If you’re injured while working at a construction job, it helps to have someone on your side with a detailed knowledge of the law. Your injury may allow you to pursue a lawsuit in court and may allow you to collect compensation from multiple people or entities. To do that, though, you have to be sure that you’ve pursued your case in the right way. You have to be certain you filed your complaint on time. You also have to be certain you included all the proper legal claims. Even more so, you have to be certain that you named all of the right defendants. Making an error on any of these can reduce your recovery, or result in you getting no recovery at all. In other words, you need the knowledge and skill of an experienced New York City construction injury attorney working for you.

For an example of how in-depth knowledge of the law can help, look at the case of M.M., an excavator operator. One day in 2013, he was driving his excavator on a job site in Queens and using the excavator to remove pieces of timber from a creek bed. While performing this task, M.M.’s excavator tipped over or slid into the creek, causing M.M. to suffer substantial injuries.

M.M. sued on time and asserted a claim for a violation of Section 241(6) of the New York Labor Law. That law allows you to seek compensation from the owner of the job site and the general contractor. In some situations, it may also allow you to recover damages from others, as well. M.M. sued the utility company that owned the site, among others.

If your case is one you’re pursuing under Section 241(6), there’s another essential aspect that requires an in-depth knowledge of the law and that you absolutely must get right. Section 241(6) requires that you identify a state safety regulation that was violated at your job site and whose violation was the cause of your injury accident. M.M. had several regulations he named in his case, including Sections 23-4.2(a) and (c), 23-4.4(a), 23-9.4(c), and 23-9.5(a) of the Industrial Code.

Be aware that the defense may try to get your case dismissed by filing something called a “motion for summary judgment.” In order for the defense to win this motion in your Section 241(6) case, it must show that the regulation you cited was not applicable or was not violated. If it fails on both of things, then you can ask the court to deny the defense’s motion, which means that you are allowed to proceed forward in pursuit of the compensation you need.

In M.M.’s case, the site owner failed to demonstrate either of the above, so the owner’s motion for summary judgment was denied, handing the injured worker an important success.

When you have been hurt while working a construction job, you may feel stressed, frightened or alone. Don’t. Instead, fight back by putting skilled legal counsel on your side. The experienced New York City construction injury attorneys at Arcia & Associates have many years of experience helping injured people to get the results they need.

Contact us at 718-424-2222 to find out how we can help you.

More Blog Posts:

What New York State Safety Regulations Can I Use as the Basis for Pursuing a Construction Injury Lawsuit?, Blog de Abogado en la Ciudad de Nueva York, 1 de Octubre de 2018

Construction Debris Leads to a Successful Outcome For a New York Carpenter Pursuing a Construction Injury Case, Blog de Abogado en la Ciudad de Nueva York, 15 de Agosto de 2018