Queens · Queens County Construction Accidents
Queens construction accident lawyer.
The borough building higher and faster than anywhere in the city.
Long Island City's tower skyline, Flushing and Willets Point development, and continuous work at JFK and LaGuardia make Queens dense with high-rise and infrastructure sites: hoists, cranes, formwork, curtain wall. Height work is section 240 work.
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High-rise cases: falls and falling objects.
Vertical construction produces both branches of the Scaffold Law. Workers fall from decking, rebar, hoists, and scaffolds, and workers below are struck by unsecured tools, material, and debris. Labor Law § 240(1) covers both, and it reaches the owner and the general contractor no matter which subcontractor's crew created the hazard. On a tower with a dozen trades, that nondelegable liability is what keeps the case simple.
Airport and public authority projects.
Get hurt on a JFK or LaGuardia project, or any other Port Authority or public site, and the clock runs differently. Claims against public entities and authorities carry notice requirements measured in weeks and suit deadlines that can be as short as one year. If your site touches a public owner, the first call should happen before anything else does.
"There was a scaffold, but I was not using it."
Defendants call this the sole proximate cause defense, and it is far narrower than they pretend. It requires proof that an adequate device was actually available on the site, that you knew you were expected to use it, and that you chose not to for no good reason. A device that was broken, in use elsewhere, or sitting in a yard across the borough does not qualify. Do not let an adjuster talk you out of your own case.
Where the case gets filed.
Queens cases are generally venued in Supreme Court, Queens County, in Jamaica. We prepare every case there the way we prepare every case: for a jury.
Questions people ask us.
I was hurt on an airport project. Are the rules different?
The liability rules are largely the same, but the deadlines are dramatically shorter. Public authorities carry their own notice of claim requirements and suit periods that can be as short as one year. Treat an airport or public site injury as urgent.
My foreman told me to keep working without fall protection.
That instruction helps your case, not theirs. Being directed to work unprotected undercuts the defenses available under the Labor Law, and punishing you for reporting the injury or bringing a claim is itself unlawful.
The general contractor blames my employer, a subcontractor.
It does not matter. Section 240 liability is nondelegable: the owner and general contractor remain liable even where a sub created the hazard. Workers' comp bars suing your own employer, but it never bars the case against them.
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Daniel Hochman, Esq.
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