legal 1/12/2020 9.) Child Abuse/Neglect, Construction Accidents, Workers' Comp, Crane Injuries - gtg.

legal 1/12/2020 9.) Child Abuse/Neglect, Construction Accidents, Workers’ Comp, Crane Injuries – gtg.

Posted on January 13, 2020, 2:23 am By David Strebler

If Your Child Has Suffered Abuse or Neglect at a Daycare Center, Here’s what You Should Do

When a child suffers some form of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse at a daycare facility in Texas, the first thing the parent asks is how they can stop it, quickly followed by “who is responsible for such a terrible act?” They want this person or persons to be brought to justice; first criminally and then civilly.

This is where bringing a civil complaint – with the assistance of a daycare facility abuse liability attorney – becomes an effective weapon in their quest. By paying damages for responsibility, the abusive or negligent party is held accountable for causing harm to a child in a daycare facility. It is also possible that these guilty parties may have to answer criminal charges for their behavior.

Allegations of child abuse should never be taken lightly, and proceeding with legal action against a person or entity that may be guilty of daycare child abuse can be a harrowing ordeal. It can also be dangerous to the family of that child because if their allegations end up being wrong, the offended family could find themselves as defendants in a slander or liable civil case. They must proceed cautiously, but with purpose.

If a parent or guardian suspects that their child has been the object of sexual, physical, emotional abuse, or has been neglected by a daycare facility’s staff, their anger is genuine. They need to take a breath because the issues surrounding daycare abuse and negligence liability are numerous and sometimes obscure. We are taking a few moments to explain the many claims that can be made when it comes to daycare abuse liability and negligence, and the civil process designed to identify the guilty parties and then bring them to justice.

Child abuse occurs in several forms. In addition to those we have described above, other not as well-known – offensive acts that may not have been overtly abusive, but still end up harming a child physically, emotionally and psychologically. We do know that across America, at least five children die every day because of child abuse, well over 30,000 children in the U.S suffer every day from some form of criminal or civil abuse.

An experienced Texas child abuse attorney with our Law Firm can serve you and your family in several ways. First, we can guide you through the very tricky investigation process and “cover your back” by advising you of the ways in keeping your cards “close to the vest” so you don’t tip your hand too soon. Jumping the gun could either trigger a cover-up or upset what turns out to be an innocent daycare worker who then might want to sue you for reckless allegations. Another benefit is, of course, being your legal advocate as you identify, then pursue the guilty parties for damages in civil court. We also regularly work with law enforcement and Texas Child Welfare officials as they are certain to conduct a criminal investigation into this matter once your allegations are known.

If you suspect your child may be suffering from physical abuse, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse at a daycare center, contact Our daycare facility abuse liability attorneys toll-free at 1(800) 862-1260. We provide a free, comprehensive and fully confidential legal consultation. We encourage you to ask however many questions you need in order to completely understand your child’s daycare abuse injury case and how it is best pursued.

Once we learn more about the facts surrounding the case and your needs, we can share all possible legal options with you and their likely result. Once you engage our Law Firm, we will conduct an in-depth investigation of every aspect surrounding the daycare provider, its workers and the abuse you suspect. If we happen to find additional criminal evidence, we will certainly turn it over to the proper legal authorities for them to investigate further, because if criminal charges apply, not only will the abusive defendants be facing prison time, it significantly strengthens your civil case. We will aggressively negotiate with all of your opponents, their insurance companies and lawyers, to reach a fair settlement for you. And if they don’t want to settle, we’ll just as forcefully represent you and your child in court.

We also despise those who abuse and neglect children and believe these monstrous people must be held fully accountable for their actions. They deserve to be brought to full justice for their offenses. Your violated child deserves a chance to heal from this terrifying ordeal, as does your entire family.

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The Different Legal Acts That Constitute Child Abuse or Neglect
Our legal system is quite complex. And though it is generally intended to resolve all civil issues, specific details surrounding daycare abuse and neglect are often not all that clearly defined. Unlike an auto accident or a wrongful construction death where the legal issues are more clear, and witnesses are usually able to be forthcoming in what they saw or experienced, abused or neglected children are often quite afraid to discuss what happened with a parent. They may be too young to appreciate the gravity of the injuries they suffered or even effectively communicate the incident. And there can be very discrete differences in the actual abuse or neglect charges and how they can be proved. However, in the State of Texas, unlike other personal injury cases, a variety of negligence claims can be filed against a daycare facility. And, if only one of these claims is validated, the negligent daycare center can be held liable for the abuse.

Negligent entrustment in the event of daycare abuse and neglect occurs when a supervising adult daycare worker fails to ensure the basic need of safety to the child or children who rely upon that adult for their inclusive care. In-short, daycare abuse and neglect is a violation of trust: not only of the child’s, but also the parents who place their children in their care. In these instances, a claim can be filed against the daycare facility, the adult daycare employee whose job it was to provide supervision to the child or children, as well as any other adult assigned to the care of the child or children. Sometimes investigations reveal that an authorized visitor to the center is the abuser, like a delivery person or contracted vehicle driver. But a daycare facility refusing to rescue all children in their care from hazardous conditions may be held accountable in a civil court of law. Below are the typical charges that can be brought in a daycare abuse lawsuit.

Negligent Supervision: This is the most common type of negligence in daycare abuse cases. If the supervising adult failed to provide adequate safety for the child this may be cited, and a civil complaint can be brought against a daycare worker or a secondary employee such as a bus driver or janitor. Any adult at the center who fails to take proper action to either prevent a dangerous situation or fails to rescue a child from such a situation that results in injury or death may be held liable through a legal claim of negligent supervision.

Negligent Entrustment: This is probably the second leading cause of daycare abuse liability and negligence. It too can allow a lawsuit to be brought against the entire daycare facility, not just against the individual worker. Here’s an example. A few years ago we represented a family whose child fell from a ladder that a daycare worker had left standing. In the end, we were able to help that family win a Negligent Entrustment suit due to this worker’s thoughtlessness, even though there was no actual abuse. What if a worker is absent from the room when a child falls? In such an event, a lawsuit against both the daycare worker and also the facility itself is certainly an appropriate action by the parents. This is important since the daycare facility itself is more likely to be financially solvent than might be the minimum wage-earning daycare worker.

Negligent Hiring: Hiring practices for a daycare setting, as well as those governing outside companies such as transportation companies or individuals coming into the daycare to teach supplemental classes like karate, art or dance, have a set specific “due diligence” procedures that must be followed to ensure the safety of the children attending the facility. One such component of the hiring process is performing a background check on all prospective employees. If the prospective employee has a criminal history or presents background information that could infer causing abuse and neglect to a child, the employer (in this case, the daycare facility) could be held liable for negligent hiring practices if they, in fact, hired the individual. Vendors that serve the daycare center may be required to perform similarly stringent background checks. If they fail to do so, they, in addition to possibly the daycare center, might also be liable for damages arising from a child abuse or neglect civil action.

