Succeeding in a New York Construction Injury Lawsuit, Even if You’re Hurt Off-Site

New York’s laws designed to protect construction workers from inadequate safety conditions at work potentially offer very helpful options to those hurt on the job. In order to be able to benefit from these laws and their protections, though, you have to actually be working on a construction site when your injury takes place. Fortunately, several courts in New York have given a broad meaning to what qualifies as a construction site. A “construction site” can include not just the main location of construction but also off-site facilities where construction-related work takes place several miles away. Thus, if you’ve been hurt doing tasks related to your construction job, even if you were hurt off-site, you should reach out to an experienced New York construction accident attorney to discuss your case.

As an example of how broad the range of locations that can qualify is, there’s the case of Robert, an ironworker working on a job erecting a new building. The main site, where the new building was going up, was in Manhattan. The job, however, also involved cutting rebar, which was done at a different location several miles away in the Bronx. One day, while cutting rebar at the Bronx facility, Robert tripped over some debris, fell, and suffered injuries.

Robert sued. The contractor and the property owner asked the judge to throw out Robert’s case. Their argument was that, since the accident happened at the Bronx location, which they described as an “off-site temporary project facility,” that meant that Robert’s work cutting rebar didn’t qualify as construction work done at a construction site. Their argument was that they could only have been liable if Robert had gotten hurt at the Manhattan site.

The Appellate Division court issued a ruling in Robert’s favor. That ruling said that off-site facilities can possibly be considered a part of the construction site, at which workers are entitled to the protection of the law. The ruling was specific in stating that an off-site facility did not need to be within a certain distance of the main site to qualify. The court also stated, even though neither the Manhattan property owner nor the general contractor owned the off-site facility, that also did not automatically mean that the rebar-cutting yard in the Bronx wasn’t part of the total construction site.

Therefore, in Robert’s case, even though the yard where the workers cut rebar was in the Bronx, while the main building site was in downtown Manhattan (12 miles away), and the Bronx facility was owned by someone other than the general contractor or the Manhattan site owner, the rebar-cutting site could still be part of the construction site under the law. That meant that Robert was still entitled to the protections of the New York construction workplace safety statutes, and he was entitled to proceed with his lawsuit.

If you’ve been hurt while you were working on a construction job, you may be entitled under the law to sue and receive a monetary payment to compensate you for the harm you suffered. To find out more about your rights, consult the skilled New York City construction injury attorneys at Arcia & Associates. Our diligent attorneys have spent many years working hard to help injured construction workers and others exercise their legal rights and help them get back on their feet.