If you fell on a Queens roof, a Queens roofing accident lawyer can tell you in one free call whether your claim is worth more than workers’ compensation alone. Silver Law Group handles these cases across Long Island City, Jamaica, Far Rockaway, and the rest of the borough on a contingency basis, and the consultation costs nothing whether or not you hire the firm. We answer in English, Spanish, and Russian, 24 hours a day, and an attorney can come to your hospital room or your home if you cannot travel. The 30-day clock to notify your employer starts the day you are hurt. Call 212-470-4544 before an insurer calls you first.
Do You Have a Queens Roofing Accident Case?
New York’s Labor Law 240, known as the Scaffold Law, places near-absolute responsibility on property owners and general contractors when a roofer falls from a height or is struck by something falling from above. It is a strict liability statute. You do not have to prove the owner was careless. You have to show that a required safety protection was missing or defective, and that the failure caused your fall. A roofer who slides off a wet parapet in Long Island City because no anchor point was provided has a valid 240 claim even if he was the only person on the roof that morning. The protection the statute has in mind is concrete: a secured harness and lanyard, a guardrail at the edge, a ladder that is footed and tied off.
When the owner or contractor fails to supply it and you are hurt because of that gap, liability follows. One exception matters a great deal here. Labor Law 240 does not reach owners of one- and two-family homes who neither direct nor control the work. Southeast Queens neighborhoods like Jamaica, St. Albans, and Rosedale are packed with exactly these houses, so a roofer hurt reshingling a private two-family home may find the homeowner is exempt. That does not end your case. The general contractor who hired you, a roofing subcontractor working above you, or a scaffold supplier can still be answerable, and if the homeowner directed how you worked or handed you the defective ladder, the exemption can fall away.
Your Rights Regardless of Immigration Status
Your immigration status does not bar a roofing injury claim in New York. In Balbuena v. IDR Realty, the state’s highest court held that an undocumented worker could recover lost wages after a construction fall, and that federal immigration law does not erase that right. You can pursue lost earnings, medical costs, and pain and suffering on the same footing as any other injured roofer. You are not required to disclose your status to bring the case, and a defense lawyer who raises it is usually trying to frighten you into dropping a valid claim. Many roofers Silver Law Group represents are immigrants; the consultation happens in Spanish or Russian if that is easier, and the firm does not turn clients over to immigration authorities.
Common Queens Roofing Accidents and Injuries
Roofing is one of the deadliest trades in the country. The fatal injury rate for roofers runs about 48.7 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers, and most of those deaths come from falls. Queens produces two very different versions of that risk. In Long Island City, roofers work on high-rise decks and flat commercial roofs where the danger is the open edge and the unguarded skylight. A skylight capped by a thin plastic dome looks solid and holds nothing; a worker who kneels or steps on it drops straight to the floor below.
In Far Rockaway and across the peninsula, where storm rebuilding keeps crews on two- and three-story homes, the pattern shifts to ladder falls and torch burns. The propane torches used to seal modified-bitumen membranes start fires and cause deep burns when a hose leaks or the flame catches dry underlayment. Heat is its own hazard on both. A black membrane roof in July runs far hotter than the surrounding air, and a roofer working it for hours risks heat exhaustion or heat stroke, which can trigger a fall as readily as it harms the body on its own. The injuries that follow tend to be severe:
- Traumatic brain injury and skull fractures from a fall onto concrete or framing
- Spinal cord damage, including partial or complete paralysis
- Multiple fractures of the legs, pelvis, and arms that need surgery and hardware
- Deep partial- and full-thickness burns from torch fires
- Internal organ damage and crush injuries from a fall through a roof deck
A fall of even one story can end a roofer’s ability to climb a ladder for the rest of his working life, which is why these cases turn on both the medicine and the safety failure behind them.
Labor Law Protections Beyond the Scaffold Law
Labor Law 240 is not the only statute working for you. Labor Law 241(6) requires owners and contractors to follow the specific safety commands in New York’s Industrial Code, 12 NYCRR Part 23, which sets exact rules on ladder footing, guardrail height, debris removal, and fall-arrest anchorage. To win under 241(6) you point to a precise rule that was broken, not a general sense that the site felt unsafe, which is why the exact code section is identified and pleaded with care. Labor Law 200 is the third route. It codifies the common-law duty to provide a safe place to work and runs on negligence, so it reaches an owner or general contractor who controlled the work or knew about the hazard and left it in place.
