DESIGNER MOCKUP · amparolawfirm.com homepage · brand tokens locked · placeholder photography
DESIGNER MOCKUP · amparolawfirm.com homepage · brand tokens locked · placeholder photography
If you were hurt on a New York construction site, you have rights that workers in most other states do not. New York’s Labor Law gives injured construction workers the strongest protections in the country — and most workers don’t know they exist until a lawyer who actually understands them gets involved.
Amparo Law Firm represents injured construction workers across the five boroughs and Long Island. We focus on Labor Law §240, §241(6), and §200 cases, scaffold falls, falling objects, ladder accidents, electrocutions, struck-by-equipment injuries, crane accidents, trench collapses, and the full range of serious construction-site harm.
We work in English, Spanish, and Farsi. We represent workers regardless of immigration status. We do not charge a fee unless we recover for you.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Free case evaluation. No fee unless we recover for you.
What to do in the first 72 hours after a construction accident in New York
If you can do nothing else, do these things. They will protect your case.
Get medical care, and tell the doctor it happened at work. Do not let anyone — your foreman, the safety officer, the GC’s representative — talk you into saying you were hurt at home or off the job. If a hospital intake form asks where the injury happened, tell the truth. The medical record is the foundation of your case.
Report the accident in writing to your employer within 30 days. New York Workers’ Compensation Law §18 requires written notice to your employer within 30 days. A verbal “I told my foreman” is not enough. Send a text. Send an email. Keep a copy.
Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company without a lawyer. Insurance adjusters will call within days, sometimes hours. They will sound friendly. They will record the call. A few words said before you have the medical records, the incident report, and a clear timeline can hurt your case for years.
Save your boots, your harness, your hard hat — anything you were wearing or using. A scaffold harness with a bent D-ring, a ladder with a cracked rail, a hard hat with a crush mark — these are evidence. Don’t wash them. Don’t return them. Don’t let anyone “exchange” them for new gear.
Photograph the scene if you can — or ask a coworker to. Construction sites change overnight. The scaffold that wasn’t tied off when you fell may be properly tied off the next morning. Photographs from the day of the accident are often impossible to recreate.
Call a lawyer before you sign anything. Do not sign a release. Do not sign a waiver. Do not sign anything from any insurance company, your employer, or the GC. Call us first — the consultation is free and there is no obligation.
Most states require an injured construction worker to prove that the contractor was negligent — that someone was careless, that the carelessness caused the injury, and that the worker was not significantly at fault. That standard often defeats meritorious cases.
New York doesn’t work that way. The Labor Law creates three tiers of protection that are stronger than what workers get anywhere else in the country.
When a worker is injured by a fall from height — or by an object falling from above — and the fall happened because the contractor or owner did not provide proper fall protection, the contractor and owner are liable. Period. The worker’s own conduct generally cannot be used as a defense unless it was the sole cause of the accident. This is called “absolute liability.” It is the most powerful tool an injured construction worker has, anywhere in the United States. Property owners and general contractors lobby every year to weaken §240. They have lobbied for thirty years. The law has not weakened.
§241(6) imposes liability on owners and contractors when a worker is injured because of a violation of a specific provision of New York’s Industrial Code (12 NYCRR Part 23). The Industrial Code covers everything from fall protection to electrical safety to demolition procedures to ventilation in confined spaces. Comparative fault applies under §241(6) — meaning if the worker was partly responsible, the recovery may be reduced — but the worker’s contributory negligence is generally not a complete bar to recovery the way it can be in other states.
§200 is the codification of common-law negligence — the duty an owner or contractor has to provide a reasonably safe work environment. It applies in two main ways: (1) when the owner or contractor knew or should have known of a dangerous condition, or (2) when they actually directed or controlled the work that produced the injury. §200 has more defenses available than §240 and §241(6), but it covers situations the other two statutes don’t reach.
The chain of liability — and why it matters that we read it like a developer
A single construction injury usually generates multiple potentially liable parties. The chain typically runs:
Identifying every potentially liable party is not just a legal exercise — it is a structural one. We read the chain the way the people running the project read it. Bob Amirian’s federal-court training shapes how we develop the legal theory; Jordan Sakni’s developer experience shapes how we read the project documents — the AIA contract structure, the schedule of values, the daily logs, the change orders, the RFIs, the OAC meeting minutes, the OSHA citation history.
