Construction accident cases involve a number of peculiarities. The most significant one is identifying the proper defendants. Those proper defendants may be the property owner, the general contractor, the subcontractor, the construction manager or the developer.
One way to identify the responsible parties is to get all permits for the project from the local government agency.
Once the potentially responsible parties have been identified, review 29 CFR 1910, which deals with general workplace requirements and also 29 CFR 1926, which deals with specific requirements for the construction industry.
As part of the discovery process in construction accident cases, it is critical that you gather all contracts, all safety manuals, all safety plans for the project, all minutes of any construction safety meetings, all progress reports dealing with the job, any citations from OSHA, any photos showing the job site in various stages, any and all accident reports, and any and all diaries kept by superintendents or engineers on the site.
Construction accident cases frequently involve an underlying worker’s compensation claim and therefore it will be important to obtain that entire file as the worker’s comp carrier may have done an exhaustive investigation.If you are representing the employee in the worker’s comp claim the carrier may be receptive to your overtures for assistance with the understanding you will protect their subrogation lien as to any recovery. It should be clarified with the carrier upfront what responsibility they may have in fronting any of the expenses of litigation.Those could well be substantial in terms of expert witness fees.
