On a Philadelphia job site, the company that pays you is usually the only one you cannot sue. Everyone else on that site can be held responsible, and for a seriously injured worker that distinction is worth more than the entire workers’ compensation claim.
Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers investigates construction accidents in Philadelphia to identify every company whose conduct contributed, and pursues the claims that comp leaves untouched.
Call +1 (215) 875-7030.
Two Claims, Not One
A construction injury usually produces two separate claims that run at the same time, and most injured workers only ever file one of them.
Workers’ compensation pays medical treatment and roughly two-thirds of lost wages, regardless of fault, and it is available even when nobody did anything wrong. Benefits, wage calculations and deadlines are covered on our construction worker workers’ compensation page.
A third-party injury claim is a negligence case against a company other than your employer. This is where the value usually sits, because it reaches everything comp refuses to pay: pain, permanent limitation, the wage gap between two-thirds and whole, future earning capacity, and a spouse’s separate claim.
The two interact. The comp insurer holds a lien on any third-party recovery, meaning it is repaid out of the settlement for what it already paid you. How that lien is negotiated determines what actually reaches the injured worker, and it is one of the more technical pieces of handling these cases properly.
Who Can Be Sued After a Philadelphia Construction Accident?
Usually several companies, and they are rarely the one on your paycheck.
The general contractor. The GC controls site safety, sequencing, access and coordination for every trade on the job, including workers it does not employ. Unprotected floor openings, missing fall protection, unsafe excavation, uncontrolled hoisting and failed housekeeping all point here.
Other subcontractors. The trade that built the scaffold, cut the opening, energized the panel or left the material stacked is a separate legal entity from your employer.
Equipment manufacturers, lessors and maintenance companies. Failed rigging, aerial lifts that tip, hoists whose brakes fail, powered tools with defeated guards, and equipment serviced by an outside contractor.
Property owners and developers. Liability depends on how much control the owner retained over the means and methods of the work, which is a fact question and frequently a productive one.
Design professionals. Occasionally, where a design or a specified sequence created the hazard.
Delivery and trucking companies. Material deliveries, concrete pumping and crane services operating on site.
Federal OSHA enforces construction safety in Pennsylvania. An inspection following a serious injury generates interviews, photographs and citations that are obtainable and often useful, though a citation is not by itself the end of a civil case.
If more than one company was working on your site, call +1 (215) 875-7030 before the site changes.
How Will a Construction Accident Lawyer Handle Your Case?
The investigative work has a short window, so it goes first.
When you call us about a Philadelphia construction accident, we will:
- Send preservation demands for the equipment, the daily reports, the toolbox talk records and any site footage
- Identify every company working on the site and what each one controlled
- Obtain the OSHA inspection file where there was one
- Determine whether safety obligations were met and by whom
- Retain reconstruction and medical witnesses to establish cause and long-term impact
- Handle the comp claim in parallel so treatment gets paid while the injury case develops
If getting to an office is not realistic, we can meet at your home, at work or in the hospital.
What Kind of Construction Work Produces These Cases in Philadelphia?
The city’s construction mix creates a distinct injury profile.
High-rise and institutional work. Center City towers and the hospital and laboratory construction across University City involve crane operations, hoisting, and long falls.
Rowhouse demolition and renovation. Narrow lots, party walls, no laydown space and structures whose condition is unknown until work begins. Collapse and struck-by injuries cluster here.
Infrastructure and highway work. Bridge and roadway projects put workers next to live traffic, which adds a motorist defendant to the usual site defendants.
Utility and trench work. Excavation collapse, strikes on unmarked lines, and confined space injuries.
Interior fit-out. Ladder and lift falls, electrical injuries, and injuries from work happening overhead in an occupied building.
What Causes Construction Accidents on Philadelphia Sites?
Falls remain the leading cause of construction fatalities nationally, followed by struck-by incidents, electrocutions and caught-in or caught-between injuries. Pennsylvania recorded 185 fatal work injuries across all industries in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with falls, slips and trips accounting for 48 of them.