A construction case is a paper trail before it is anything else. We know where the paper is.
Most injured construction workers think their case is “just” a workers’ compensation claim. It usually isn’t.
Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system that pays for medical care and a portion of lost wages, regardless of who was at fault. You cannot generally sue your direct employer for additional damages — that’s the trade-off.
But on a construction site, you typically have multiple potential defendants who are not your direct employer: the property owner, the general contractor, equipment lessors, manufacturers. Those are third parties — and you can pursue a separate Labor Law / negligence case against them while your workers’ compensation claim runs in parallel.
The third-party case is where the real recovery often is. Workers’ comp pays for medical bills and a fraction of your wages. A third-party Labor Law case can recover full lost earnings (including future earning capacity), pain and suffering, and damages for the long-term consequences of the injury.
If a lawyer or representative tells you that workers’ compensation is your only remedy without first asking who owned the site and who the GC was — that lawyer is wrong, or not paying attention. Both happen often.
The construction accident cases we focus on
We represent injured workers across the full range of New York construction site injuries:
Each trade carries its own injury patterns. We represent:
Most plaintiff’s lawyers, even experienced ones, read a construction case like a litigator: they look at OSHA citations, depositions, expert reports, and they build a story for trial. That works. But it misses things.
A developer reads the same documents differently.
When Jordan reads an OSHA citation, he doesn’t just see a number — he sees whether the GC contested it, whether the safety officer was on site that day, whether the citation was the third or fourth in a sequence, whether the abatement was real or paper. When he reads a daily log, he sees whether the schedule was running late and pressure was building. When he reads a change order, he sees whether the safety provisions got value-engineered out. When he sees the AIA contract structure, he knows where the responsibility actually lies — not just where the paper says it does.
That perspective is the second pair of eyes on every construction file at Amparo. Bob’s federal-court training drives the legal theory and the trial preparation. Jordan’s developer-side experience drives how the operational record is read.
It is the only NYC plaintiff’s firm where that combination exists.
Damages categories — what the law allows you to recover
We do not give specific dollar values on a website. Every case is different and the value depends on the specific facts. But the categories of damages New York law allows you to recover are:
Punitive damages are available in narrow circumstances — generally where the defendant’s conduct was egregiously reckless or intentional. Most construction cases do not involve punitive damages. Some do.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The value of any case depends on its specific facts and applicable law.
If you are undocumented, or if your status is uncertain, this section is for you.
New York law fully protects the rights of all construction workers — regardless of immigration status — to bring Labor Law claims and recover for injuries. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hoffman Plastic limited certain remedies for undocumented workers in federal employment cases, but New York’s Court of Appeals has held that immigration status does not bar recovery in personal injury actions under the Labor Law.
What that means in practice:
We have represented many undocumented workers and we know how to handle these cases — including how to handle the practical concerns about communication, court appearances, and tax/wage records.
If immigration concerns are why you have not yet talked to a lawyer, please call us. The consultation is free, confidential, and in Spanish if that is easier.
Construction cases typically run 12-24 months from the date the case is filed to settlement or verdict. Here’s roughly how that timeline breaks:
Month 1-3 — Investigation and preservation. We send preservation letters, gather the OSHA file, obtain the project records (subpoenas where necessary), interview witnesses, document the scene, and begin medical record collection.
Month 3-9 — Pleadings and early discovery. Complaint filed. Defendants answer. Initial discovery exchange. Bills of particulars. Depositions of the parties begin.
Month 9-15 — Discovery and expert workup. Depositions of fact witnesses. Site safety expert engaged. Engineering expert if applicable. Vocational expert and life care planner for damages. Medical experts.
Month 15-21 — Summary judgment motions and mediation. §240 cases are often resolved by summary judgment (an order from the judge that liability is established as a matter of law). After that, mediation.
Month 21-24 — Trial or settlement. Most cases resolve before trial. Some go.
This is a typical timeline. Yours may move faster or slower depending on the court, the defendants, and the medical picture.
If you were injured on a New York construction site because something on the site was unsafe — inadequate fall protection, missing or defective equipment, an unsafe condition that the GC or owner knew or should have known about — there’s a strong chance you have a case. The only way to know for sure is a free consultation.
Nothing up front and nothing unless we recover for you. We work on a contingency fee — generally one-third of the recovery, with the specific terms in a written engagement letter you sign before we represent you. No hidden fees. No charges for the consultation.
