Were you or a loved one hurt on the job? Learn what to do after a construction accident injury here, then give our Gilbert attorneys a call.
1) Choose the Correct Attorney
If you’ve been injured on a construction site accident, how do you choose a good attorney, a good law firm to represent you? That is a very important question, especially in Arizona. That question was posed to one of our attorneys recently by a potential client. Our attorney explained to the client that construction site accidents are very different than car accidents. There are some important differences.
One of them is, as the attorney explained, who was at fault for causing the injury? Now, of course, if it’s just on the job injury, we have a workers’ comp attorney who can advise you on that. It doesn’t matter whose fault the accident was in that situation. We can still work with you and get compensation, and also if you have permanent impairment and disability, we’ll be happy to analyze your situation and tell you if we can get you more money or if they have stopped your benefits, things like that. That’s a topic for another day.
Beside the work comp benefits, you also need to determine if someone else that’s at fault for causing the accident. If another one of your work buddies drove a forklift over your foot, then we’re going to be looking at a workers’ comp claim, as the attorney explained. However, if it’s a situation where the person who ran over your foot with the forklift works for another contractor at the construction site, then you very well may have a claim against that other person and their employer.
Those kinds of situations get more complicated. You really do need legal assistance in those situations. Any time you’re injured in a construction site accident, give us a call. One of our attorneys would be happy to analyze your situation. It’s pretty common to have both a workers’ comp injury and a claim against another employee. You can have both at the same time. That’s why it’s good to call a firm like ours because we can handle both of those claims at the same time and get you maximum benefits for both.
If you’re injured in a construction site accident, give us a call. The call is free. The information is free. It can make a big difference in the outcome of your case, sometimes thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, and sometimes even millions. Call us because we really do care about our clients, especially you.
2) Notify Management
If you’re in a construction site accident in Arizona particularly, should you notify my supervisor or my boss? What’s the best thing to do in that situation? Obviously, we’re not talking about a situation where the crane fell on you and cut off your leg. We’re talking about more commonly a situation where maybe it was something as simple as bending over and hurting yourself when you were picking up something or maybe a little more serious involving someone else where they knocked over a piece of equipment, knocked you back, but you dusted yourself off. You’re in one piece. In situations like that, it’s common, especially for men, to feel like, hey, I’m macho. I’m not going to go squealing to my supervisor that I might have hurt my back.
Even if you didn’t report it at the time, call us because one of our attorneys will analyze that situation and let you know if we recommend that you do file a report. In most cases, we will. That’s to protect yourself for a workers’ comp claim. If it’s a claim against another subcontractor or something like that, it’s important that you make a record of it because if you stay home for the weekend and then you feel like crap on Monday and then you get medical care. Even worse, you wait a week, or two weeks, or four weeks, the value of your claim is going to go down if it’s a personal injury claim. Your workers’ comp claim can definitely be affected as well.
Call us first. Let one of our attorneys analyze your situation. We can advise you about notifying whoever needs to be notified. In certain cases, we can file the notice for you. We’re going to do what’s going to protect your rights. Remember, if you’re in a construction site accident and you have any question about whether, and even if you notified your supervisor, that’s no guarantee that they notified anyone above them. Call us anyway and we can check on that for you and you don’t have to worry about what’s my boss going to think or whatever. We’ll take care of that for you. We’ll always discuss it with you first. We won’t do anything without your permission. Our goal is to protect your rights and maximize the recovery that you get because the most important person is always you.
3) Suing Employer
If you’re injured in a construction site accident in Arizona, very common question, comes up all the time is whether you can sue your employer. They didn’t maintain the equipment even though I warned them, you might say. We knew the tires were in bad shape. I tell them. They didn’t replace them. It’s one of the most common questions that potential clients ask all the time.
We had a recent question like that posed to one of our attorneys. It was a situation where the employer knew that there was a saw that had a defective cover on it. The employee was told to go ahead and use it anyway and lost a finger as a result. Were they upset and angry at their employer? Of course. As the attorney advised them, even in a pretty extreme situation like that, normally, we can’t sue employer. There are some exceptions. You call us with your situation. We can tell you if the exception applies. One of our attorneys will tell you that. The usual answer is no. The law protects employers because they want to make sure that employers keep hiring people. That’s why the workers’ comp situation or system has been set up. You don’t have to prove it was someone’s fault but you still get some compensation. You don’t get pain and suffering under workers’ comp and things like that, but there are alternative ways that if someone else was responsible. Now, in that particular situation, there was a defect in that saw. If we could prove that the defect is what caused the injury, then the perspective client could, as the attorney explained, recover pain and suffering, even if their boss might have also been at fault.
Those are complex situations. You really need to call us, have one of our attorneys look at your exact situation, and advise you. Is it possible? Yes, but the general situation, is it possible to recover even if your employer is at fault? Sometimes the answer is yes, but as far as suing your employer, even if one of your fellow employees was at fault, in most cases, you can’t sue. Always call us because there are limited exceptions and one of our attorneys would always be able to advise you about that.
Remember, if you’re hurt on a construction site and whether your boss probably is at least partially responsible or not, call us. The call is free. The information is free. It can make the difference in thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, and in rare cases, millions of dollars if you call us. Make that call because the most important person in our firm is you.
4) Understanding the Timeline
The question often comes up after someone’s been injured in a construction accident, and often seriously. How long is it going to take to get my settlement? After such an accident, chances are you are not working, have medical bills piling up, and are stressed. That’s a very important question. Because we also handle workers’ compensation claims, this comes up a lot.
The other day someone called and spoke to our attorney, Daniel Garza, about that. Daniel explained that they can have a workers’ comp claim and a separate claim against another subcontractor who may be at fault and each of them can be resolved at different times. It’s not a simple process. If you call in, one of our attorneys will analyze your situation and tell you. We can often get the workers’ comp benefits going faster than resolving a separate claim against another contractor but sometimes it can be the reverse. There’s not one simple answer to that question. However, the workers’ compensation side will usually be able to get you some money to at least get by until we can resolve the other claim.
That’s why it’s very important to coordinate those two and work with a firm that does both. It’s very common for personal injury law firms to not be able to handle workers’ comp claims. That’s one of the first questions that you should ask when you call an injury firm – whether or not they handle workers comp claims. Rather than just hearing the answer, yes, you need to ask them a little bit more. For example, ask how many claims have you opened, workers’ comp claims, in the last month? If they hesitate or say it’s just two or three, that’s probably not the firm for you because you really need to coordinate those separate claims so you get the best benefit.
Remember, if you’re injured in a construction site accident, your call to us is free. The information is free. It can be worth thousands of dollars to you, tens of thousands, and in rare cases, millions. Call us. We’ll coordinate your claims because the most important person is our client and we hope that will be you.
Have you been seriously injured on a construction site and have questions about what to do after a construction accident injury? Contact experienced Gilbert Construction Accident Lawyers at Free Injury Advice today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
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