Other Causes: The daycare abuse laws as originally written had a few loopholes through which some abusers were able to scoot-through and avoid civil liability. So a few years ago, Texas Child Care Abuse Laws were amended to address these shortcomings. This led to a list that covers many of the gray areas of the original legislation. They include:

Failure to meet those standards described in the Texas Minimum Standards for Licensed Child Care Centers.
Breach of contract.
Failure to show sound judgment or general competency.
Demonstrating the lack of supervision of daycare employees and employees who show a lack of sound judgment: These two previous bullet points also clarified what constitutes Negligent Entrustment.
A failure to get a child out of a dangerous scenario.
A failure to meet the acceptable standards of care for a daycare or shelter or after school or child care home facility.
A failure to provide timely treatment of an injured child.
A claim of “res ipsa loquitor” (translated meaning, “the thing speaks for itself”). This means that a child at the daycare facility would not have experienced any injury had it not been for the behavior of that daycare worker at the facility.
Fraud or misrepresentation.
General negligence.

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Clarifying Some Differences between Child Neglect and Child Abuse

Daycare centers must prove reasonable efforts are made to assure your child’s safety. A daycare worker or the center itself may also be the target of civil litigation through a charge of general negligence. You also know that negligent hiring practices may be proven if the daycare center did not perform due diligence in thoroughly checking an employee’s background prior to their coming to work.

Another claim of negligent supervision may be cited as grounds for a personal injury lawsuit, even if a child suffered an injury due to an adult becoming distracted for even a few seconds. Unlike many other personal injury cases that only have one – or only a scant few options when it comes to citing claims of negligence, child abuse cases may involve many different types of inattentive or negligent behavior as contributing factors to your child’s injury. And again, if just one claim of negligence is substantiated, then you are allowed to seek compensation for the damages your child – and by-definition, you – have suffered.

Many daycare abuse suspicions usually end up becoming negligence charges as the actual instances of abuse against children in daycare centers have gradually declined over the years. Regardless of whether it’s outright abuse or just neglectful behavior that led to your small child’s injury or psychological trauma, it’s hard for a parent, or child, to find comfort in such a distinction when they (and you) are suffering from the negligence of others in whom you placed your trust.

All educators and adults who supervise children for a living well-know that it is the law in Texas that such professionals who even remotely suspect that child abuse or systemic neglect has occurred must immediately contact the Child Protective Services office of the Texas Department of Family Protective Services. Incidents of suspected child abuse or consistent neglectful behavior that may require immediate attention can be reported to the CPS toll-free abuse hotline at 1-800-252-5400 any time of the day, seven days a week. If the abuse has clearly caused an emergency situation, they must contact local law enforcement (911) without delay. But if an emergency response is not necessary, the CPS online reporting system on the Web (www.txabusehotline.org) may be used. Allegations of child abuse sent through the CPS Web site can take up to 24 hours to process and generate a response.

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The Difficulty in Recognizing the Signs of Daycare Abuse in Your Child

If you have a good reason to suspect that your child is suffering some type of abuse while at the daycare center, you can probably see the signs if you are carefully observant. Most of the time, your good parental instincts and intuition are the first indicators that can tell you when your child is acting differently for no explainable reason. But just as often, those signs can be subtle and hard to pin-down because small children usually have a hard time expressing their emotions or have great difficulty telling you what is really going on inside their little minds. But one thing we know; abused children often act confused or afraid for no apparent reason. Sometimes they don’t know how wrong the child abuse they might be suffering from is. Maybe they think that if they tell you about the abuse, something even worse will happen to them – or someone they love. So in their minds, not only does the abuse feel inexplicably wrong to them, they feel they must guard this dirty secret when the abuser threatens to harm you or another family member in order to assure your child’s continued silence. This can be very common behavior by a child abuser in order to avoid suspicion for their despicable behavior.

Sudden, unexpected aggression against siblings, friends at home or even parents is not uncommon in abused children. A sudden interest in “sex play” – especially if there appears to be deviant elements to it – can be a powerful clue. Avoiding normal play activities, sudden desires to be alone in a normally gregarious child, an undue amount of rubbing in the genital area, or the sudden appearance of bruises are general clues to the possibility of physical or sexual abuse. But they are only the most prominent on what can be a long list of clues that something is not right. As we said, be observant and use your best judgment.

The next step that needs to be taken if you notice any changes in your child’s behavior (or physical signs of abuse) is to seek appropriate medical attention for your child. An experienced doctor will know what to look for in regards to suspected cases of physical or sexual child abuse. They are duty-bound to conduct a thorough examination of your child in order to fully assess whether or not daycare child abuse or neglect has occurred. Should you need assistance in finding proper medical attention, our daycare abuse liability attorneys can assist you to find the appropriate medical or psychological help for your child.

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Who are Liable Defendants for Daycare Center-related Child Abuse?

In the legal world, the person responsible for an injury is called the “liable party.” If a liable party ends up being the object of a civil suit, he or she is the defendant (and you are the plaintiff). The specific circumstances surrounding a daycare abuse case will likely dictate who the liable parties are. There have also been many instances of daycare abuse where the offender is not a daycare worker or daycare teacher; but rather, a support employee like the business manager or someone else with the daycare facility who does not commonly come in contact with the abused child. It might be a part-time worker at the center; such as a janitor or bus driver or a delivery person who consistently visits the center on business.

Sometimes family members of daycare workers are implicated in daycare abuse cases, though that doesn’t happen very often. If an employee of a daycare center, or worker with another company who has dealings with the center is guilty of child abuse at your daycare center, we’ve already told you how both the employee and the employer can be held liable for this employee’s negligent or predatory behavior. In the event that one or more perpetrators have been found to have committed child abuse in Texas, separate civil lawsuits may be pursued against each one for their particular activity. This is why a careful investigation by both law enforcement officials, and your daycare facility abuse attorneys must be made in order to identify and hold fully-liable all who are responsible for the full extent of their negligent or abusive behavior.

If allegations against alleged child abusers that – upon investigation – prove to be improper, ill-founded or reckless; they can damage a child care worker’s good name and reputation. And the parents who leveled those incorrect charges run a dangerous risk of becoming the target of civil slander or liable charges by the accused daycare worker once he or she is exonerated. So it’s vital that everyone gets things 100% right and the alleged child abuser investigated is actually the guilty person. Daycare facility abuse liability attorney our lead attorney can help you understand why you must approach daycare abuse or neglect allegations quietly and very delicately until you are completely certain.