New York law prohibits an employer from retaliating against you for filing a workers’ compensation claim or pursuing a personal injury case. If retaliation happens, that itself becomes a separate legal claim. In practice, most cases are against the property owner and general contractor — not your direct employer.
For most construction injury claims in New York, you have three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury case. For wrongful death cases, two years. Cases against public entities (NYCHA, MTA, NYC DOT) require a Notice of Claim within 90 days — that deadline is hard, and missing it can end the case. If your accident may have involved a public project, call a lawyer immediately.
Yes. Workers’ compensation is required to pay for medical treatment for work-related injuries. If your employer’s comp carrier denies treatment, we can help. If you don’t have a comp claim — or are uncertain about it — there are NYC clinics and providers who treat injured construction workers and accept liens on the eventual recovery.
No. Retaliation against an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim is illegal under New York Workers’ Compensation Law §120. If it happens, document it, save it, and tell us.
Your immigration status does not affect your right to recover under the Labor Law. We have represented many undocumented workers. Your status is confidential. We do not communicate with immigration authorities about our clients.
Under Labor Law §240, the worker’s own conduct is generally not a defense unless it was the sole cause of the accident. Under §241(6) and §200, comparative fault applies — meaning your recovery may be reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover. New York is a “pure comparative negligence” state, which is favorable to injured workers compared to most other states.
That doesn’t affect your ability to bring a third-party Labor Law case. Many of our clients have active workers’ comp claims at the same time their Labor Law case is being developed. The two run in parallel.
Workers’ comp is a no-fault system that pays medical and a portion of lost wages, paid by your employer’s insurance. A Labor Law case is a separate lawsuit against third parties (typically the property owner and general contractor) for full damages including pain and suffering, full lost earnings (including future earning capacity), and other categories. The two are not mutually exclusive — most injured construction workers have both.
Call (212) XXX-XXXX or fill out the form. We respond within hours, in English, Spanish, or Farsi.
If you were hurt on a New York construction site, you have rights that workers in most other states do not. New York’s Labor Law gives injured construction workers the strongest protections in the country — and most workers don’t know they exist until a lawyer who actually understands them gets involved.
Amparo Law Firm represents injured construction workers across the five boroughs and Long Island. We focus on Labor Law §240, §241(6), and §200 cases, scaffold falls, falling objects, ladder accidents, electrocutions, struck-by-equipment injuries, crane accidents, trench collapses, and the full range of serious construction-site harm.
We work in English, Spanish, and Farsi. We represent workers regardless of immigration status. We do not charge a fee unless we recover for you.
What to do in the first 72 hours after a construction accident in New York
If you can do nothing else, do these things. They will protect your case.
Get medical care, and tell the doctor it happened at work. Do not let anyone — your foreman, the safety officer, the GC’s representative — talk you into saying you were hurt at home or off the job. If a hospital intake form asks where the injury happened, tell the truth. The medical record is the foundation of your case.
Report the accident in writing to your employer within 30 days. New York Workers’ Compensation Law §18 requires written notice to your employer within 30 days. A verbal “I told my foreman” is not enough. Send a text. Send an email. Keep a copy.
Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company without a lawyer. Insurance adjusters will call within days, sometimes hours. They will sound friendly. They will record the call. A few words said before you have the medical records, the incident report, and a clear timeline can hurt your case for years.
Save your boots, your harness, your hard hat — anything you were wearing or using. A scaffold harness with a bent D-ring, a ladder with a cracked rail, a hard hat with a crush mark — these are evidence. Don’t wash them. Don’t return them. Don’t let anyone “exchange” them for new gear.
Photograph the scene if you can — or ask a coworker to. Construction sites change overnight. The scaffold that wasn’t tied off when you fell may be properly tied off the next morning. Photographs from the day of the accident are often impossible to recreate.
Call a lawyer before you sign anything. Do not sign a release. Do not sign a waiver. Do not sign anything from any insurance company, your employer, or the GC. Call us first — the consultation is free and there is no obligation.
Why New York construction injury law is different from any other state
Most states require an injured construction worker to prove that the contractor was negligent — that someone was careless, that the carelessness caused the injury, and that the worker was not significantly at fault. That standard often defeats meritorious cases.
