New York Injury Attorneys Blog

Our New York construction accident attorneys have handled hundreds of construction accidents involving personal injury. A high percentage of construction accidents involve workers falling from a ladder, or from a bridge or scaffold. These injuries can be avoided by lifelines, which are often not provided or are not made available to subcontractor employees.

When a construction accident happens, the construction companies try to cover up their wrongdoing and often come up with stories to try and beat a case. Victims of construction accident personal injuries need an experienced New York construction accident attorney to protect them.

One of the newest defenses is that the general contractors claim that there was a standing order and that all the equipment was on site. However, the New York Court of Appeals has recently made clear that this does not justify failing to provide the construction workers with the necessary equipment.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled that construction companies and general contractors cannot beat a Labor Law case, based on these claims where there is no evidence that injured worker knew where to find the safety devices notwithstanding the claims that the safety equipment was readily available on the site or that the injured worker was expected to use them. Even where a general contractor claims that appropriate safety devices were available at the project site on the date of the accident, the construction companies cannot win on these claims, where they cannot prove that the injured worker had been told to use such safety devices. Our New York construction accident attorneys fight these construction companies and we do not let them cheat injured workers out of what they are entitled to.

Our New York marine construction accident lawyers are thoroughly familiar with marine construction accidents. Accidents involving construction which happen on navigable waters often involve the interplay of New York's labor law and the Federal Martime laws.

The Longshore Harbor Workers Compensation Act provides compensation to workers injured on navigable waters of the United States in the course of their employment. These benefits are usually higher than New York state workers compensation benefits.

Often marine construction in New York is performed with the worker working from the water on a float stage or work barge. In a 2010 decision, the Court held that New York's labor laws are preempted by the Federal Maritime Law.

The practical result is that if a worker is standing on a barge or vessel at the time of the accident, he can only sue if he can establish negligence of the vessel, but he cannot sue under New York's Labor Law. So the seminal question becomes whether the platform was a vessel.

A vessel includes every description of water-craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water. However, floating structures that are "not practically capable of being used as a means of transportation" do not qualify as vessels.

Analyzing whether a platform is a vessel requires expert analysis from a New York maritime construction lawyer.