Have you sustained injuries in a construction accident in or near St. Clair County, or anywhere in Illinois? You may now need costly medical treatment. Your injuries may also prevent you from working and earning a paycheck resulting in lost wages.
You might pursue compensation for such losses by filing a construction accident claim or personal injury lawsuit. At Bartholomew, Shevlin & Flack, LLP, our construction accident attorneys in St. Clair County can help. While we can’t turn back the clock to the time before your accident, we can help you secure compensation for your future. Call us today for a free consultation and to learn more from a workplace injury lawyer in Belleville.
Construction accidents may occur for a variety of reasons. They can also take a range of forms.
Common types and examples of Illinois construction accidents include:
Those are just a few examples. If you’re ever involved in a construction accident, report the incident to your supervisor immediately.
See a doctor on the day of your accident as well. Even if you feel fine, you may have sustained severe injuries without knowing it. This can happen if adrenaline causes you to not feel injury symptoms. Concussions and similar injuries might not cause noticeable symptoms right away.
Seeking medical care on the day of a construction site accident ensures you receive the early treatment you may need. It also establishes a clear link between the incident in question and your serious injuries. Establishing such a link makes it more difficult for an insurer to later claim your injuries may have resulted from another cause.
Along with reporting the accident to your supervisor and seeing a doctor, keep the following tips in mind in the days after a workplace accident. Knowing what you should and shouldn’t do in these circumstances can improve your chances of receiving compensation:
The insurance company wants to settle your case for as little money as possible. An insurance adjuster may be looking for reasons to offer less compensation than you might think you deserve.
Avoid giving them justification to lowball you by remembering these tips. In addition, consider hiring a lawyer to represent you. Your attorney can handle all contact with the insurance adjuster. This decreases the risk of you accidentally making statements that could harm your claim.
It’s generally best to avoid speaking with insurance adjusters or other insurance company representatives directly. Although an adjuster may sound like they’re on your side, stay safe and direct an adjuster to speak with your lawyer if you’ve hired one.
Construction is a dangerous line of work. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the “construction and extraction” field has the second-highest rate of fatal workplace accidents among civilian-employing industries.
Unfortunately, data from the BLS indicates serious construction accidents are on the rise. It’s unclear why this is. Increased distractions due to smartphones may be at least one factor.
Whether you’re eligible for compensation after a construction accident can depend on several factors. How you may seek compensation also depends on how your accident occurred.
According to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC) and the Workers’ Compensation Act, nearly all employers in Illinois must carry workers’ compensation insurance. When you sustain an on-the-job injury, you may file a workers’ compensation claim accordingly. You don’t have to prove that anyone else caused your injury to do so.
Workers’ compensation benefits cover medical bills and provide partial wage replacement. However, your injuries may also cause intangible losses, such as pain and suffering.
Workers’ compensation doesn’t cover these losses. Still, you may be able to pursue compensation for them by filing a third-party claim.
Some ways you can recover compensation include:
These all can be contributed to your settlement amount depending on the circumstances.
You can also file a third-party claim when a construction accident resulted from the negligence of someone other than your employer or co-workers.
Such negligent parties may include:
Schedule a meeting at our St. Clair County construction injury law firm to discuss your case. We can help you better understand your potential legal options.
Reviewing your case to determine if you have grounds to file a claim is just one way Illinois construction accident legal counsel may help you.
Other ways our Belleville industrial injury lawyers may help include:
Don’t worry about taking an unreasonable financial risk when you hire a lawyer. You may already be facing financial stress in the form of medical bills, lost wages, and more.
We won’t add to that stress. When you hire our construction injury lawyer in St. Clair County, Illinois, you’ll enter into a contingency fee agreement. This means our fee is contingent on our success.
If you receive a settlement or damages, our fee is an agreed-upon percentage of the money you receive. If we don’t win your case, you pay nothing for our legal services.
Such an arrangement allows you to enlist legal representation without adding to your expenses. It also gives your lawyer an incentive to fight for the most compensation they can recover.
The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act states you have three years from the date of your construction accident to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. If you plan on filing a third-party personal injury claim, Illinois law may have a different deadline for filing a lawsuit against the at-fault party, depending on the circumstances of the injury.
Missing the applicable deadline will result in losing your right to compensation. Avoid this by engaging a construction accident lawyer and taking legal action sooner rather than later.
