A New York construction accident lawyer at Silver Law Group can tell you, in one free call, whether your injury is worth more than the workers’ compensation check you may already be getting. We represent injured construction workers and their families across all five boroughs — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island — on a simple promise: no fee unless we recover for you. Every consultation is free, available 24 hours a day, and handled in English, Spanish, or Russian.
Do You Have a Construction Accident Case in New York
Almost every construction injury in New York runs on two separate tracks, and most workers only hear about one. The first is workers’ compensation. If you were hurt on the job, you can claim medical coverage and partial wage benefits no matter who caused the accident, even when part of the fault was your own. Your employer’s insurer will point you here, because for them it is the cheaper track.
The second track is a lawsuit, and it is the one that changes the outcome of a serious case. Workers’ comp pays nothing for pain and suffering and caps your lost wages, so the money that actually rebuilds your life after a serious injury usually comes from a case against someone other than your employer. Whether that second case exists is worth one phone call. A construction accident attorney can look at how you were hurt, who controlled the site, and what safety protection was missing, then tell you if a Labor Law or third-party claim is on the table.
New York Labor Law Protections for Injured Construction Workers
Three state statutes give New York construction workers protection that ordinary negligence law does not, and they read the same on a Midtown high-rise as on a Staten Island rebuild. They decide who you can hold responsible and how hard your case is to prove.
- Labor Law §240(1), the “Scaffold Law” — covers falls from a height and injuries from falling objects or other gravity-related hazards. Owners and general contractors carry strict, non-delegable liability when they fail to supply proper protection like secured scaffolding, ladders, hoists, or safety lines. You do not have to prove they were careless; the missing safeguard is enough.
- Labor Law §241(6) applies to construction, demolition, and excavation work and lets you sue when a specific rule of the New York Industrial Code (Rule 23) was broken. This is the statute behind claims over unsafe debris, poor lighting, or an unguarded floor opening.
- Labor Law §200 is the general duty to keep a worksite reasonably safe. It codifies an ordinary negligence claim, so here you do have to show the owner or contractor knew or should have known about the danger.
Who Can Be Held Liable for a Construction Accident
Your employer is usually off-limits for a lawsuit. New York’s workers’ compensation bargain is an exclusive remedy: you get no-fault benefits, and in exchange you generally cannot sue the company that employed you. The path to fuller money runs through everyone else who had control over the site, the work, or the equipment, and a single accident often reaches more than one of them.
- The property owner
- The general contractor
- Subcontractors whose crews created the hazard
- The construction manager overseeing the work
- Architects and engineers whose design or site decisions caused the injury
- The maker of a defective machine, tool, or safety device, under product liability
Naming more than one defendant matters, because each carries its own insurance, and together they cover damages workers’ comp never will.
What Your Construction Accident Case Could Be Worth
What a claim is worth depends first on which track it runs on. Workers’ compensation pays for all authorized medical treatment tied to the injury, for as long as you need it, plus about two-thirds of your average weekly wage. But that wage benefit is capped. For injuries on or after July 1, 2026, the maximum is $1,281.50 a week no matter what you earned before, and comp pays nothing for pain and suffering.
A civil lawsuit reaches the losses comp leaves out: your full lost earnings rather than a fraction, the cost of future medical care, pain and suffering, and a spouse’s claim for loss of consortium.
The size of a case tracks the severity of the injury, so a permanent spinal injury that ends a trade career is worth far more than a fracture that heals.
One rule protects you even when the accident was partly your fault. Under CPLR §1411, New York follows pure comparative negligence: your share of the blame lowers a lawsuit recovery but never bars it. It has no effect at all on your workers’ comp, which you keep regardless of fault.
Types of Construction Accidents We Handle
Construction injuries in New York cluster around the same recurring hazards, whatever the borough or the size of the project.
- Falls from heights, including roofs, scaffolds, and unprotected floor openings
- Scaffold and ladder collapses
- Falling objects, debris, and dropped tools
- Crane and hoist failures
- Electrocution and contact with live wires
- Trench and excavation collapses
- Machinery and power-tool injuries
- Building and structural collapse
What to Do After a Construction Accident in New York
The steps you take in the first days after a construction accident can decide whether your claim survives.
- Report the injury to your employer in writing. Workers’ Compensation Law §18 gives you 30 days to give written notice, and missing that window can cost you benefits.
- Get medical care right away, and tell the provider the injury happened at work so it lands in the record.
- Document the scene. Photograph the equipment, the conditions, and your injuries, and write down the names of anyone who saw it happen.
- Say nothing recorded to an insurance adjuster until you have talked to a lawyer. A recorded statement is taken to shrink your claim, not to help you.
- Call a construction injury lawyer promptly, while the evidence and the site are still fresh.
How Long You Have to File a Construction Accident Claim in New York
A construction claim in New York runs on several clocks at once, and the shortest one controls.
- Three years to file a personal injury lawsuit, under CPLR §214.
- Two years to file a workers’ compensation claim, under Workers’ Compensation Law §28.
- Two years to bring a wrongful death action if the worker died, under EPTL §5-4.1.
- 90 days to file a Notice of Claim, under General Municipal Law §50-e, when a city or state agency is a defendant, such as on a public project. That notice comes first and starts a much shorter overall window to sue.
Construction Accidents in New York City: What the Numbers Show
The city’s own data shows how routine these injuries are. The New York City Department of Buildings’ 2024 Construction Safety Report recorded 638 construction-related incidents, 482 worker injuries, and 7 fatalities across the roughly 40,000 active construction sites in the five boroughs, with falls again the leading cause. Those figures are the citywide backdrop to any single case.
A construction accident in New York is rarely a freak event. The conditions behind it are usually the same failures the Labor Law exists to punish, like an unsecured scaffold or a missing tie-off, and that pattern is often what turns your injury into a claim the owner or contractor has to answer for.
What It Costs to Hire a New York Construction Accident Lawyer
Nothing, unless we win. A New York construction accident lawyer at Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee, which means you pay no money upfront and no hourly bill while your case is open. We advance the costs of building the case, from court filing fees to the expert reviews that prove your injury, out of our own pocket.
Our fee is an agreed percentage of what we recover for you, so it comes out of the result and only if there is one. If we do not win, you owe us nothing and you are not billed for the costs we fronted. For a worker who is out of work and watching every dollar, that is the point: you get a lawyer on your case without adding a bill to the ones already piling up.
Why Injured Construction Workers Choose Silver Law Group
You can reach us the day you are hurt, at any hour.
- Free consultations, 24 hours a day, in English, Spanish, and Russian.
- No fee unless we recover for you, with the costs of the case advanced by the firm.
- A trial-ready approach. Insurers and corporate defendants deal differently with a file built to go in front of a jury.
- We come to you. If you cannot travel, the attorney meets you at your home or hospital room.
- Every construction worker is protected, union or not. New York’s Labor Law covers nonunion and undocumented workers on the same terms, and we represent them on the same terms.
- A Midtown Manhattan office at 49 West 37th Street that serves the whole city. Call 212-470-4544 for a free consultation, or ask us to come to you.