New York doesn’t work that way. The Labor Law creates three tiers of protection that are stronger than what workers get anywhere else in the country.
When a worker is injured by a fall from height — or by an object falling from above — and the fall happened because the contractor or owner did not provide proper fall protection, the contractor and owner are liable. Period. The worker’s own conduct generally cannot be used as a defense unless it was the sole cause of the accident.
This is called “absolute liability.” It is the most powerful tool an injured construction worker has, anywhere in the United States. Property owners and general contractors lobby every year to weaken §240. They have lobbied for thirty years. The law has not weakened.
Read more about Labor Law §240 →
§241(6) imposes liability on owners and contractors when a worker is injured because of a violation of a specific provision of New York’s Industrial Code (12 NYCRR Part 23). The Industrial Code covers everything from fall protection to electrical safety to demolition procedures to ventilation in confined spaces.
Comparative fault applies under §241(6) — meaning if the worker was partly responsible, the recovery may be reduced — but the worker’s contributory negligence is generally not a complete bar to recovery the way it can be in other states.
Read more about Labor Law §241(6) →
§200 is the codification of common-law negligence — the duty an owner or contractor has to provide a reasonably safe work environment. It applies in two main ways: (1) when the owner or contractor knew or should have known of a dangerous condition, or (2) when they actually directed or controlled the work that produced the injury.
§200 has more defenses available than §240 and §241(6), but it covers situations the other two statutes don’t reach.
Read more about Labor Law §200 →
The chain of liability — and why it matters that we read it like a developer
A single construction injury usually generates multiple potentially liable parties. The chain typically runs:
Identifying every potentially liable party is not just a legal exercise — it is a structural one. We read the chain the way the people running the project read it. Bob Amirian’s federal-court training shapes how we develop the legal theory; Jordan Sakni’s developer experience shapes how we read the project documents — the AIA contract structure, the schedule of values, the daily logs, the change orders, the RFIs, the OAC meeting minutes, the OSHA citation history.
A construction case is a paper trail before it is anything else. We know where the paper is.
Why a workers’ comp claim is not the end of the story
Most injured construction workers think their case is “just” a workers’ compensation claim. It usually isn’t.
Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system that pays for medical care and a portion of lost wages, regardless of who was at fault. You cannot generally sue your direct employer for additional damages — that’s the trade-off.
But on a construction site, you typically have multiple potential defendants who are not your direct employer: the property owner, the general contractor, equipment lessors, manufacturers. Those are third parties — and you can pursue a separate Labor Law / negligence case against them while your workers’ compensation claim runs in parallel.
The third-party case is where the real recovery often is. Workers’ comp pays for medical bills and a fraction of your wages. A third-party Labor Law case can recover full lost earnings (including future earning capacity), pain and suffering, and damages for the long-term consequences of the injury.
If a lawyer or representative tells you that workers’ compensation is your only remedy without first asking who owned the site and who the GC was — that lawyer is wrong, or not paying attention. Both happen often.
The construction accident cases we focus on
We represent injured workers across the full range of New York construction site injuries:
By trade
Each trade carries its own injury patterns. We represent:
Ironworkers · Electricians · Carpenters · Masons · Sheet Metal Workers · Day Laborers · Roofers · Demolition Workers
Why a developer reading your case changes the case
Most plaintiff’s lawyers, even experienced ones, read a construction case like a litigator: they look at OSHA citations, depositions, expert reports, and they build a story for trial. That works. But it misses things.
A developer reads the same documents differently.
When Jordan reads an OSHA citation, he doesn’t just see a number — he sees whether the GC contested it, whether the safety officer was on site that day, whether the citation was the third or fourth in a sequence, whether the abatement was real or paper. When he reads a daily log, he sees whether the schedule was running late and pressure was building. When he reads a change order, he sees whether the safety provisions got value-engineered out. When he sees the AIA contract structure, he knows where the responsibility actually lies — not just where the paper says it does.
That perspective is the second pair of eyes on every construction file at Amparo. Bob’s federal-court training drives the legal theory and the trial preparation. Jordan’s developer-side experience drives how the operational record is read.
It is the only NYC plaintiff’s firm where that combination exists.
Damages categories — what the law allows you to recover
We do not give specific dollar values on a website. Every case is different and the value depends on the specific facts. But the categories of damages New York law allows you to recover are:
Punitive damages are available in narrow circumstances — generally where the defendant’s conduct was egregiously reckless or intentional. Most construction cases do not involve punitive damages. Some do.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The value of any case depends on its specific facts and applicable law.
