According to the 2022 New York City Construction Safety Report, over 700 construction accidents happen in New York City alone each year. As a construction worker, you may think that experiencing an injury on the job is just an occupational hazard of working in the construction industry. But your employer has a responsibility to maintain a safe work environment for you and your coworkers, and they may be liable for your injuries.
Whether you plan to file for workers’ compensation or hold your employer directly liable for your injuries, you need a strong construction injury claim. Learn five ways to strengthen your claim, then consult a New York construction accident lawyer for personalized legal assistance.
How To Strengthen Your New York Construction Accident Claim
Unfortunately, construction injuries are all too common in New York City. While only 5% of NYC’s total workforce works in construction, the industry accounts for 27% of work-related injuries in the city, per data from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Injuries can range from scrapes and bruises to traumatic brain injury and wrongful death.
After your construction accident, you’re likely experiencing a significant amount of pain and facing a lengthy road to recovery. Seeking compensation through a workers’ comp claim or a personal injury lawsuit can help you begin moving forward.
A construction injury claim relies on strong, plentiful evidence. Here are five ways to collect and strengthen your evidence after a construction accident.
1. Keep a Journal of Your Injuries
Your injuries are vital evidence in your construction injury claim. You need to show that you experienced injuries due to the accident.
However, injuries change rapidly. While you likely sought medical attention after the accident, your injuries may change significantly between that appointment and your next one. To collect more detailed evidence of your injuries, you should keep a daily journal detailing their condition.
For example, your journal entry may look something like this:
- Injury #1: Abdomen Bruising
- Pain level: 6/10
- Size: 6 cm across
- Details: Area feels swollen and painful to the touch. Discoloration has deepened.
You should also take a photo of your injuries each day so that you can easily compare how they have improved or worsened from day to day. These steps may feel like overkill, but you can never have too much evidence supporting your construction accident claim.
2. Notify Your Employer As Soon As Possible
Whether you’re filing for workers’ comp or suing your employer, you need to notify them of the accident and your injuries as soon as possible. Provide them with a written report of the accident within 30 days and include as much detail as possible. Be sure to date the communications so that the insurance company or other parties can see when you notified your employer.
The timeline matters in a construction injury claim. Your employer only has a certain amount of time to report your injury to their workers’ compensation insurance provider. Exceeding this deadline could give you grounds to take legal action.
Additionally, notifying your employer as soon as possible allows you to directly tie the accident to your injuries. If you wait several weeks before notifying them, your employer may deny that the injuries happened at work. They may not even remember the incident, and much of your evidence may be lost.
3. Speak With Witnesses
If you were working on a construction site at the time of the accident, there were likely other people around who may have seen the accident. Whether you had coworkers nearby or you saw pedestrians passing on the street at the time of the accident, these people can strengthen your construction injury claim. They can act as witnesses, providing crucial evidence of your accident.
Write down the contact information of any witnesses at the scene of the accident so that you can call upon them later if needed. If any of your coworkers saw the accident, you can reach out to them as well.
Speak with witnesses soon after the accident to refresh their memories about the incident. People lose as much as 50% of the information you present to them within one hour, so the faster you can ask them to recall the accident, the better.
4. Preserve Evidence
Much of the evidence within your construction injury claim becomes lost as soon as you leave the scene of the accident. You need to preserve as much evidence as possible early on to strengthen your case.
If you can, take photos at the scene of the accident showing the hazard or obstacle that led to the injury. Take pictures from all angles and from both close up and far away to capture the scene. If you’re unable to take photos due to your injuries, ask a coworker to take them for you.
If you’ve already left the accident scene without taking photos, return to it as soon as possible. It won’t hurt to take photos of the scene now, even if it does not look the same as it did after the accident.
If there was any equipment involved in the accident, ask your supervisor to set it aside until after you have filed your claim. You may be able to prove that the equipment malfunctioned due to a manufacturer error or your employer’s lack of maintenance, and you need the equipment to be in the same condition to prove this.
5. Hire a New York Construction Accident Lawyer
Hiring a New York construction accident attorney is a reliable way to strengthen your construction injury claim. These attorneys have extensive experience helping accident victims like you hold their employers accountable for injuries they experienced on the job.
Your attorney can help you preserve and collect as much evidence as possible to support your claim. They can explore all your legal options, helping you pursue a route that will maximize your compensation. By handling all communications on your behalf, they can also help you avoid saying the wrong thing to your construction company or the insurance provider.
With your attorney’s assistance, you can seek compensation to cover all your medical bills and other expenses from the accident. Your attorney can handle the compensation process for you, allowing you to focus on your recovery.
What Type of Claim Should You File?
You generally need more evidence in a personal injury lawsuit than you do in a workers’ compensation claim. You can’t file both types, so you need to determine your compensation method before proceeding.
Workers’ compensation covers accidents that occur within the scope of your job duties, regardless of who was at fault. Even if you technically caused the accident yourself, you can likely still qualify.
However, if your employer was directly responsible for the accident, such as if they violated OSHA safety rules and put you in an unsafe situation, you can likely seek more compensation through a personal injury lawsuit than you can through a workers’ compensation claim.
Speak with an attorney about the type of construction injury claim that can maximize your compensation.
Dervishi Law Group, P.C.: Your Trustworthy Construction Accident Lawyer in New York
At Dervishi Law Group, P.C., we help New York construction workers navigate injury claims. We’ll evaluate the circumstances of your accident and help you understand who to hold liable. Then, we’ll gather evidence to support your claim to pursue compensation, handling as much of the process as possible so you can focus on your recovery.
Contact Dervishi Law Group, P.C., today at 718-484-4757 for a free case evaluation about your construction injury claim. You can also read more about what to do after a construction accident.