Where 240 and 241(6) do not fit the facts, 200 often still does. OSHA’s fall-protection standard, 29 CFR 1926.501, requires fall protection for construction workers exposed to falls of six feet or more. An OSHA citation issued after your fall does not win the case by itself, but it is strong proof that the safety rule the Industrial Code echoes was ignored on your job.
Workers’ Compensation and Third-Party Claims Run Together
You can pursue two separate claims from one roofing fall, and they do not cancel each other out. The two together are what make a full recovery possible. Workers’ compensation is the first. It is no-fault, so it pays no matter who caused the fall, covering your medical treatment and roughly two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you cannot work. What it does not pay is money for pain and suffering, and in most cases you cannot sue your own employer for the injury. The third-party lawsuit is where the rest of the money lives. It targets everyone who is not your employer:
- The property owner
- The general contractor
- Other subcontractors on site
- The manufacturer of a defective ladder, harness, or torch
This is the claim that recovers pain and suffering, full lost earning capacity, and future medical costs. Because the two claims run at the same time, the workers’ comp insurer usually holds a lien against your third-party recovery, meaning part of what it paid you gets repaid from the lawsuit. Handled together, the comp claim keeps benefits flowing while the third-party suit builds toward the larger recovery.
What Your Queens Roofing Injury Claim Is Worth
No lawyer can put a firm number on your claim from a phone call, and any who does is guessing. What a Queens roofing injury claim is worth depends on the categories of loss New York lets you recover and on how badly the fall changed your body and your work:
- Past and future medical costs, including surgery, rehabilitation, and equipment
- Lost earning capacity, which covers not just the wages already missed but the trade you may never return to
- Pain and suffering, both what you have endured and what a permanent injury will bring
- Disfigurement and scarring, which weigh heavily in torch-burn cases
The value drivers are the severity of the injury, whether surgery was required, and whether the damage is permanent. A roofer who recovers fully in eight weeks and one left with a fused spine face very different claims from the same fall. The review of your case is free, and there is no attorney’s fee unless the firm recovers money for you.
What to Do After a Roofing Fall in Queens
The hours and days after a fall decide how strong your claim will be. Take these steps as soon as you are able:
- Get medical treatment right away, and tell the doctor exactly how you fell so the injury is tied to the job in your record.
- Give your employer written notice of the accident. New York’s workers’ comp law expects this within 30 days.
- Photograph the scene before anything changes: the roof, the missing or broken guardrail, the harness, the ladder, the torch.
- Preserve the equipment. A defective harness or a cracked ladder rung is evidence, and it disappears once the site is cleaned up.
- Refuse to give the insurance company a recorded statement. The adjuster will call within days, and anything you say can be used to cut or deny your claim.
Do these in whatever order your injuries allow, but do them early. Evidence on a Queens job site does not wait.
Deadlines to File a Queens Roofing Accident Claim
A roofing fall in Queens starts several clocks at once, and they run at very different speeds. Miss the shortest and it can close doors on the rest.
- Three years to file the personal injury lawsuit, under CPLR 214.
- 30 days to give your employer written notice for workers’ compensation.
- Two years to file the workers’ compensation claim itself.
- 90 days to serve a Notice of Claim under General Municipal Law 50-e if a public entity is involved, such as a city-owned building or a public school project.
The 90-day notice is the trap. Roofing work on a government project looks the same as private work from the roof, but a missed 50-e notice can bar the claim before the three-year deadline is anywhere close. Your lawsuit itself is filed in Queens County Supreme Court in Jamaica, which handles injury cases arising across the borough. Confirming early which defendants are public and which are private is what keeps every one of these deadlines open.
Why Injured Queens Roofers Choose Silver Law Group
Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee, so you pay nothing up front and nothing out of pocket while the case runs. The fee is a percentage of the money the firm recovers for you, charged only if it wins a settlement or verdict; if there is no recovery, you owe no attorney’s fee at all. The costs of building the case, from expert engineers to medical records, are advanced by the firm and repaid out of the recovery rather than billed to you as the case moves. A Queens roofing accident lawyer at the firm can meet you where you are, at the hospital or at home, and speak with you in English, Spanish, or Russian at any hour. Every case is prepared as if it will be tried, because insurers pay fairly when they see a file built for a courtroom. The office is at 49 West 37th Street in Midtown Manhattan, a short trip on the E, F, or 7 line from most of Queens. Call 212-470-4544 now for a free, confidential consultation.