This Blog was brought to you by the J.A. Davis & Associates, LLP – Accident Injury Lawyers principal office in San Antonio

You Can’t Normally Sue Workers’ Comp Subscribers: With One Important Exception

When they subscribe to workers’ comp insurance, employers get far more than just pool coverage that produces lower benefit payments. They are also bulletproof when it comes to personal injury lawsuits. Unless your employer has committed gross negligence that produced a wrongful death, an employer/subscriber cannot be sued for damages. And even under the best circumstances, unless the facts of the case are clearly overwhelming, gross negligence is very difficult to prove. So with the workers’ comp participating insurance company that’s responsible for negotiating a crane accident settlement – again, with benefit caps – the odds are highly unlikely that the victim, or the victim’s survivors if a death has occurred, will receive the fair compensation they are entitled to. More Information here
Insurance companies are in business to generate profits, rather than universally help injured people. And those who underwrite the workers’ comp pool are no exception. All insurance companies try to avoid fairly compensating injured construction workers each year in Texas. Those who participate in the state’s insurance pool are just doing it in plain sight.

But there are two possible avenues to receiving injury compensation outside of the purview of workers’ comp. One of these exceptions involves a construction or crane worker’s fatality. The other allows the injured employee to file a suit against someone other than the subscribing employer, known as a third-party:

If your loved one’s crane accident-related death was a direct result of the gross negligence by your employer, then you may file a wrongful death lawsuit. In one of our cases, our attorneys were hired by the loved ones of a construction worker who died after a fall from a crane. The employer had ordered the worker on the rig but didn’t provide the OSHA-mandated safety harness. And when the man plummeted to his death, the employer hurried to a construction supply store, bought a safety harness, and attached it to the dead man before reporting the accident. Our attorneys were able to prove this willful deception by interviewing his co-workers, and we made this employer pay: and pay big.

In many cases, someone besides the employer may have done something negligent to cause the injury suffered by a crane accident involving a construction worker on the job site. If a faulty piece of machinery caused the injury, then the manufacturer may be held accountable through a defective product lawsuit. If the owner of the crane did not provide a safe rig, then he or she could be liable. If a crane contractor or one of his employees caused the injury, then they could be blamed. In all of these cases you can sue the responsible party or parties, even if you can’t bring suit against your subscribing employer. Experience and the ability to properly investigate not only the accident scene but the roles these third parties played in the crane accident is vital in order to determine all of the parties responsible and make them pay for the injuries they have caused. A skillful accident attorney can devise a plan of attack for crane-related injury cases that offer the best opportunity to secure compensation in a complex Texas work-related claim involving one, or many, third parties.

An experienced construction accident attorney with our Law Firm will help you deal with your challenging death/injury case anywhere in Texas. We have spent over 30 years accumulating the expertise and skill you desperately need to help win the compensation you deserve. If you want to know what your rights are, how to proceed with your claim and how much compensation you can secure, then we can answer your questions. Call our Law Firm now for a free consultation and find out how we can help you.