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Your Opponents in a Daycare Abuse or Negligence Lawsuit Vigorously Defend Themselves

When an employee of a daycare center is found liable for an incident of child abuse or neglect, the employer’s themselves, and their parent company (if it is a chain) can be held legally liable for this matter. But sometimes finding out who the actual owner of a daycare center is can pose several challenges. While some daycares are privately owned, many others are owned by parent corporations with substantial legal clout on their side. And some daycare centers can be owned by “shell corporations” where the actual owner is not readily known without a great deal of intense investigation. Without an experienced Texas daycare abuse attorney to investigate the case, then represent you, justice for your child could end before it begins.

In addition to any legal investigation, it is possible that discovering the actual owner of a daycare facility may require the work of investigators to uncover the truly responsible owner who bears the financial liability for your child’s daycare abuse. Then all liable parties must have their finances investigated in order to understand those who will be able to pay legal damages once they are awarded to you.

That company’s insurance carrier is all but certain to be responsible for the defendant compensating you in a daycare liability case. Be aware that insurance companies all-too-often have experience in dealing with similar cases brought against the defendants they represent, as well as civil liability cases in general. Insurance carriers – and their attorneys – are well-armed to aggressively defend their interests to the fullest; because if they are successful, the insurance carrier stands to save a great deal of money.

The strength of your case coupled with our very persuasive attorneys can just as easily produce an acceptable compensation amount, which means your family and abused child will not have to live through the ordeal of a civil trial. In fact, once they see just how strong your case is, the insurance carrier and their defendant are more apt to settle for a reasonable amount just because they don’t want the media notoriety represented by a civil child abuse or neglect trial. Many times, such trials end up being the death of the defendant daycare center.

Contact our Law Firm to Speak with a Daycare Facility Abuse Liability Attorney

Aside from the fact that these defendants might also have to answer criminal charges, a personal injury lawsuit can be brought against those same responsible people for child abuse at a Texas daycare facility. Even though no amount of money may seem fair compensation for the suffering your child and family must bear, that damage award the center and its insurance company are forced to pay will seem like “just desserts” for their behavior. By winning your case or winning negotiations against those who are negligent or abusive to your child, you are working to fight daycare abuse or neglect all over Texas and the state: and helping to save other families from the agony and pain you and your child are now dealing with.

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Protect Your Legal Rights if You are Injured in a Construction Accident

There is good news and bad news in the world of Texas Construction. The good news: there’s plenty of work throughout the Lone Star State. The bad news, with so much being built, coupled with the traditional dangers found on every construction site, is that there are a number of accidents and injuries. It’s inevitable.

So what happens once you’re injured on the job site? Not much if your injuries are minor and you can return to work in a few days. Sometimes it’s a short, paid vacation. But what if your injuries are more serious? Who pays for your injuries, lost time or the money owed because you’re permanently disabled and can’t work, or if your loved one was killed in on a construction job site?

The details surrounding your accident determine how your successful claim or civil injury case must be handled. The primary thing you must know first: before you do anything, is whether or not the company you work for has Texas workers’ comprehensive insurance. Workers’ comp pays some reimbursement for medical expenses, lost wages, pain, and suffering. You also need to know what to do if the contractor or subcontractor you work is a workers’ comp participant or not. You also need to know whether you are an employee or merely a contractor. And finally, if others in addition to your employer owe you damages for your injury, can you identify them through a thorough investigation? Your ability to win financial remedy for all of these damages depends on the answer to all of these questions.

Resolving construction injury cases can be very complex due to the above factors we’ve mentioned. But there are additional, more discrete elements as well. They can influence how any construction injury case is pursued. The complexity and occasional ambiguity of some of our laws permit employers and the insurance providers who cover them to unfairly refuse the rightful claims of thousands of injured construction workers every year. Inexperienced lawyers will often fail to secure the maximum work-injury settlement in construction accident cases. Those with no legal experience – who insist on representing themselves in such matters – almost universally fail to win just compensation.

The professional team at our Texas Law Firm has decades of experience at fairly resolving injury claims and civil cases on behalf of construction workers. We use our expertise to help you clearly understand the laws involved with such cases, all the legal avenues available to you after your construction accident-related injuries, or if a wrongful death occurred to your loved one. We also have just as much experience representing surviving family members when a construction worker has been killed on the job site. This is why we are sharing all the challenges you must overcome, and some of the possible solutions to your current quandary, so you can make the best-informed decisions in the interests of your family. Your employer or his or her insurance companies are only interested in protecting their own interests, and they have been from the moment your accident happens.

Employers protect their own assets. Some construction companies begin their defense by trying to hide whether or not they even have workers’ comp insurance: or worse! Often, they will engage in underhanded and misguided practices to avoid liability for an injured employee. An experienced Texas construction accident lawyer knows how to counter these tricks of your employer, his lawyers, and pushy, underhanded insurance adjusters. Without that aggressive legal experience, you’re still their victim.

The experienced construction accident lawyers with our Law Firm helps injured construction workers deal with their challenging work-injury cases. We have spent decades accumulating the expertise required to help you receive the compensation you deserve. Put our experience to work for you. If you want to know what your rights are, how to proceed with your claim and how much compensation you can secure, then we can answer your questions. Call our Law Firm now at 1(800) 862-1260 (toll-free) for a free consultation and find out how we can help you.

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Here’s How Workers’ Compensation in Construction Accident Cases REALLY Works

Thanks to our lawmakers (and the insurance company lobbyists who buy their lunches: at least!) understanding workers’ comp laws – and their loopholes – is more complicated than it was a few years ago. Texas construction companies are not required by the state to purchase workers’ comp. So, all workplace injury matters are divided into two distinct types that require diametrically different methods and strategies to resolve. Employers who carry worker’s comp are known as subscribers. Those who don’t are non-subscribers. So, in order to know how to proceed with your injury compensation claim, it must first be learned whether or not your employer is a subscriber or a non-subscriber.

Workers’ comp benefits come out of a “pool” of funds that are replenished by private insurance carriers that participate in the state-managed program. This pool protects subscriber-employers from lawsuits and covers employers: very well regardless of whether or not the injury is severe. But it generally dismisses the full legal rights of employees to be fairly compensated when the employer is negligent because it limits, or “caps” the monetary benefits an injured employee can receive through the program.

If your employer subscribes to workers’ comp, it will give some compensatory relief to employees who are injured on the job site. This is because it’s essentially “no fault” insurance because those covered by workers’ comp are reimbursed, regardless of how the accident occurred or who was at fault. However, in the event of a serious injury, a large part of the time, the amount of money you receive doesn’t necessarily cover the actual expenses of an on-the-job injury; especially if you suffer some sort of disability and cannot work for a period of time. We’ll go over that further down.

