First, liability (someone’s legal obligation to pay because of causing someone else’s injuries) only matters in a lawsuit.
If you file a workers’ compensation claim, then liability generally does not matter. Workers’ compensation insurance pays benefits to injured workers regardless of fault for a construction accident, except in limited circumstances such as when the injured worker was drunk or high on the job, or deliberately caused the accident to obtain benefits.
In a lawsuit seeking compensation for a Philadelphia construction accident injury, however, legal liability does matter. What a lawyer needs to do to prove it depends on the specific facts and circumstances of an accident.
However, in a large number of cases, to prove liability a lawyer must show that:
- Someone owed the injured worker a duty of care. This means someone had a legal obligation not to act in a way that puts someone else at an unreasonable risk of harm. For example, drivers of cars passing through a road construction zone have a duty of care to obey reduced speed limits, to keep workers safe.
- Someone breached that duty of care. Using the work zone example, a driver who speeds through a construction zone breaches (or violates) the duty of care the driver owes to construction workers. Speeding puts the workers at an unreasonable risk of harm.
- The breach caused the worker’s injuries. If, by speeding, the driver causes an accident that hurts a road construction worker, then we say the driver is liable for the construction worker’s injuries.
Straightforward as these requirements might sound, they can get complicated to prove in practice. Trust only an experienced Philadelphia construction accident lawyer to handle your claim.