In this article, we explain what to do after a construction accident in Georgia if you or a loved one was hurt. Contact our office today.
Common Mistakes After a Construction Accident
Anytime you get hurt – especially if it’s the first time you have been injured in a construction accident – you’re probably going to make some mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes people make in these cases is mot reporting it. They may not even say anything to their boss, the general contractor, the sub-contractor, or whomever is in charge on that job site. If you get hurt at a construction site, tell somebody and put it in writing, either via text or email.
A second mistake people make is that they don’t preserve evidence. Take some pictures on the site as soon as you can. If you don’t have a camera on your phone, somebody next to you does. Get photographs – multiple angles, close ups, far away – of the defect, machinery, or situation that injured you. You will also want to document your injury with photos. Finally, the third mistake often made in these cases is not contacting an attorney in time.
Hiring a Construction Accident Attorney
If you have a construction accident claim in Georgia, one of the things you better be asking yourself is how do I select the best construction accident attorney? There are three components you can look at to determine whether or not you’ve hired the best lawyer. First off, you want an attorney who is educated on the specific aspects of construction accident cases. Do they know building codes? Have they studied building codes? Do they know the particular statutes of your case? Do they know the type of construction that was going on at the time of this incident?
Next, you want an attorney who’s going to take your case and put in the effort. Finally, you want an attorney with experience. Most lawyers will advertise that they do everything – throw out a big net and hope they catch a lot of fish. Then, for the areas of the law where they don’t practice, they’ll just refer it out to other lawyers who are more experienced in that area. That’s not us. At our firm, we have the education and experience necessary, and we’re certainly going to put in the effort that’s needed to make your case as good as it can be. When you’re thinking about the best construction accident attorney in Georgia, to handle your personal injury case, think about our firm.
What to Do After a Construction Accident
One of the types of personal injury cases that we handle regularly is construction site accidents. Our firm is particularly well-suited to handle those cases because we regularly handle a great many workers’ compensation cases, and there is a lot of interplay between personal injury cases – whether you can sue a contractor on a job site or even a party that you consider to be your employer – and workers’ compensation.
These cases can be complicated. Just to give you some examples of how complicated these cases can be, the general contractor who may have been negligent in some way and caused your injury, could be shielded from you being able to sue them by the workers’ compensation laws of the state, even though they’re not responsible for paying you any workers’ compensation benefits. There are exceptions to them being able to gain that statutory employer status. Our firm is well-versed in these exceptions from years of handling workers’ compensation claims. We are able to form some strategies now based on experience and insight into how a particular party is going to react if, say, a workers’ compensation claim is filed against them.
Were you or a loved one seriously injured on a job site in Georgia and have questions about what to do after a construction accident? Contact the experienced Georgia construction accident lawyers at Princenthal, May & Wilson, LLC, today for a free consultation and case evaluation.