And in order to receive damages from a non-subscriber to workers’ comp, an injury victim must file a lawsuit. Fortunately for the injured party, the latest workers’ comp legislation established lower standards of proving subscriber negligence. And these same standards also apply against a non-subscriber if the injured worker files in a civil case. So many times it’s moderately easier to prove true liability to a non-subscribing employer, general contractor or subcontractor for accidents on the construction job site. We’ll also talk about the different levels of negligence in construction accident injury cases in a moment because that too is a very important point when assessing your specific case.

Since construction is such a dangerous industry by-definition, it would seem prudent that all such companies would purchase workers’ comp insurance. But still, some choose not to subscribe to the program, even if it is less expensive than traditional liability insurance. So some shifty employers prefer to take the risk of not subscribing to workers’ comp. Then, when the odds catch up with them and an employee is injured on the job site, they try to avoid a lawsuit by offering to quickly pay the benefits you would generally receive from workers’ comp and ask you to sign what they will represent as a “standard workers’ comp release” in order to further their trickery and evade a lawsuit that could put them out of business.

The many reasons why you need an experienced construction accident attorney to get to the bottom of your company’s workers’ comp status are probably beginning to pile-up. Once we have identified the nature of your employer’s workman’s comp standing, our attorneys will know how to proceed with your case.

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Under Very Special Circumstances you Might Sue a Workers’ Comp Subscriber: Otherwise…

Employers that subscribe to workers’ comp insurance get far more than just pool coverage and lower benefit payments. They can be virtually “Teflon-coated” when it comes to being a defendant in a civil injury lawsuit: with one significant exception.

If an employer has committed gross negligence and if it led to the wrongful death of a loved-one, you can sue the employer/worker’s comp subscriber. But proving gross negligence, even under the best circumstances, and unless the facts of the case are overwhelmingly in your favor, can be very difficult. So whichever workers’ comp participating insurance company is responsible for negotiating a settlement, again – with benefit caps, the odds are still against victim’s survivors that they will receive the equitable compensation that is rightfully sought.

If the world was fair, insurance providers would be sensitive to the legitimate needs of injured parties, and construction accident victims would receive fair compensation for all medical bills, lost salary, pain, and suffering. But the insurance companies who participate in workers’ comp try to say in benevolent tones of their advertising and public relations’ campaigns: even the facts send an entirely different message.

Simply-put, insurance companies are in business to generate profits. Many times this “prime directive” comes at the expense of helping people with legitimate claims against them. And those who underwrite the workers’ comp pool are no exception. Many insurance companies are known for trying to avoid fairly compensating injured construction workers each and every year anywhere in Texas. Those underwriters who participate in the state’s workers’ comp insurance pool are just doing what they are known for: but with the “wink and a nudge” permission of the legislature.

There actually two possible avenues to receiving injury compensation outside the purview of workers’ comp. One of these exceptions involves a construction worker’s fatality. The other allows the injured employee to file a suit against someone other than the subscribing employer, known as a third-party:

If your loved one’s construction accident-related death was a direct result of the gross negligence by the employer, then you may file a wrongful death lawsuit in court. In one case, our attorneys were hired by the loved ones of a construction worker who fell to his death from a crane. The employer had ordered the worker to work atop the crane without the mandatory safety harness. And when the man plummeted to his death, the employer rushed to a construction supply store, purchased a safety harness and put it on the man’s lifeless body before the fatality was reported. Our attorneys were able to prove this malicious employer’s willful deception by interviewing the co-workers. Boy did we make the employer pay!
In many cases, someone other than (or in addition to) the employer may have done something negligent to cause the injury suffered by a construction worker on the job site. If a faulty piece of machinery caused grievous wounds, then the manufacturer may be held liable through a defective product lawsuit. If the owner of the property, or the developer, did not provide safe working conditions, then he or she could be a target-defendant. If a contractor or another employee who was allowed on the job site negligently caused the injury, then they too could be legally blamed.
In all of these cases, you can sue the responsible third party or parties, even if you can’t bring suit against your workers’ comp subscribing employer. Experience and the ability to properly investigate not only the accident scene but the roles all of these third parties played in a construction accident is very important in determining all of the parties responsible in order to make them pay for the injuries they caused. A thorough and skillful Texas construction accident lawyer can fully investigate the accident scene, and quickly: then develop the proper strategy for your construction injury liability case that offers the best opportunity to win compensation in a complex Texas work-related civil action involving one third-party, or many.

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When the Defendant is a Non-Subscriber to Workers’ Comp, You Must Expect Anything!

Anyone who has been a construction employee for longer than a half-hour knows that this industry seems to have more than its share of cheap employers who are more than willing to cut corners whenever possible. Both construction worker’s comp injury compensation, as well as private insurance policies to cover non-subscribing construction contractors, is particularly expensive due to the inherent dangers of the industry itself. So it really comes as little surprise that many employers neglect to purchase workers’ comp or any other form of liability insurance. Some of it can also be attributed to the high number of foreign workers on the lower tiers of all construction projects and the contractor’s general assumption that they will not call them to accounts if an accident injures one of them. So, if anyone hopes to receive the full compensation they deserve from non-subscribing employers, all workers in any industry certainly need the assistance of a skilled construction accident lawyer to investigate the accident thoroughly, file a lawsuit and see it through in order to secure that fair compensation for their injuries: including yours.

In order to further punish non-subscribing employers, the same workers’ comp laws enable the victim to ask for much greater damages than if the employer had purchased workers comp insurance. And since the construction accident victim must merely prove standard negligence, which means the employer only committed a sole error or momentary inability to maintain safety, job-related injury lawsuits can be generally easier to win. Even so, the laws governing these principles are not easy to understand. In order to succeed you will need a crafty Texas construction accident attorney to guide you through this challenging legal process.

It begins when the victim, also known as the plaintiff, files a claim with the employer, notifying him or her of the injury and the compensation the victim expects as fair reimbursement. The employer can agree but usually doesn’t. They might try to negotiate a settlement or dispute the claimant’s allegations outright. But if negotiations are successful then the case is settled, you win compensation and move on with your life. Most of the time, work- injury cases are contested and the claimant then becomes a plaintiff in a lawsuit to win the legal damages he or she deserves. As the injured party, the plaintiff holds the burden of proving that the employer’s negligence caused the injury, resulting in those high medical bills, lost salary, pain, and suffering. Fortunately for the injured victims, simple negligence is much easier to prove than gross negligence.

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One Powerful Defense Non-Subscribers Use to Avoid Paying for Your Injuries

If your employer doesn’t subscribe to workers’ comp and you sue for damages from your construction accident (or if you file a third-party lawsuit) he or she isn’t likely to panic and agree to pay you for the harm you’ve suffered due to their negligence. They’ll hire a lawyer and fight it, or hand it over to their insurance company for them to contest your lawsuit. Our experience in these matters has revealed that most non-subscribers try to use one of a couple of predictable defenses to avoid paying injured employees the restitution they deserve.

