at how workers’ compensation applies to construction accidents, what benefits may be available, and when a separate third-party claim could matter.

Most States Answer Yes. Texas Does Not.

Texas lets private employers opt out. Companies that decline coverage are called nonsubscribers, and Texas is the only state that allows this. Different legal courses are provided by the Texas workers’ compensation laws based on whether the employer is engaged in the state’s workers’ compensation system.

The Texas Department of Insurance last surveyed employers for 2022 and put the subscription rate at 75 percent, up three points, with 83 percent of employees working for a covered employer. This means that roughly a quarter of Texas private employers do not carry coverage, and about one in six workers is employed by one of those employers.

An injured worker at a nonsubscriber cannot file a compensation claim. What they get instead is a negligence suit, and Texas Labor Code section 406.033 strips the employer of the three defenses that usually win those cases. An employer cannot usually counter a claim by claiming the employee bears fault, shouldered the risk, or was wounded by the acts of their associate.

Texas courts have since allowed nonsubscribers to point to outside parties under the state’s proportionate responsibility rules, so the old defenses are gone, but the method of fault calculation remains.

Employers who are subject to common workers’ compensation laws have rules that govern how they handle workplace injury claims. Employers who do not subscribe to the workers’ compensation plan will face claims of negligence under Texas law. It is thus important to know what applies and what does not apply when assessing the rights and benefits attached to a workplace injury.

California Pulls the Same Lever Off a Different Trigger

California makes coverage compulsory, which sounds like the end of the question and is not.

When a California employer carries no policy, the exclusive remedy shield drops. The worker can collect benefits from the state’s Uninsured Employers Benefits Trust Fund, which then chases the employer for the money. A worker can separately sue that employer in civil court. In that suit, Labor Code section 3708 presumes the injury grew out of the employer’s negligence and hands the employer the job of disproving it. The same three defenses Texas takes away from nonsubscribers are unavailable here too.

Two states, opposite policies, and nearly identical machinery. Both states decided that an employer standing outside the bargain forfeits the protections that come with it.

On a Construction Site the Question Gets Asked Twice

It is rare to find that one worksite is home to five bosses at once. This consists of a sub from the framing team, an electrical sub, a crane operation company, the general contractor, and the owner of the property itself.

Compensation answers only for the worker’s own employer. Everybody else on that site is a third party, and an injured worker can sue a third party for ordinary negligence without ever touching the exclusive remedy bar. The same goes for whoever built the lift that failed and whoever was paid to maintain it.

The compensation file and the third-party case run on separate clocks with separate deadlines. The compensation carrier will want its outlay back out of whatever the third-party case produces.

What the Compensation File Will Never Pay

No pain and suffering. Wage replacement at a fraction of actual earnings, capped by statute. Permanent disability is figured out by the rating formula rather than by what the worker actually lost.

The distance between what compensation pays and the actual cost of the loss represents the entire case for a thirty-year-old ironworker who will never climb again. That distance is why the third-party question comes up before anyone signs anything.

Two workers can fall off identical scaffolds on the same morning and land in completely different systems, not because of anything either of them did, but because of paperwork their employers filed or skipped before either one clocked in. The first page of any construction injury file worth reading is the coverage page. That single answer determines the deadlines, the damages, and the list of who can be sued.

Photo by Joseph Sullan on Unsplash