The site conditions behind those numbers are consistent:
- Inadequate or missing fall protection
- Debris, cords and tools creating trip hazards
- Power tools without guards or protective devices
- Unsafe, worn or defective equipment
- Machinery operated without proper lockout
- Unsecured loads and improperly rigged lifts
- Inadequate training or supervision
- Uncovered trenches, holes and floor openings
Nearly all of these are somebody’s responsibility under a written safety plan. Finding out whose is the case.
What Kinds of Construction Accident Cases Do We Handle?
We handle site injury claims across Philadelphia County and the surrounding counties, including:
- Scaffolding and ladder accidents
- Falls from height and falls through openings
- Building and structural collapses
- Trench and excavation collapse
- Crane, hoist and rigging accidents
- Forklift and heavy equipment accidents
- Falling debris and struck-by injuries
- Electrocutions and arc flash
- Defective product and equipment failures
- Motor vehicle accidents on and around sites
If someone in your family was killed on a Philadelphia construction site, both workers’ compensation death benefits and a wrongful death claim may be available, and they are pursued separately.
What Injuries Do These Cases Involve?
Construction injuries tend to be permanent in a way that changes what someone can earn for the rest of their career. The claims we handle involve back and neck injuries, crush injuries, fractures, burns, chest injuries, eye injuries, amputations, paralysis, spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury and soft tissue damage.
For a worker in the trades, the medical question is only half of it. The other half is what your body can still sustain over a full shift, and what the local market pays for the work you can still do. That analysis is a different exercise from proving the injury happened, and it drives the value of the third-party claim; see our case results for examples..
What Are the Deadlines?
Two clocks, and they are not the same length.
For workers’ compensation, notice to your employer within 21 days preserves benefits back to the date of injury. Notice after 120 days bars the claim completely. Once notice is given, a formal claim petition must be filed within three years.
For a third-party lawsuit, Pennsylvania generally allows two years from the date of the accident under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5524.
Working from the three-year comp deadline is the most common way a third-party construction claim gets lost. The shorter clock is the one that matters.
Two Claims, Two Sets of Questions
Can I sue if I already accepted workers’ comp benefits?
Yes, as to a third party. Accepting comp bars a suit against your own employer, not against a general contractor, a subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer or a property owner. The two claims routinely run together, and accepting benefits does not waive the second one.
I was a visitor or a delivery driver on the site, not a worker. Do I have a claim?
Yes, and usually a stronger one, because no comp exclusivity applies to anyone. A delivery driver, inspector, engineer or passerby injured by site conditions can bring an ordinary negligence claim against the responsible companies without the comp bar in the way.
The site has already been cleaned up. Is my case gone?
No, but it is harder, so evidence work should start immediately. Daily reports, toolbox talk records, subcontractor agreements, delivery tickets, inspection logs, phone photographs taken by other workers and the equipment itself all survive the cleanup. A preservation demand sent early keeps them from being discarded on a normal schedule.
My employer says I am a 1099 subcontractor. Does that end the comp claim?
Not necessarily. Pennsylvania’s construction misclassification rules set strict criteria for genuine independent contractor status, and a 1099 does not satisfy them on its own. Our page on workers’ comp exemptions sets out the test.
Find Out How Many Claims Are Actually in Your Accident
Most injured trades workers file the comp claim, take what it pays, and never learn whether the crane company, the general contractor or the equipment maker had a role. That decision gets made in the first few weeks, usually by nobody.
Bring us the accident, the site and the names of every company working on it. Call +1 (215) 875-7030.
Related reading: Philadelphia workers’ compensation for the benefits side, Philadelphia workplace accident lawyer for third-party claims outside construction, and industrial accidents for plant and machinery injuries.
Reviewed by the workplace injury team at Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers, which handles construction site injury claims in Philadelphia County and the surrounding counties.