The primary defense afforded non-subscribers after an employee suffers an injury and files a lawsuit is to use the sole proximate cause defense. This is a defendant claim that the victim was completely to blame for his or her own injuries. In order to cite the sole proximate cause defense, non-subscribing employers and their attorneys will soil your good reputation by trying to prove you were a negligent or reckless employee and caused your own injuries. They try to hold you alone responsible for them. And they’ll say anything they can to make their defense stick; whether it’s true or not

You might need to disprove charges of drug or alcohol use on the job or other charges of reckless behavior. Your general character might be called into question when they say you beat your wife and kids or some other frivolous defense that has one objective; to turn the spotlight on you and away from their liable defendant. Experienced and shrewd defense attorneys know how to make victims appear responsible for their own injuries. You need your own crafty Texas construction accident attorney to turn the tables back on them and place the blame squarely where it belongs, on the negligent employer.

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A Defendant Who Questions the Employer-Employee Relationship is An Obstacle

The sole proximate cause defense is not the only way non-subscribers have to avoid liability after an injury has been suffered by one of their employees. Many clever employers even begin avoiding liability even before accidents occur by trying to distance themselves from you as an employee, and their responsibility to fairly compensate you.

Construction companies are not responsible for injuries to contractors. So many of them purposefully hire their employees and call them contractors. By calling you a contractor, your employer can deny that an employer-employee relationship exists between the two of you and then they will tell the court that you don’t have a claim. Their logic is simple: Why should they be responsible for an injury to a person who was never their employee, to begin with?

While many Texas construction companies might claim they hire their employees as contractors or as temp workers from someone else, the employer knows an actual employer-employee relationship usually exists and an injured worker has the right to obtain compensation. Don’t be misled.

Even though your employer claims you are a contractor, you may still be considered an employee in the eyes of the law and entitled to recover compensation for injuries suffered on the job. A skillful and well-seasoned local construction accident lawyer knows how to prove the employer-employee relationship by meeting at least one of the following standards:

Social security or taxes have been withheld from your paycheck by the employer.
The essential equipment for the job was supplied to you by the employer.
Your work has been regularly managed, administered or inspected by your employer.
The employer has established a specific work schedule for the work you perform.
You are given specific hours to be on the construction site, or specific break and lunch periods. You are not free to come-and-go as you please.
Your employer requires you to complete a task or sign a document that limits your rights while working for the employer. The most common examples are taking a drug test or signing a document that states you comply with an employee handbook.
You have been employed for an undetermined period of time and not just for a single job.
You are paid by a salary or an hourly wage and not on a job-by-job basis.

In cases where a worker is borrowed from another company, or a third-party agency, the rules for determining the working relationship are related, but there can be some crucial differences. Some of these conditions may include:

If the borrowing employer has the power to hire or fire a borrowed worker at any time, the worker is clearly an employee. Otherwise, the worker is a contractor
Most of the time, if the borrowing employer is allowed to pick a particular worker, then the worker is an employee. If the agency that provides the worker is allowed to send any worker they choose, the worker is a contractor.
If the worker must provide his or her own tools, that person is a contractor. If the employer provides them, the worker is an employee.
If the agency can substitute the borrowed worker for another at-will, the worker is a contractor. If the lending agency cannot, then the worker is an employee.
If the worker is borrowed indefinitely, then the worker is an employee. If the worker is borrowed for a specific project with a specific date of completion, the worker is a contractor.
If a worker is being borrowed or “leased” because of a skill that is unique or hard-to-find, then the worker is a contractor. But on the other hand, if an employer borrows a worker to fill a position that just about anyone can fill, then the worker is an employee.
If the borrowing employer agrees to pay the worker’s social security and income tax, then the worker is an employee. If the borrowing employer does not accept this responsibility, then the worker is a contractor.
Our lawyers conduct a thorough investigation to demonstrate the existence of one of these standards and prove an employer-employee relationship existed for you. And if one can be established, your chances improve: if more than one, the odds of success rise dramatically. We depose co-workers, review contracts and examine pay stubs to establish that you were, in fact, an employee when you suffered your on-the-job construction injury.

Additionally, if you were hired by an employment agency or “loaned out” to another third party to work at another “employer’s” job site and suffered a workplace-related injury, your attorney must determine if the agency or third party has workers’ comp. If so, then you would file a workers’ comp claim against the agency, which would typically make the company where you actually performed the work a third-party to the accident. This brings another important point to mind. Workers’ comp claims are less-than-adequate when major injuries are involved, including wrongful death. The traditional way for an injured worker to receive fair damage compensation is to file a workers’ comp claim against the agency, and supplement it with the appropriate number of third party claims or lawsuits.

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Winning Your Construction Accident Liability Case Can Be Very Tricky

In all non-subscriber and third party construction injury cases, defendants can have large insurance companies and lots of attorneys to oppose you. Or they might be “self-insured” or uninsured. And though uninsured defendants might be too cheap to buy insurance, or post a bond to cover liability, they are more than willing to pay a defense attorney tens of thousands of dollars to fight you in order to avoid paying your workplace injury damages.

Insurance companies that cover non-subscribers have attorneys either on-staff or on permanent retainer. And they are very good at defending their clients from people like you who try to sue them. Insurance companies are in the business of collecting high premiums, and often fight when it comes to paying claims. They are confrontational and arrogant in protecting their money. But they can be beaten when you have an experienced construction accident injury lawyer who knows how to counter every tricky tactic they try.

As bad as the insurance companies can be in a construction injury claim or lawsuit, the self-insured defendant companies, or those that have no insurance at all are a different and very dangerous animal when cornered. You will be seeking a settlement with an officer of the self-insured company or maybe even directly from your employer he owns a small company. This person’s salary is tied directly to company profits. Whatever you are paid for an injury comes directly out of company assets. By compensating you, your employer literally takes food out of his own mouth. We are rarely surprised when a sneaky, self-insured company officer uses any and all means for denying your claim in order to protect his company’s, and personal, assets. Some of them are downright illegal.

Self-insured companies and uninsured construction contractors can deliberately destroy evidence and bribe or intimidate witnesses, even you. They sometimes even resort to physical threats. This is why every time we represent a client against a self-insured or non-insured company, we quickly file motions in court that prevent any defendant from behaving inappropriately against our clients. Sometimes these motions include a clear demand that they make no attempt to communicate with our clients in any way without one of our attorneys present.

