Dangers of Spring Construction Work: Know Your Rights After a Workplace Injury

As spring arrives in the Hudson Valley, construction projects ramp up. Warmer temperatures bring an increase in road work, roofing projects, and outdoor construction, making it a busy season for workers. Unfortunately, this increase in activity also raises the risk of workplace injuries and construction accidents. If you or a loved one is injured on the job while working on a construction site in Hudson Valley, you’ll want to know your rights as a worker, which means learning them now.

Common Spring Construction Hazards

In the Hudson Valley, some common construction hazards that occur more frequently in the spring include:

• Slip and Falls on Wet or Uneven Surfaces: Melting snow and spring rain create slippery conditions, leading to falls from scaffolds, ladders, and rooftops. Jobsite supervisors and construction management companies should delay projects that would become unsafe if it rains too much.
• Falling Objects: Working on roofs and scaffolding means tools and materials can fall, causing head injuries and severe trauma to anyone below. Just like how springtime can create slippery surfaces that make workers fall, those same slippery surfaces can make it much more likely for a tool or piece of equipment to slide away from a worker and fall off the roof of scaffolding.
• Falls from Elevated Surfaces: Construction crews often work on scaffolding, ladders, and rooftops. Without proper fall protection, a slip or misstep can result in catastrophic injuries or death. With more construction being done during the spring, the number of scaffolding being used at any given time goes up, which means the risk of a fall accident inherently goes up, too. Falls from heights remain one of the leading causes of fatalities in the construction industry, and employers are required by law to provide adequate safety equipment.
• Vehicle and Machinery Accidents: In the spring and summer, people are more likely to make short journeys throughout town than they are in the winter and colder months. Roadwork zones can become busy with heavy equipment and passing traffic during the spring, increasing the risk of serious injuries.
• Electrocution Hazards: Outdoor construction often involves working around powerlines and electrical systems, which pose significant dangers on the best of days, especially when safety protocols aren’t followed. In the Spring, electrical utility companies often conduct powerline maintenance and upkeep. If a utility company is working on a powerline near an active construction site, the risk of an electrical contact injury or fatality can increase.

Your Rights After a Construction Injury in New York

If you get hurt while working on a construction site in the Hudson Valley, whether it is Spring or not, you should know three things:

1. Workers’ Compensation: Injured workers are entitled to medical benefits and wage replacement through workers’ compensation, regardless of fault. Not all construction workers are covered by workers’ comp, though. Some construction workers, especially seasonal workers hired at the start of the springtime construction boom, are independent contractors or are otherwise not required by law to be provided workers’ comp coverage by their employer. If you aren’t sure if you have workers’ compensation insurance, an attorney can help you figure it out, as well as the next steps to take.
2. Third-Party Claims: If your injury was caused by faulty equipment, a negligent contractor, or another third party, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit for any compensation that was not provided by workers’ compensation. Or if you do not have workers' compensation coverage and someone else’s mistake on the jobsite caused you to suffer a construction injury, your only option might be to file an injury claim against any liable party, which could include your employer. Such cases are complicated, though, so you should only start one with the help of a lawyer.
3. Legal Representation Matters: Insurance companies often try to minimize the extent of a construction worker’s injuries so it can also minimize the value of their injury or workers’ comp claim. For this reason and those mentioned previously, getting an experienced personal injury attorney after suffering a work injury as a construction worker is highly recommended.

If you or a loved one has been injured on a construction site in the Hudson Valley, Kingston, Latham, Poughkeepsie, or anywhere in between, contact Basch Keegan & Spada for a free consultation about your legal options. We fight tirelessly for workers’ rights, have been voted as the “Best Law Firm in the Hudson Valley” by the readers of Daily Freeman, and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for our past clients. With a history of success like ours, you know that we can take care of your case, so call (845) 251-4545 now.