Hartsville, SC Construction Accident & Injury Lawyer
Injuries from your work on a construction site can be quite severe. Amputations, broken bones, severe cuts, concussions, back injuries, and more can result from split-second accidents that should have been preventable.
If you were injured through no fault of your own, our attorneys can help you file lawsuits to get compensation for your construction accident injuries. This could potentially pay you damages for lost wages, medical bills, and pain and suffering. If you were partially responsible or there is no legal target to sue for your injuries, you might still be entitled to insurance claims with potentially lower damages.
Contact our construction accident lawyers at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers today at (803) 451-4000 for a free case review.
Damages Available in Lawsuits for Construction Accidents in Hartsville, SC
If you were injured by someone other than your employer, you could be entitled to sue them for your injuries. In many cases, lawsuits directly against your employer are barred under our Workers’ Compensation rules in South Carolina. Still, lawsuits against parties who are not your employer are usually permitted for all sorts of accidents and injuries on a construction site. When you file a lawsuit for damages, you can often acquire damages that you cannot get in an insurance claim.
This means that you can sue equipment manufacturers that produced defective gear or tools, contractors who set up dangerous scaffolding, drivers who crashed into your construction site, and all kinds of other parties who could be responsible for your injuries. Our lawyers can help you identify these parties and file lawsuits to recover compensation in these cases.
When you sue for injuries, you should be entitled to damages for any and all consequences of your injuries. This includes lost pay from missed work, medical bills for treatment, and pain and suffering. In an insurance claim, you will usually not receive full payouts for your lost wages. Additionally, you will not receive damages for “non-economic” damages, which means no compensation for your physical pain and mental suffering.
If your injuries were caused by your own accident or the only parties responsible were your employers, then you might not be able to sue, but you could still be entitled to reduced damages through Workers’ Compensation. Our construction accident lawyers can analyze what happened in your case and help you pursue damages through the best route for your particular case.
Common Accidents on Construction Sites in Hartsville, SC
Construction accidents come in many forms, with injuries occurring in sometimes bizarre situations. Nonetheless, many injuries are quite common, occurring in some of the following ways:
Falls
Falling off a ladder or scaffolding is quite common. In addition, many people trip and fall or slip and fall on obstacles, cables, and uneven surfaces. In construction, being up on a ladder or scaffolding and walking across uneven surfaces is a part of the job. However, there should still be proper safety precautions to prevent injuries. This includes proper lighting, proper scaffolding construction, and more.
People can also fall and be injured during structural collapses. These are often caused by negligence during demolition and renovation work, taking down balconies, stairs, floors, or even parts of structures while workers are still supported by those structures.
Vehicle Accidents
Construction vehicles like backhoes and bulldozers can be quite dangerous for those on the ground. Construction cranes also pose a serious danger. However, it is more common that you will be injured by a “normal” vehicle like a truck. Whether you are transporting construction materials or being driven around a construction site, auto accidents are a surprisingly common cause of injury on construction sites.
For those working on roadside construction crews or highway construction, you could also be injured by dangerous drivers on the road that crash into the work site.
Electrocution
Although the term “electrocution” is a combination of “electrify” and “execution,” we generally discuss non-fatal electrification injuries as “electrocution,” too. These injuries can happen on sites where those in charge fail to turn off the power or an electrician has not warned workers that the power was turned back on. This can lead to serious neurological damage and even death in serious cases, let alone burns and serious pain in even minor electrocution cases.
Power Tool Accidents
Accidents involving saws, drills, augers, jackhammers, and other tools can often leave people with quite substantial injuries. Saws are one of the most dangerous tools in that they can easily cause an amputation injury that might require surgical reattachment or could result in a lost finger or other body part.
Determining Fault in a Construction Accident in Hartsville, SC
For someone to be responsible for your injuries, they must usually have done something unreasonable in the given situation. Legally speaking, we call this “negligence,” which is the breach of a legal duty they owed you, resulting in your injury and damages. In most cases, the duty involved will be the duty to act reasonably, but some specific laws and regulations – such as federal and state OSHA rules – create more explicit duties.
In some cases, the only party who could have breached their duty to you will be your employer, making it impossible to sue anyone for the accident. However, when the duty was breached by a different party, you can usually sue them instead.
Aside from negligence claims, you can often sue an employer for intentional injuries they caused you, but these cases work under a different framework from the typical “negligence” case.
Call Our Construction Accident Lawyers in Hartsville, SC for Help
For a free evaluation of your injury case, call (803) 451-4000 to speak with Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ construction accident and injury attorneys.
