Construction Accidents

Video Transcript:
Cindy Speaker: Every year thousands of construction workers are injured or killed because of on the job accidents. I guess this Texas Personal Injury Attorney, Gregg Anderson of the Law Offices of Terry Bryant and he’s going to talk with us about this topic. So Gregg thanks for being here.

Gregg Anderson: Well, thanks for having me.

Cindy Speaker: Well Greg, what are some of the most common examples of construction accidents that you see in Texas?

Gregg Anderson: Well, we handle a lot of those types of cases and what we typically see is for instance residential construction situation, where the employer-contractor fails to provide fall protection or fails to ensure that the workers use fall protection. OSHA standards are pretty clear about that, that if a worker, for instance is working more that six feet above the ground, they’re supposed to wear a harness or some other type of fall protection should they be in the situation.

Another thing we often see is failure to have guardrails up in place. Again, OSHA is very strict about that that if there are floor openings say for instance, for a stairwell or there’s an open wall, there are supposed to be guardrails in place and we frequently see cases where that has not been done and worker will forget exactly where he or she is and back up over an opening.

Cindy Speaker: Okay, now Greg, you mentioned OSHA. What is OSHA?

Gregg Anderson: OSHA is a federal agency that’s in charge of workplace safety in the United States and they promulgated requirements for all sorts of industries including the construction industry.

Cindy Speaker: Well, how common is it that these accidents involve a violation of safety issues?

Gregg Anderson: Pretty common. Construction companies are like any other entity or person for that matter. There are lots of really good ones out there that follow safety standards and run very safe workplaces. On the other hand there are a lot of bad ones out there that don’t really seem to care about that. Their main concern is getting the job done and if someone gets hurt along the way that’s just sort of a cost to doing business. There are companies and contractors that seem to cut corners with regularity.

Cindy Speaker: Now Gregg, is worker’s compensation the only recourse here?

Gregg Anderson: No, not at all. If an employer has workers’ compensations, certainly in Texas, I would imagine in most, if not all states, the workers bard from suing the employer. That trade off the whole idea behind workers’ compensation. It’s a sure recovery if there’s an incident and the employee doesn’t have to prove negligence against the employer. However, if there are other entities involved, like for instance, an employee of a subcontractor is hurt, because of the negligence of a general contractor then the employee is allowed to go after the general contractor.

Also, if an employer doesn’t have workers’ compensation the employee then can go after the employer.

Cindy Speaker: What can the injured worker actually recover for if he files a claim?

Gregg Anderson: In Texas, the standard personal injury categories of damages are lost wages, both past and future, past and future medical bills, pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, things like that.

Cindy Speaker: Well Gregg, if someone wants more information, how can they reach the Law Offices of Terry Bryant?

Gregg Anderson: They can call us here at 800-444-5000, we’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Cindy Speaker: Gregg, thank you for being with us today.

Gregg Anderson: Thank you.

Cindy Speaker: This is Cindy Speaker for State Law TV.