Your immigration status does not affect your right to recover
If you are undocumented, or if your status is uncertain, this section is for you.
New York law fully protects the rights of all construction workers — regardless of immigration status — to bring Labor Law claims and recover for injuries. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hoffman Plastic limited certain remedies for undocumented workers in federal employment cases, but New York’s Court of Appeals has held that immigration status does not bar recovery in personal injury actions under the Labor Law.
What that means in practice:
We have represented many undocumented workers and we know how to handle these cases — including how to handle the practical concerns about communication, court appearances, and tax/wage records.
If immigration concerns are why you have not yet talked to a lawyer, please call us. The consultation is free, confidential, and in Spanish if that is easier.
What to expect in the months ahead
Construction cases typically run 12-24 months from the date the case is filed to settlement or verdict. Here’s roughly how that timeline breaks:
Month 1-3 — Investigation and preservation. We send preservation letters, gather the OSHA file, obtain the project records (subpoenas where necessary), interview witnesses, document the scene, and begin medical record collection.
Month 3-9 — Pleadings and early discovery. Complaint filed. Defendants answer. Initial discovery exchange. Bills of particulars. Depositions of the parties begin.
Month 9-15 — Discovery and expert workup. Depositions of fact witnesses. Site safety expert engaged. Engineering expert if applicable. Vocational expert and life care planner for damages. Medical experts.
Month 15-21 — Summary judgment motions and mediation. §240 cases are often resolved by summary judgment (an order from the judge that liability is established as a matter of law). After that, mediation.
Month 21-24 — Trial or settlement. Most cases resolve before trial. Some go.
This is a typical timeline. Yours may move faster or slower depending on the court, the defendants, and the medical picture.
The way we run the firm
If you were injured on a New York construction site because something on the site was unsafe — inadequate fall protection, missing or defective equipment, an unsafe condition that the GC or owner knew or should have known about — there’s a strong chance you have a case. The only way to know for sure is a free consultation.
Nothing up front and nothing unless we recover for you. We work on a contingency fee — generally one-third of the recovery, with the specific terms in a written engagement letter you sign before we represent you. No hidden fees. No charges for the consultation.
New York law prohibits an employer from retaliating against you for filing a workers’ compensation claim or pursuing a personal injury case. If retaliation happens, that itself becomes a separate legal claim. In practice, most cases are against the property owner and general contractor — not your direct employer.
For most construction injury claims in New York, you have three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury case. For wrongful death cases, two years. Cases against public entities (NYCHA, MTA, NYC DOT) require a Notice of Claim within 90 days — that deadline is hard, and missing it can end the case. If your accident may have involved a public project, call a lawyer immediately.
Yes. Workers’ compensation is required to pay for medical treatment for work-related injuries. If your employer’s comp carrier denies treatment, we can help. If you don’t have a comp claim — or are uncertain about it — there are NYC clinics and providers who treat injured construction workers and accept liens on the eventual recovery.
No. Retaliation against an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim is illegal under New York Workers’ Compensation Law §120. If it happens, document it, save it, and tell us.
Your immigration status does not affect your right to recover under the Labor Law. We have represented many undocumented workers. Your status is confidential. We do not communicate with immigration authorities about our clients.
Under Labor Law §240, the worker’s own conduct is generally not a defense unless it was the sole cause of the accident. Under §241(6) and §200, comparative fault applies — meaning your recovery may be reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover. New York is a “pure comparative negligence” state, which is favorable to injured workers compared to most other states.
That doesn’t affect your ability to bring a third-party Labor Law case. Many of our clients have active workers’ comp claims at the same time their Labor Law case is being developed. The two run in parallel.
Workers’ comp is a no-fault system that pays medical and a portion of lost wages, paid by your employer’s insurance. A Labor Law case is a separate lawsuit against third parties (typically the property owner and general contractor) for full damages including pain and suffering, full lost earnings (including future earning capacity), and other categories. The two are not mutually exclusive — most injured construction workers have both.
Get a free, confidential consultation today
Call (212) XXX-XXXX or fill out the form. We respond within hours, in English, Spanish, or Farsi.
Start your free case evaluation
Call (212) XXX-XXXX
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
