If you were hurt on a job site, a construction accident attorney in New Jersey can often build you a second claim that workers' compensation alone will never pay. Reinartz Law Firm handles both sides of that equation from our office in Hackensack, representing injured workers throughout Bergen County and across the state.
Most injured workers are told to file for comp and wait, and nobody mentions the rest. Workers' compensation does not pay a dollar for pain and suffering, and it caps your wage benefit. A third-party claim has no such limits.
Call (201) 289-8614 for a free consultation. Our founder, Richard Reinartz, spent more than a decade as a trial lawyer at two large national firms before opening this practice, and we run workers' compensation and injury litigation under one roof rather than sending you to a second firm.
Can You Sue if You Are Already Collecting Workers' Comp?
Yes, in most job site cases, as long as the lawsuit targets someone other than your direct employer. New Jersey's exclusive remedy rule under N.J.S.A. 34:15-8 bars you from suing your own employer for negligence, and that is the trade for no-fault benefits. It says nothing about anyone else on the site.
The statute that opens the door is N.J.S.A. 34:15-40, often called Section 40, which confirms that receiving compensation does not bar a claim against a responsible third party. The two claims run in parallel. Comp pays your treatment and partial wages now, while the civil case develops.
Section 40 also gives the comp carrier a lien on whatever you recover from that third party, so it gets reimbursed for what it paid. Most workers hear that and assume the lawsuit is pointless. It is not, because the lien is negotiable through allocation arguments and counsel fee credits, and the categories a third-party case reaches are ones comp never touches.
Settling your comp case does not waive the civil claim either. They are separate matters, though the sequencing genuinely matters and is worth getting advice on before you sign anything. Talk to us about workers' compensation for New Jersey construction workers and the civil side together.
Who Else Can Be Held Responsible on a New Jersey Job Site?
Almost everyone except your employer, which, on a multi-trade site, is a long list. A general contractor is the most common defendant when you work for a subcontractor, particularly where it controlled site safety, coordinated the trades, or knew about a hazard and left it in place.
Beyond the general contractor, accountability commonly reaches the following:
- The property owner, especially where it retained control over how the work was performed.
- Other subcontractors whose crews created the condition that injured you.
- The manufacturer of a tool, lift, or machine that failed, under New Jersey's Products Liability Act.
- Equipment rental and maintenance companies responsible for inspection and upkeep.
- Scaffold and hoist erectors working under separate contract.
- Drivers and delivery contractors operating vehicles on or around the site.
Untangling that chain requires the contracts, the daily reports, and the site safety plan, which is why an early document preservation letter is more valuable than it sounds. Contractor paperwork has a way of becoming hard to locate once litigation is on the horizon.
Worth noting plainly: New Jersey has no strict liability scaffold statute of the kind that exists across the river. These cases are proven under ordinary negligence principles, which makes the safety-standard evidence below carry real weight.
Construction Site Injuries We Handle
Different mechanisms produce different proof problems, and each has a safety standard behind it worth pulling early.
Falls from height and scaffold collapses
Falls remain the most common source of serious construction injury. Federal fall protection standards require protection at six feet in construction, and the scaffold requirements in 29 CFR 1926 Subpart L cover platform decking, guardrails, and competent-person inspection. Establishing who erected and inspected the scaffold is usually the whole case.
Ladder failures
Ladder cases turn on selection, placement, and condition, all addressed in Subpart X. The recurring fact patterns are a ladder set at the wrong angle, an unsecured top, or a damaged ladder left in service. Photographing the ladder before it disappears from the site matters enormously.
Trench and excavation collapses
Cave-ins are among the most severe incidents on any site, and Subpart P requires protective systems such as shoring, shielding, or benching for excavations at depth, along with daily competent-person inspection. Soil classification records and the protective system actually in use are the central evidence.
Electrocution and electrical burns
Contact with live conductors, unfinished wiring, and overhead power lines produces catastrophic injury. Lockout and tagout failures and inadequate clearance from energized lines are the usual causes. These often become catastrophic injury claims in New Jersey rather than ordinary injury claims.
Struck-by and caught-between incidents
Falling material, swinging loads, backing equipment, and crush injuries between machinery and a fixed object make up the balance of what we see. Rigging records, spotter assignments, and equipment inspection logs drive these cases.
Whatever the mechanism, the first calls we make are the same: preserve the equipment, secure the site documentation, and request the inspection file.
How Do OSHA Violations Affect a New Jersey Construction Claim?
An OSHA citation does not automatically prove negligence in a New Jersey civil case, but it is strong evidence of the standard of care, and it carries real weight with a jury. A general contractor cited for a fall protection violation in the same incident that injured you gives the civil claim a solid foundation.
