Construction accident lawyer in Williamsburg

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Construction Accident Lawyer in Williamsburg

The Williamsburg waterfront is a continuous tower-construction zone, and the injuries follow the work. I represent the workers building these projects, including non-union, day-labor, and undocumented workers that the bigger union firms steer past. Free consultation. Hablamos español.

Call: 718-261-0546

Where Williamsburg construction injuries happen

The North Williamsburg waterfront from Kent Avenue at North 14th down to the Domino Sugar site has been under continuous construction for the better part of a decade. Concrete pours, curtain-wall installs, façade work, and crane lifts run side by side on adjacent parcels. Falls from formwork, falling tools off upper floors, and hoist failures cluster here. Workers staging materials on the narrow sidewalks along Wythe Avenue get caught between flatbeds and the construction fence.

Further inland, the Bedford Avenue infill projects between North 7th and Metropolitan run smaller two- to six-story residential buildings, often non-union, often with the cheap pipe scaffolds that fail when planks crack or guardrails are missing. Metropolitan Avenue between Union and Lorimer runs heavy truck traffic to the East Williamsburg industrial zone, and unloading injuries on commercial sidewalks happen weekly. South Williamsburg's older Hasidic-owned residential rehabs along Broadway and Bushwick Avenue run a different labor pool, often paid in cash, often with no fall protection at all.

Union work on the bigger waterfront towers runs with site safety managers and documented OSHA records. The smaller infill and rehab jobs do not. Both sets of workers have full Labor Law protection. Many of my clients are workers the union firms turned away.

NY Labor Law § 240(1), the Scaffold Law in 200 words

NY Labor Law § 240(1) imposes absolute liability on property owners and general contractors when an elevation-related construction injury occurs because a required safety device was absent, defective, or inadequate. Falls from scaffolds, ladders, roofs, and platforms qualify. Falling-object injuries qualify too: tools, debris, or unsecured materials that fall and strike a worker. After Wilinski v. 334 East 92nd Hous. Dev. Fund Corp., 18 N.Y.3d 1 (2011), even short-fall objects qualify when the weight and force create a meaningful elevation differential.

Absolute liability means comparative negligence is not a defense. Once the plaintiff proves the statute was violated and the violation caused the injury, the worker's own conduct does not reduce the recovery. The defense has two narrow outs: sole proximate cause and recalcitrant worker. Appellate courts have tightened both around device failure.

Labor Law § 241(6) treats specific Industrial Code Part 23 violations as negligence per se and runs alongside § 240 in most pleadings.

Immigration status does not bar a claim. Under Balbuena v. IDR Realty LLC, 6 N.Y.3d 338 (2006), undocumented workers retain full damages, including lost wages, in New York personal injury cases.

What to do after a Williamsburg construction accident

1. Get medical attention. Woodhull Medical Center on Broadway is the closest full-service ER for most Williamsburg sites. Tell the ER it was a work injury so the records reflect it.
2. Report to your supervisor and document witnesses. Coworkers on small infill jobs disappear to other sites within days. Get phone numbers before the shift ends.
3. File New York Workers' Compensation within 30 days. Do this even if a Labor Law third-party case is on the table. The two systems run in parallel. Workers' comp covers immediate medical and a portion of lost wages regardless of who caused the injury.
4. Call before signing anything. Defense investigators move fast. Documented and undocumented workers both have full personal injury rights, and status stays private with my office.

Cases I take

• Scaffold collapses and missing-guardrail falls on waterfront towers
• Ladder falls on infill and rehab work
• Falling tools, debris, and unsecured material from upper floors
• Hoist and personnel-elevator failures on tower work
• Trench and excavation collapses on utility work
• Electrocution from temporary site wiring
• Struck-by tools and dropped loads on staging areas
• Demolition injuries on Domino-area conversions

Talk to me

Call: 718-261-0546 Office: 102-11 Metropolitan Ave, Forest Hills, NY 11375 Hablamos español. Bilingual concierge on staff.

Free consultation. I will call you back personally during business hours. See Prior Results for verified case outcomes including the $2 million Brooklyn DOE Labor Law § 240 settlement.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.