OSHA Is of Little Use in an Injury Liability Claim or Legal Case

Maybe you are familiar with the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). This government agency maintains minimum standards of safety for all American employers. You might think OSHA will help you attain compensation. Forget it. OSHA is not an advocate for injured workers. All it does is oversee the work environment in the U.S and keep statistics on safe (and unsafe) workplaces. So any evidence they might be able to supply your case will be anecdotal and not very useful. And for the past 30+ years, OSHA regulations, and the fines levied for non-compliance are little more than a nuisance to employers. They have no real teeth.

While OSHA sets safety standards in the workplace and fines transgressors, the fine amounts were established long ago. And in today’s economy, they and no longer carry the financial motivation that convinces safety violators to comply with these government standards. Many of these fine amounts are 25-30 years old. Inflation and other economic factors make most OSHA fines little more than a slap on the wrist. And over the years, OSHA has become virtually useless in preventing on-the-job injuries. OSHA is about as useful to your case as a sixth toe.

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Choose a Texas/ Texas Construction Accident Attorney Who Will Fight for Your Rights

We begin with some free advice that is really no secret if you want your compensation case to succeed.

Before you speak with an insurance company, or accept even a single dollar of payment or compensation from your employer, or sign anything, or attempt to file a lawsuit on your own, you must contact a competent lawyer. Your employer or its insurance provider wants you to accept a “low ball” settlement in order to save their own money. Don’t let them take advantage of you. In fact, it’s never a good idea to discuss any details of your intentions, or anything else surrounding the injury, with anyone, without a lawyer to protect your interests.

Then, you must realize the critical importance of acting swiftly. In construction accident injury cases, the evidence begins to fade immediately. The accident scene itself changes quickly as construction sites are in a constant state of change. Critical evidence can be under a five-foot concrete slab the very next day. Witnesses change their stories or forget what they saw. If you wait too long to hire an attorney and put him on the investigative trail, you are doing lasting damage to your ability to secure the restitution you deserve.

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You Have Legal Rights After a Crane-Related Injury

Construction cranes are marvelous and complicated machines. According to the latest research by the Society of Crane and Rigging, there are around 125,000 cranes operating in the U. S. on any given day. They’re used for installing heavy machinery and supplies in the construction of large buildings ranging from commercial warehouses, skyscrapers, and a variety of other large buildings. The use of other equipment can complicate the operation of a crane. This can make the crane’s operation both problematic and at times, quite dangerous both for the operator, or workers and even innocent bystanders.

Crane accidents can be terrible and very grisly. People can be crushed when the cable snaps or the crane drops its payload. Occasionally the crane itself can topple causing it to crash into buildings or other structures. Construction workers can be caught up in the apparatus’ mechanical workings and suffer severe crush injuries. Operators can be electrocuted when cranes strike power lines, an injury that is usually easy to avoid if the employer provides the right non-conducting or grounding device. The number of injuries and fatalities from crane injuries is extensive and can include: brain trauma, dismemberment, spinal cord injury, electrical shock, and burns, among others. A large number of crane accidents cause deaths.

How to handle your claim or civil injury case depends upon the details of your case and the events leading up to the accident. You need to know whether or not the company you work for has workers’ compensation insurance, which pays some reimbursement for medical expenses, lost wages, and smaller amounts for pain and suffering if there is a long-term disability. You also need to know what to do if other “third parties” might have helped cause the accident. And you need to know whether, in the eyes of the law, you are an employee or merely a contractor. Your ability to obtain compensation – and how much – depends on the answer to each of these questions.

Resolving crane injury cases is frequently very complex due to these factors mentioned above, as well as others that impact any crane injury case. Furthermore, the complexity and occasional ambiguity of some of our laws permit employers and their insurance providers to unfairly refuse the rightful claims of too many injured crane workers every year. It’s almost certain that inexperienced lawyers will fail to secure the maximum work-injury settlement in crane accident cases. And it’s all but inevitable that those with no legal experience who insist on representing themselves in such matters will fail.

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Strict Guidelines for Cranes and How They are Used Help Your Injury Case

Because of the innate risks of operating cranes and the appalling injuries and deaths that generally result when things go wrong, the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established guidelines for the use of cranes on construction sites:

Employers must comply with all manufacturer limitations and instructions regarding the operation of the crane.
Instructions and warnings regarding the load capacity and safety warnings must be visible to the crane operator while he or she is operating the crane.
The employer must make certain that the crane has been inspected by a recognized safety inspector prior to use. If there is any broken or defective machinery, it must be replaced before it is used.
The employer is responsible for ensuring that the crane is placed at a safe distance from overhead electrical lines. In cases where a crane must be operated near an electrical line, then the employer must take action to ensure the electrical line is not operational and that the proper grounding apparatus has been installed and working properly.
If your employer has failed to comply with any of these standards and you have been injured, then you have the right to not only seek compensation, but have clear standards for determining employer (or the owner of the crane’s) liability. But how you succeed depends on whether or not your employer purchased workman’s compensation insurance. And we’ll talk about that in a bit.

The professional team at our Texas Law Firm has invested decades of their lives into fairly resolving personal injury claims and civil cases on behalf of construction and crane workers. We use our expertise to help you clearly understand the laws surrounding such cases and all the legal avenues open to you from your crane accident-related injuries. We are just as adept at representing surviving family members when a construction worker or crane operator has been killed on the job site.

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The “Ins and Outs” of Workers’ Comp in Crane Accident Cases

Thanks to our lawmakers (and insurance company lobbyists) understanding workers’ comp laws are not as easy as it once was. No business in Texas is required to purchase workers’ comp insurance. So, workers’ comp injury matters are divided into two distinct types that require totally different methods and strategies to resolve. Employers who carry worker’s comp are known as subscribers. Those who don’t are non-subscribers. In order to know how to proceed with your claim, you must first determine whether or not your employer, the first target of any workplace injury claim, is a subscriber or a non-subscriber.

Workers’ comp benefits come out of a “pool” of funds provided by private insurance carriers that participate in the program. This pool protects subscriber-employers from lawsuits, but generally disregards the full civil rights of employees to be fairly compensated unless the employer is grossly negligent. These compensation limits, or “caps,” severely limit the monetary benefits an injured employee can receive.

If your employer subscribes to workers’ comp, it delivers some compensation when you are injured on the job site. It’s basically “no-fault” insurance because those covered by workers’ comp are automatically reimbursed, no matter how the accident occurred or whose fault it was. Many times the money you receive doesn’t cover the actual expenses of an on the job injury. We’ll explain why that is and what we can do about it in a bit.

In order to receive restitution from a non-subscriber to workers’ comp, an injury victim must file a lawsuit. Fortunately for the injured party, most of the lower standards of proving workers’ comp subscriber negligence also apply in non-subscriber civil cases in Texas. It’s much easier to assess true liability to a non-subscribing employer, general contractor or subcontractor for crane accidents on the job site. Negligence when it comes to workers comp subscribers’ is a very important exception that might dramatically benefit your case.