The more useful material is often the inspection file behind the citation, including the compliance officer's notes, witness interviews, and photographs taken while the scene was intact. Prior violations of the same standard at the same company are frequently the most persuasive documents in the file.
Jurisdiction splits in New Jersey, which trips people up. Federal OSHA covers private sector construction, while public employees fall under the state program administered through the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
If you want a more straightforward version of how OSHA safety standards on New Jersey construction sites work, we have written it out separately.
Requesting the inspection report early is one of the first investigative steps we take, because these records are public, and the window to influence what gets documented is short.
When Can a Worker Sue Their Own Employer?
Only in narrow circumstances, under what New Jersey courts call the intentional wrong exception. In Laidlow v. Hariton Machinery Co., the New Jersey Supreme Court set out a substantial certainty test: the worker must show the employer's conduct made injury substantially certain, and that both the conduct and the resulting injury go beyond what the Legislature intended to immunize as a fact of life of industrial employment.
The classic fact pattern is a removed machine guard combined with a history of near misses and a misrepresentation to inspectors. Deliberate indifference to a known and specific danger is the core of it.
This is a demanding standard, and most work injuries do not meet it. It is worth evaluating anyway, because when it applies, it removes the comp cap entirely.
Deadlines on a New Jersey Construction Injury Claim
The third-party lawsuit generally must be filed within two years of the injury under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2. That clock runs from the accident date, not from the day you discover comp will not cover your losses.
Workers' compensation runs separately, with its own notice obligations to your employer and its own filing period. Public projects add another layer, since a claim involving a public entity generally requires a notice of claim within 90 days under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act.
Three different clocks on one incident is exactly how good claims get lost. Having someone calendar all of them in the first month is the simplest protection available to you.
Why Hire Our NJ Construction Accident Lawyers
These cases reward a firm that can run both tracks at once, and that is how we are built.
- Both systems in one place. We handle the comp claim and the third-party lawsuit together, which keeps the Section 40 lien from quietly eating your recovery.
- Insight from the defense side. More than 10 years at two large national firms taught our founder how carriers and contractors prepare these files.
- Your attorney on the phone. Richard does the day-to-day building of these cases himself.
- Site investigation that starts immediately. Preservation letters, equipment inspection, and public records requests in the first weeks, not the first year.
- Local courts. Our office sits on Main Street in Hackensack, minutes from the Bergen County Justice Center.
- Nothing up front. Consultations are free, we answer around the clock, and we work on contingency.
Immigration status does not affect your right to workers' compensation benefits in New Jersey, and it is not something we ask about in the way you may be worried we will. If you are working in Bergen County and want to know where you stand, our construction accident attorney in Hackensack and Bergen County coverage starts with a free call to (201) 289-8614.
FAQs Answered by Our Construction Site Injury Attorney in New Jersey
Here are the questions injured workers ask us most, beyond what is covered above.
What if my employer never reported my injury?
Report it yourself in writing and get medical treatment documented. An unreported injury is harder to establish later, but it is not fatal to a claim, and retaliation for reporting a work injury is unlawful in New Jersey. We can help you get the report filed properly.
I was classified as an independent contractor. Do I have any claim?
Possibly both. New Jersey looks at the substance of the working relationship rather than the label on your paperwork, so misclassified workers are often entitled to comp anyway. A genuine independent contractor keeps the full third-party negligence claim, which is frequently the larger of the two.
Can I be fired for filing a claim?
New Jersey prohibits retaliation against a worker for claiming compensation benefits. That does not mean it never happens, so keep your written records. If it does happen, it becomes a separate claim of its own.
Who pays while I am out of work?
Temporary disability benefits through workers' compensation replace roughly 70 percent of your average weekly wage, subject to a state maximum, once you have been out more than seven days. The gap between that and your actual earnings is part of what a third-party claim can reach.
Does a language barrier make this harder?
Our written materials are in English, and we arrange interpretation for meetings, medical appointments, and depositions when a client needs it. Say so on the first call and we will set it up.
What if the equipment that hurt me was already removed from the site?
It happens constantly, and the case is not over. Purchase and rental records, maintenance logs, coworker testimony, and the OSHA inspection file can establish what was in use and what condition it was in. The sooner someone starts requesting those documents, the more of them still exist.
Talk to a New Jersey Construction Accident Attorney
If all you have been offered is a comp claim, you may be looking at half your case. Finding out costs you nothing.
Call Reinartz Law Firm at (201) 289-8614 at any hour, or reach us through our contact page. Our office is at Court Plaza South, West Wing, 21 Main St., Suite 205, Hackensack, NJ 07601, and we represent injured workers throughout Bergen County and across New Jersey.
Tell us what happened on the site. We will tell you what claims you actually have.
The Reinartz Law Firm - Hackensack Office
Court Plaza South - West Wing
21 Main St Suite 205,
Hackensack, NJ 07601
