Top Bronx Accident Lawyers Helping Injured Workers Obtain Compensation
Serious on-the-job injuries are, unfortunately, a fact of life at all types of workplaces across the Bronx and elsewhere in New York City. Unfortunately, employers do not always adhere to their duties to provide their workers with safe places to work, and the workers are usually the ones who suffer due to their employers’ negligence. Even more unfortunate is the fact that, pursuant to Section 29(6) of the New York Workers’ Compensation Law, injured workers’ only legal remedy against their employers in connection with work accidents – no matter how negligent the employer may have been in causing the accident – is to file for workers’ compensation insurance coverage. This rule, known as the “exclusive remedy” rule, prohibits injured workers from filing personal injury lawsuits seeking compensation in court against their employers.
However, when a work accident occurs and someone other than the injured worker’s employer is to blame, the “exclusive remedy” rule does not apply as against these negligent third-parties, and workers may bring “third-party” negligence personal injury lawsuits against these other parties and obtain compensation for their lost wages, medical bills and pain and suffering beyond what workers’ compensation insurance can offer. Whether the injured worker is injured in a slip-and-fall accident while on the job at a third-party’s property, or any other type of accident for which anybody other than their employer may be to blame, the injured worker should always discuss the facts of their case with experienced Bronx personal injury lawyers to ensure that their rights to compensation are protected.
Our Bronx accident lawyers offer all injured workers totally free, no-fee-guarantee consultations regarding their work accident injuries, and, if we accept a case, will not charge injured workers a dime in fees or expenses unless we win. Call us today at (718) 354-8000 to learn whether you may be able to bring a third-party negligence lawsuit in connection with your accident.
What is an Example of a Third-Party Personal Injury Lawsuit in a Work Accident?
So that injured workers can understand what a “third-party” negligence lawsuit is, consider the following example: You are a construction worker working at a demolition and re-construction project on a building site located at East 161st Street and Grand Concourse. The building is owned by a company called “East 161st Street Owners LLC”, and the general contractor on the demolition job is Tishman Construction Corporation of New York, Inc. You are an employee of the Laquila Group, Inc., a contractor hired by Tishman to perform excavation work on the foundation of the building. In connection with your work, you are instructed to go down into the foundation pit, climb up a scaffold and dismantle several steel beams that had formed the ground-level floor of the building being demolished. The scaffold on which you are instructed to work was provided by your employer, Laquila, has no guardrails, and you are not provided with a safety harness or lifeline to prevent you from falling off the scaffold. While you are working, the scaffold becomes unstable because of a defect in its construction, causing you to lose your balance and fall from the scaffold onto the ground in the foundation pit below. As a result, you suffer very serious injuries and are permanently disabled from working construction.
In this example, you might think that, because you were an employee of Laquila’s, and Laquila owned the defective scaffold that caused your accident, you are restricted to collecting workers’ compensation insurance coverage, as your employer was responsible for causing your accident. However, in this example, you would also be able to bring a third-party personal injury lawsuit against both East 161st Street Owners LLC (the owner of the job site) and Tishman Construction Corporation of New York (the general contractor on the job) pursuant to Labor Law Section 240 (the “Scaffold Law”), which holds owners and general contractors of construction sites absolutely liable for fall accidents caused by a lack of adequate safety equipment. In this third-party lawsuit, you can demand compensation not only for your past lost wages and past medical benefits (as can be compensated for in a workers’ compensation claim), but also for your past and future pain and suffering, as well as any future medical bills and future losses of income that you may incur due to this serious accident.
As another example, imagine that you work as a delivery person for a large beer distributor and your company is hired to deliver beer kegs to a local grocery store. As you are walking into the store to deliver the kegs, you trip and fall down a flight of stairs because one of the steps is defective and the staircase does not have handrails to allow you to stop yourself from falling. In this case, not only would you be able to collect workers’ compensation insurance benefits from your employer, but you would also be able to bring a third-party negligence lawsuit against the owner of the store for failing to maintain their store in a reasonably safe condition, and would be able to collect compensation beyond that which might be available to you under a workers’ compensation claim.
Contact our Bronx Accident Lawyers Today to Discuss Your Rights to Compensation
If you are injured on the job, our team of Bronx accident lawyers is standing by to examine your case and tell you about all of the ways in which you are entitled to collect compensation. We have won millions for injured Bronx workers who have suffered serious accidents due to the negligence of others, and offer to put our substantial financial resources and legal acumen to work for you if we accept your Bronx accident lawsuit into our firm. We pride ourselves on attention to detail and thorough trial preparation of every case that we accept, and for this reason we limit the number of cases that we take on so as to ensure that every client’s case receives the proper amount of attention and resources necessary for victory at trial and on appeal. Call our team of Bronx personal injury lawyers today at (718) 354-8000 to discuss your case today. We are happy to speak to you in English, or in Spanish, to make sure that you are comfortable that you are being properly understood by our bilingual lawyers. We are committed to making sure that you receive every dime of compensation to which you are entitled if we accept your case.