Since construction is such a dangerous industry, especially when cranes are involved, you’d think all companies would be smart and purchase workers’ comp insurance just because it’s moderately less-expensive than traditional liability insurance. But so many employers will roll the dice and take the risk of not subscribing to workers’ comp. Then, when an employee’s injured, they try to avoid a lawsuit by offering to quickly pay you the benefits normally received from workers’ comp and ask you to sign what they may represent as a “general liability release” in order to further their deception and evade a lawsuit.

This is one of many reasons why you need an experienced Texas crane accident attorney to get to the bottom of your company’s workers’ comp status, so you know what legal recourse is available to you. Once we have identified the nature of your employer’s worker’s compensation standing, our attorneys will know how to represent you.

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You Can’t Normally Sue Workers’ Comp Subscribers: With One Important Exception

When they subscribe to workers’ comp insurance, employers get far more than just pool coverage that produces lower benefit payments. They are also bulletproof when it comes to personal injury lawsuits. Unless your employer has committed gross negligence that produced a wrongful death, an employer/subscriber cannot be sued for damages. And even under the best circumstances, unless the facts of the case are clearly overwhelming, gross negligence is very difficult to prove. With the workers’ comp participating insurance company that’s responsible for negotiating a crane accident settlement – again, with benefit caps – the odds are highly unlikely that the victim, or the victim’s survivors if a death has occurred, will receive the fair compensation they are entitled to.

Insurance companies are in business to generate profits, rather than universally help injured people. Those who underwrite the workers’ comp pool are no exception. All insurance companies try to avoid fairly compensating injured construction workers each year in Texas. Those who participate in the state’s insurance pool are just doing it in plain sight.

There are two possible avenues to receiving injury compensation outside of the purview of workers’ comp. One of these exceptions involves a construction or crane worker’s fatality. The other allows the injured employee to file a suit against someone other than the subscribing employer, known as a third-party:

If your loved one’s crane accident-related death was a direct result of the gross negligence by your employer, then you may file a wrongful death lawsuit. In one of our cases, our attorneys were hired by the loved ones of a construction worker who died after a fall from a crane. The employer had ordered the worker on the rig but didn’t provide the OSHA-mandated safety harness. And when the man plummeted to his death, the employer hurried to a construction supply store, bought a safety harness and attached it to the dead man before reporting the accident. Our attorneys were able to prove this willful deception by interviewing his co-workers, and we made this employer pay: and pay big.

In many cases, someone besides the employer may have done something negligent to cause the injury suffered by a crane accident involving a construction worker on the job site. If a faulty piece of machinery caused the injury, then the manufacturer may be held accountable through a defective product lawsuit. If the owner of the crane did not provide a safe rig, then he or she could be liable. If a crane contractor or one of his employees caused the injury, then they could be blamed. In all of these cases, you can sue the responsible party or parties, even if you can’t bring suit against your subscribing employer. Experience and the ability to properly investigate not only the accident scene but the roles these third parties played in the crane accident is vital in order to determine all of the parties responsible and make them pay for the injuries they have caused. A skillful accident attorney can devise a plan of attack for crane-related injury cases that offer the best opportunity to secure compensation in a complex Texas work-related claim involving one, or many, third parties.

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Liable Non-Subscribers to Workers’ Comp Run a Dangerous Risk of Being Sued for Damages

Both workers comp and private insurance policies that cover non-subscribing contractors are particularly expensive due to the intrinsic danger of the construction and crane industries themselves. It comes as no surprise that many employers choose not to purchase any form of insurance. After a crane accident, if you are to receive the full compensation you deserve from non-subscribing employers, you certainly need the assistance of a skilled Texas crane accident lawyer to file a lawsuit and see it through in order to receive your just damage claims.

In order to further punish non-subscribing employers, Texas workers comp laws remove the damage cap that would be in place if the employer had purchased workers comp insurance. The crane accident victim must merely prove standard negligence, even if the employer only committed a momentary lapse in safety. As you can guess, the laws governing these principles are extremely intricate. So in order to succeed you will need a crafty crane-related accident lawyer to assist you through every complexity of this challenging legal process.

It begins when the victim (plaintiff) files a claim with the employer, notifying him or her of the injury and the amount of restitution you expect. The employer can agree, which doesn’t happen that often or try to negotiate a settlement if your evidence of negligence is overwhelming. Usually, the employer (and the underwriting insurance company) will dispute your allegations out-of-hand. But if negotiations are successful then your case is settled and compensation is attained. But most-often, work-related injury cases are contested and you must file a lawsuit to win the legal damages you deserve. In civil law, you plaintiff holds the burden of proving that the employer’s negligence caused the injury, resulting in those high medical bills, lost salary, pain, and suffering. Fortunately for injured victims, proving simple negligence is much easier than gross negligence. Most of the time in a non-subscriber claim, that’s all you need.

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Non-Subscribers and Third-Party Defendants Use One Particular Defense to Evade Liability

The only true defense afforded non-subscribers after an employee suffers an injury is to rely upon the sole proximate cause. This means that the victim was totally to blame for his or her own injuries. In order to invoke the sole proximate cause defense, those you sue will literally try to soil your reputation by proving you were negligent or reckless and caused your own injuries. They try to hold you alone responsible for them.

While your employer may have been too cheap to buy worker’s comp coverage, you can be certain that he or she will think nothing of paying tens of thousands of dollars for an experienced and shrewd attorney who knows how to make victims appear negligent for their own injuries, especially in a crane accident case. Not only are you saddled with the “burden of proof”, but you also must bear the burden of “DISproving” all these countercharges that only serve to cloud the issue of liability. Here’s where your own cunning attorney to place fault back where it belongs, the negligent employer becomes a powerful weapon in your fight for fair damage compensation.

The Next Line of Defense: Questioning the Employer-Employee Relationship

The sole proximate cause defense is not the only way non-subscribers have to deflect liability after an injury has been suffered by an employee. When legal push-comes-to-shove, many employers try to distance themselves from you as an employee, and their responsibility to fairly compensate you. Many construction companies hire their employees as contractors. By calling you a contractor, your employer can deny that a formal employer-employee relationship existed. Then they say your claim is unfounded because of that non-existence. Their logic is simple, why should they be responsible for an injury to someone who was never their employee?

While many employers claim they hire their employees as contractors or as temp workers through a third-party, the employer knows the real truth: a true employer-employee relationship usually exists and the injured worker deserves compensation. But don’t be misled. You may still be considered an employee in the eyes of the law and entitled to fair legal compensation for injuries suffered on the job.

