Midland Construction Accident Lawyer

As one of the biggest cities in West Texas, you’ve witnessed for yourself how, although it’s not happening at the same speed here as it is in other parts of our state, buildings are being erected, and our area’s roadways are undergoing work to accommodate that growth.

More than one Midland construction accident lawyer on our team has remarked about the rise in workplace injury incidents that have accompanied our area’s expansion.

We find ourselves serving an increasing number of hurt construction workers as clients and want to help you if you’ve suffered injuries on the job and want to know what legal recourses you have available to you.

We offer free, no-obligation consultations to discuss Texas law and your rights.

Construction Injuries That Have a Lingering Effect on Your Health

There are some injuries that occur on a construction site that you suffer in an instant, like a broken bone in a slip and fall, a penetrative injury caused by a nail gun, or a concussion in a struck-by incident that you may fully recover from after a few weeks with a cast and physical therapy or rest.

Then, there are other types of injuries that leave behind permanent injuries and illnesses and a lasting impact on your life, including:

• Overexertion injuries: You’ve probably seen a demonstration of back-safe proper lifting practices demonstrated before. That’s for a good reason. Bending, twisting, and lifting anything, especially heavy objects like building materials can cause significant damage to your back. This damage can leave you with incessant pain and discomfort that no amount of physical therapy or even surgery may be able to address.
• Burns: If you’ve ever touched something hot, you may have suffered a first or second-degree burn, one that typically heals within a few days or weeks. However, if you work as a welder, electrician, or in other roles on a construction site, there are both fire hazards and toxic substances like chemicals that may result in you suffering far more catastrophic third or fourth-degree burns. These can permeate through your layers of skin down to your nerves and bone, putting you at risk of infection and causing functional impairments and disfigurement.
• Asbestosis or mesothelioma: If you renovate buildings as a construction worker or work in demolition or trenchwork, then you are at a particularly high risk of coming in contact with asbestos fibers, which can cause you to develop an occupational disease like asbestosis. Alternatively, exposure to the toxic substance may result in you developing mesothelioma, a rare, aggressive form of cancer that currently has no cure.
• Transportation-related injuries: Dump trucks, cranes, lifts, bulldozers, and tractors. These are just a few vehicles that may be on a construction worksite. Each of them is much bigger than the average person and has its own blind spots, putting workers at risk of being struck by or having loads dropped on them, situations that can result in a wide range of injuries, the worst of which are traumatic brain, spinal cord, or fatal injuries.
• Repetitive motion injuries: Also known as stress injuries, workers most vulnerable to developing this condition include those who engage in repeated activities that require their hands and wrists to maintain an atypical position or impress upon them a significant torque, including jackhammers and nail guns. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a type of repetitive motion injury and can leave victims with debilitating nerve pain that doesn’t dissipate with mere rest.

You may not readily associate the disabling, permanent injuries above that often affect construction workers with accidental injuries or illnesses, but they can be.

While accidents can occur in an instant and leave a victim with immediate impairments, others occur and, over time, cause cumulative harm, ultimately resulting in a worker experiencing adverse symptoms.

It’s also worth noting that the cases above aren’t the only ones we handle at Barrera Law Group LLC. Contact us to discuss how you got hurt and what types of injuries you’re dealing with, and a Midland construction accident lawyer will advise you of your rights to compensation per Texas law.

How To Calculate Damages in a Construction Site Injury Case

If you’ve sustained injuries while working or passing by a building site, you likely understand that you’re eligible for compensation from whoever harmed you.

While a Midland construction accident lawyer can help you determine who the liable party is, if you’re anything like some of our clients, you probably want to know how attorneys like us calculate damages in West Texas cases like yours.

That process comprises the following steps:

• We start by securing all your medical records and bills, pay stubs showing missed work, and other financial statements.
• Once we’re confident we have all health care providers and expenses accounted for, we calculate the actual economic losses you’ve incurred.
• We sometimes will bring in doctors or other medical experts to review records and bills if our clients have severe enough injuries that they’re expected to require surgery or other health care in the future. Their qualified expertise can aid us in determining how much future medical costs are anticipated to be.
• We tend to ask for journals, logs, or any other documentation that illustrates just how significantly your injuries have impacted your day-to-day life in terms of pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, etc. We also consider how long you were impacted by those different factors or if you’re expected to endure that added harm long-term. We rely on this evaluation to determine how much in non-economic damages we can fairly request.
• In the end, we take each of the amounts above and use the sum of them to calculate your total losses.

Legal Options Available for Recovering Compensation If You’re Hurt on a Building Site

According to the Texas Department of Insurance, most private employers aren’t required to purchase workers’ compensation insurance to cover their employee’s medical bills and lost wages if they’re hurt at work. However, that is a requirement if the work is being performed for a government entity in most cases.

So, even if you’re directly employed by a company and get hurt on the job, there’s a chance you may not qualify for workers’ comp coverage.

You may, however, be eligible for disability benefits depending on whether you have a qualifying condition per the Social Security Administration (SSA) guidelines and how long it’s expected to last.

Last, the circumstances surrounding how your injuries occurred may dictate whether you’re able to sue a third party for what happened. You may be able to do this if, for example, an electric company failed to maintain their power lines, resulting in a potential fire risk.

Another example, you may be able to sue a scaffolding manufacturer if their product doesn’t withstand the pressure applied to it as advertised.

Suing a building supply delivery person personally if they struck you may be an option as well.

Why Seek Guidance Before Taking Legal Action in Construction Accident Cases

You have rights, but understanding them, especially given how everyone working on building sites has different roles and employment arrangements, is challenging to understand.

Our attorneys have decades of handling cases like these in West Texas and can easily make sense of which laws apply to you and your specific situation. This discernment, along with our knowledge of liability and legal options related to them, is invaluable to you as you look to recover maximum compensation, especially if your injuries are slated to stick around in your case.

Contact our firm to speak with a Midland construction accident lawyer about your specific case today.