California Construction Accident Lawyer
When the Construction Site Was Not Just Your Employer's Fault
A construction worker hurt on the job in California has two potential cases. The first is the workers’ compensation claim against the employer — limited remedies, no negligence required, paid through the state system. The second, and often much larger, is the civil case against any third party whose negligence contributed to the injury. The general contractor’s safety failures. The equipment manufacturer’s defective product. The property owner’s known dangerous condition. The subcontractor’s negligent crane operation. Each of those is a separate defendant, separate insurance policy, and separate path to damages well beyond what workers’ comp will ever pay.
A California construction accident lawyer is the person who identifies every third-party defendant and builds the civil case that workers’ comp cannot. KBK Lawyers handles construction accident matters as a core part of our complex injury practice.
The Third-Party Defendants in a California Construction Case
Workers’ comp is one piece. The third-party case can include:
- The general contractor responsible for site safety
- Other subcontractors whose negligence contributed
- The property owner where the work was performed
- Equipment manufacturers (cranes, scaffolds, ladders, power tools, vehicles)
- Equipment rental companies
- Architects or engineers whose plans created the hazard
- Suppliers of defective materials
- Trucking companies delivering to the site
A California construction accident lawyer’s job is to identify each potentially responsible party, preserve the evidence quickly (construction sites change daily), and bring the third-party case alongside the workers’ comp claim.
Common Construction Accident Scenarios
- Falls from height — scaffolds, ladders, roofs, edge protection failures
- Crane accidents — falling loads, crane collapses, struck-by injuries
- Trench and excavation collapses
- Electrical contact injuries
- Equipment defects — power tools, saws, nail guns, lifts
- Vehicle and equipment strikes
- Struck-by-falling-object injuries
- Caught-in / caught-between injuries
- Chemical exposure cases
Why KBK Lawyers
Brian Kabateck, our founding partner, has spent decades representing Californians against large corporate defendants. He is a past President of Consumer Attorneys of California and a past President of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. Our firm handles construction accident cases with the same complex-litigation approach we bring to commercial trucking and catastrophic injury matters — expert work-up from the first month, scene preservation in the first weeks, and trial preparation throughout.
$2.85 Million Settlement (Industrial Machinery Injury): Awarded to a worker who was severely injured while operating a massive rock-crushing machine. (While categorized generally under personal injury/workplace liability, this involves the type of heavy equipment and injury scenarios central to construction accident litigation).
A California construction accident lawyer at our firm coordinates the third-party case with the underlying workers’ compensation claim so the two recoveries work together rather than against each other.
What You Can Recover
- All medical expenses and future medical care
- Lost wages and lost earning capacity (often more than workers’ comp will cover)
- Pain, suffering, and emotional distress
- Loss of consortium for spouses
- Punitive damages where the defendant’s conduct was reckless
- Wrongful death damages in fatal cases
Deadlines
California’s two-year personal injury statute applies to most construction third-party cases. The workers’ comp claim has its own much shorter clock — usually 30 days to report the injury and one year to file. Public-entity defendants require a six-month government claim. A California construction accident lawyer at our firm maps every deadline at the first consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
It can, in technical ways involving liens and subrogation. A California construction accident lawyer who handles both sides of the case coordinates the liens, the credits, and the recovery so the worker ends up with the maximum net recovery.
Employer-as-property-owner cases are more complex because the workers’ comp bar limits the civil claim against the employer. But third-party defendants — other contractors, equipment manufacturers, vehicle operators — remain available regardless.
Yes. California wrongful death and survival actions apply to fatal construction injuries, with both the workers’ comp death benefit and the third-party civil case potentially available. The third-party case is usually the larger recovery.