A crafty, experienced Texas crane accident attorney knows how to prove the employer-employee relationship by meeting at least one of the following standards:

Your employer withheld social security or taxes from your paycheck.
The essential equipment for the job was supplied by your employer.
Your work is regularly managed, overseen or inspected by your employer.
A specific work schedule has been set for the job by the employer. You are not free to come-and-go as you please.
Your employer requires you to complete a task or sign a document that limits your rights while working for the employer. The most common examples are taking a drug test or signing a document that states you have read and will comply with an employee handbook.
You have been employed for an undetermined period of time and not just for a single job.
You are paid by a salary or an hourly wage and not on a job-by-job basis.

If the borrowing employer has the power to hire or fire a borrowed worker at any time, the worker is clearly an employee. Otherwise, the worker is a contractor.
Most of the time, if the borrowing employer is allowed to pick a particular worker, then the worker is an employee. If the agency that provides the worker is allowed to send any worker they choose, the worker is a contractor.
This answer is the same when it comes to tools and equipment. If the worker must provide them, that person is a contractor. If the employer provides them, the worker is an employee.
If the agency can substitute the borrowed worker for another at-will, the worker is a contractor. If the lending agency cannot, then the worker is an employee.
If the worker is borrowed indefinitely, then the worker is an employee. If the worker is borrowed for a specific project with a specific date of completion, the worker is a contractor.
If a worker is being borrowed or “leased” because of a skill that is unique or hard-to-find, then the worker is a contractor. But on the other hand, if an employer borrows a worker to fill a position that just about anyone can fill, then the worker is an employee.
If the borrowing employer agrees to pay the worker’s social security and income tax, then the worker is an employee. If the borrowing employer does not accept this responsibility, then the worker is a contractor.

Our Law Firm conducts a thorough investigation to prove the existence of one of these standards and show that a true employer-employee relationship existed. We will depose co-workers, review contracts and examine pay stubs to illustrate that you were, in fact, an employee when you suffered your injury.

If you were hired by an employment agency to work at an “employer’s” company and suffered a workplace-related injury (or a wrongful death occurred) your attorney must determine if the employment agency has workers’ comp. If so, then you file a workers’ comp claim against the agency. This makes the company where you actually performed the work a third-party to the accident. Or if your employer loaned you out to another company where the accident occurred, the same issue of workers’ comp subscription with your employer is clarified. Once accomplished, then the company where you suffered your injury then becomes a third-party defendant in any civil claim or lawsuit.

Additionally, workers’ comp claims provide less-than-adequate compensation to employees who suffer major injuries or to a family who seeks wrongful death compensation. The most practical way to recover fair damage compensation is to file a workers’ comp claim against the employer of-record (assuming that employer subscribes) and then supplement the claim with the additional third-party claims or lawsuits against those defendants.

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Your Sly Opponents are Very Tricky During Your Crane-Related Accident Case

In all non-subscriber and third-party crane-type injury claims, defendants can have large insurance companies with lots of good attorneys to oppose you. Or your employer will be “self-insured” or maybe not even insured altogether. Regardless, they all fight terribly hard to avoid paying your legal damages.

Non-subscribers’ insurance companies have very good attorneys either on staff or permanent retainer. They – and their clients – are very confrontational but don’t always win, especially when you have an experienced Texas crane accident attorney who knows every trick they pull, and how to counter it.

But they have a certain amount of legal decorum they must follow, so that’s some comfort. As bad as the insurance companies can be in any construction injury claim or lawsuit, self-insured employers or those who have no insurance whatsoever, use every trick in the book to defend themselves. Some are reprehensible. Others are downright illegal.

You will probably be dealing directly with an officer if the self-insured crane or construction company-defendant is a small one. This person’s salary is directly predicated on the company’s profits. Any injury claim amount paid to you comes directly out of company funds (or a bond if they have one). By compensating you, your employer literally takes money out of his own pocket. Rare is the time when a sneaky, self-insured company officer doesn’t use any and all means to oppose your claim to protect his company’s (and personal) assets.

But self-insured companies can be the worst opponents. They often deliberately dispose of evidence as well as bribe or intimidate witnesses. They can resort to physical threats. Every time we represent a client against a self-insured company, the first thing we do is to file motions in court to prevent anyone within that company from behaving inappropriately against our clients. Often these motions include clear demands that they make no attempt to communicate with our clients in any way without one of our attorneys present.

OSHA Is of Little Use in an Injury Liability Claim or Legal Case

Citing OSHA’s existing standards for crane and construction site safety, you might think OSHA will help you attain compensation. That just won’t happen. OSHA is not an advocate for injured workers. All it does is oversee the work environment in the U.S and keep statistics. And for the past 30 years, OSHA regulations, and the fines levied for employer non-compliance have lost many of their teeth.

OSHA sets safety standards in the workplace and fines transgressors: but only well after-the-fact And they do focus on the crane industry due to the high number of catastrophic and fatal injuries. But even so, fine amounts were established long ago in a different day and time. In today’s economy, they rarely carry the proper motivation to encourage compliance with government standards. Many of these fine amounts were set over 30 years ago. Thanks to inflation and other economic factors, OSHA fines are little more than a slap on the wrist today. OSHA is virtually useless in value when it comes to fighting for your rights because it cannot make any direct effort to help individually injured crane accident victims. So relative to your actual injury claim, OSHA is little more than closing the barn long after the cow escapes.

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The Most Important Things You Must Do (and Not Do) Right Now if You Want Your Case to be a Winner

The first thing you need to understand when it comes to any crane, or any workplace accident injury:

Did You Know?
Our attorneys have been fighting for construction accident victims` rights for decades. Call us to discuss your case. 1(800) 862-1260

Your employer or third-party defendant (and its insurance provider) wants you to accept a “low ball” settlement in order to save themselves a lot of money. Don’t be taken advantage of! While we’re on the subject: it’s never a good idea to discuss any details of your intentions, or anything else surrounding the injury, with anyone outside of your immediate family. That’s the first thing any experienced personal injury attorney will tell you.

Then, you must realize the critical importance of acting swiftly: that means start investigating as soon as humanly possible! In on-the-job crane accident cases, all evidence has a VERY SHORT SHELF LIFE because construction sites are a constant work in progress. The accident scene changes quickly, often in less than a week and many times much sooner. Witnesses can change their stories, forget what they saw, or be “coached.” If you wait to hire an experienced crane accident attorney and put your counsel on the investigative trail, then you do irreparable damage to your ability to win the restitution you deserve.

An experienced construction accident attorney with our Law Firm will help you deal with your challenging crane-injury cases anywhere in Texas. We have spent decades accumulating the expertise and skill you desperately need to help win the compensation you deserve. If you want to know what your rights are, how to proceed with your claim and how much compensation you can secure, then we can answer your questions. Call our Law Firm now at 1(800) 862-1260 (toll-free) for a free consultation and find out how we can help you.

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