Construction safety in Illinois is governed by both federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and Illinois-specific rules. These laws are designed to protect workers by encouraging safe workplaces.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was designed to make employers responsible for providing a reasonably safe work environment. For construction workers, this means following strict safety protocols meant to address common hazards on job sites, like falls from heights, electrocution, tripping hazards, and potentially dangerous equipment.
Some key examples of relevant OSHA standards include:·
Illinois largely follows OSHA’s federal standards for construction safety, but the state also enforces workplace safety through an OSHA-approved State Plan, which applies to local and state government employees. For private-sector employers, national OSHA rules apply.
The Illinois state legislature passed the Illinois Structural Work Act in 1907 with the goal of regulating construction sites and decreasing the prevalence of accidents. The so-called Scaffold Law established that an eligible worker could recover compensation if they were injured because someone who owed them a duty of care willfully failed to comply with the terms of the law. However, the law was repealed in 1995 and replaced with a common law negligence model. In other words, injured parties can still bring claims under certain conditions, but they do so by proving:
However, it’s important to remember that workers’ compensation laws shield employers from negligence claims brought against them by their employees under most circumstances.
A construction accident injury at a Madison County jobsite can put your health, income, and future at risk in an instant. Workers’ compensation provides a critical safety net, but it does not always cover everything you lose. This coverage gap can raise questions about your rights when it comes to seeking compensation. The FAQs below address many of the issues workers commonly bring up after a construction accident.
You might have a third-party claim in addition to your workers’ compensation claim if someone other than your employer or a coworker caused your injury. Liable third parties might include negligent subcontractors, property owners other than your employer who fail to keep their sites safe, or manufacturers of defective equipment. Third-party injury claims are separate from workers’ compensation claims and can cover losses that workers’ comp does not address, such as pain and suffering. An Illinois construction accident lawyer can review your situation in a free consultation and help you determine whether you might have grounds for a third-party claim in addition to workers’ comp.
You can still qualify for workers’ compensation even if you were partially or entirely at fault for the accident. Illinois workers’ comp claims do not depend on who caused the accident. As long as you were not intoxicated, engaging in horseplay, or intentionally trying to hurt yourself, you should still be eligible for medical and wage replacement benefits under workers’ comp.
Partial fault does matter, however, in a third-party claim. Under Illinois’ modified comparative negligence rule, you can only recover compensation from a third-party injury claim if you are less than 51 percent at fault for the injury accident. And if you are partially at fault, the amount of compensation available will be reduced by your percentage of fault. For example, if you are 25 percent at fault, your compensation award would decrease by 25 percent.
You should report any occupational injury to your employer as soon as possible. Illinois law gives you 45 days to notify your employer, but delays could raise questions about the timing or severity of your injury. The sooner you make a report, the stronger your claim will be.
Make your report in writing, if possible, and keep a copy for your records. Include the date, time, location, and a description of how the injury occurred.
No. You do not need to prove that your employer was negligent to qualify for workers’ compensation in Illinois. Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system, so you do not have to prove who was or wasn’t responsible. You only need to show that your injury occurred while you were performing your job duties.
This no-fault system allows you to receive benefits quickly. However, it also limits what you can recover. Workers’ comp benefits cover your medical care and a portion of your lost wages, but they do not fully replace your income or cover other losses like pain and suffering. If someone other than your employer or a coworker contributed to the injury accident, you could recover more through a third-party claim.
Yes. Illinois law allows you to choose your own doctor, but there are limits. If your employer has a preferred provider program (PPP), you must choose your doctor from their network. You may select two physicians within the PPP. If your employer does not have a PPP, you may choose any two doctors you want. Referrals to other providers from those two doctors do not count against your limit.
Emergency treatment and first aid providers do not count against your two choices. Nonemergency care you receive before reporting the injury to your employer also does not count. However, any medical costs you incur outside of this system could become your personal responsibility, so it’s best to make your selections carefully.
Construction workers play a vital role in Illinois. You deserve compensation if you’ve sustained injuries while working in this important but dangerous field.
However, that doesn’t mean it should be on you to fill out claim paperwork, provide evidence to support your claim, negotiate back and forth with an insurance adjuster, and more.
A St. Clair County construction injury law firm can handle these tasks for you. At Bartholomew, Shevlin & Flack, LLP, our goal is to secure the compensation you deserve while also making life as easy as possible for you throughout the claims process. Learn more by contacting us online today or calling us for a free consultation with a construction accident attorney in Belleville IL.