When a serious workplace injury leaves you off the job for months, a workplace accident lawyer in NYC can look beyond workers' compensation to the companies that caused the harm. New York law generally bars suing your own employer, but it lets injured workers sue property owners, general contractors, negligent drivers, equipment manufacturers, and other outside parties.
Washor Kool Sosa Maiorana & Schwartz, LLP focuses on those third-party negligence claims for workers hurt on construction sites, in vehicles, and on other people's property across New York City.
We do not handle workers' compensation claims. Our work is the lawsuit that can pay for what comp does not, including pain and suffering and the full value of lost earnings. Call 212-406-1700 for a free consultation, available 24/7.
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Table of contents
- Workers' Comp vs. a Third-Party Claim in New York
- Why Can't You Usually Sue Your Employer in New York?
- Who Else Can You Sue After a Workplace Accident in NYC?
- Workers Who Most Often Have Third-Party Claims
- How Do Comp and a Third-Party Case Work Together?
- What Can a Third-Party Work Injury Claim Recover?
- Deadlines That Apply to Work Injury Lawsuits
- Evidence That Builds a Strong Third-Party Case
- What to Expect From Our Firm After a Workplace Injury
- FAQs: Workplace Accident Lawyer in NYC
- Talk to a Workplace Accident Lawyer in NYC
Workers' Comp vs. a Third-Party Claim in New York
Workers' compensation pays limited benefits without any proof of fault, while a third-party claim requires proof of negligence but can recover full damages. The two are not an either-or choice: many workers receive comp benefits while a third-party case moves forward.
| Issue | Workers' compensation | Third-party injury claim |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | Your employer's comp carrier | The negligent owner, contractor, driver, or manufacturer, usually through its insurer |
| Do you have to prove fault? | No | Yes, negligence or a Labor Law violation |
| Lost wages | Generally two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to a state maximum | The full value of past and future lost earnings |
| Pain and suffering | Not paid | Can be recovered |
| Where it is decided | The New York State Workers' Compensation Board | Usually New York State Supreme Court, before a judge and jury |
The wage figure comes from Workers' Compensation Law §15, which ties temporary total disability benefits to two-thirds of the average weekly wage, subject to a cap set by the date of injury.
Why Can't You Usually Sue Your Employer in New York?
Workers' Compensation Law §11 makes comp the exclusive remedy against an employer in most cases. The trade-off is simple: you receive benefits without proving fault, and the employer is protected from a negligence suit. An exception applies when an employer failed to carry the required comp coverage.
Co-Workers and Special Employers
The exclusivity rule reaches a little further than many people expect. Workers' Compensation Law §29(6) also extends it to co-workers in the same employ. A company that controlled the details of your work may be treated as a "special employer" with the same protection, a doctrine the Court of Appeals applied in Thompson v. Grumman.
Limits on Bringing Your Employer Into the Case
Section 11 also limits when an outside company you sue can pull your employer into the case. Unless the employer agreed in a written contract to indemnify that company, it can seek contribution from your employer only for a "grave injury."
That term covers a short statutory list of catastrophic harms, such as death, amputation of an arm, leg, hand, or foot, paraplegia or quadriplegia, and a brain injury causing permanent total disability. The rule affects the defendants, not your right to bring the claim.
Who Else Can You Sue After a Workplace Accident in NYC?
You can usually sue any negligent party other than your employer and co-workers, such as a property owner, general contractor, driver, or equipment manufacturer. The right defendant depends on how and where the injury happened, and these situations most often lead to third-party claims.
Construction Site Accidents Under the Labor Law
Construction workers have some of the strongest statutory protections in New York. Owners and general contractors carry nondelegable safety duties under Labor Law §§240(1) and 241(6), which means they can be held responsible even when a subcontractor employed the injured worker. The statutes carve out owners of one- and two-family homes who contract for the work but do not direct or control it.
Falls from scaffolds, ladders, and roofs, and injuries from loads that drop because they were not properly secured, come under Labor Law §240(1), the gravity-related protection often called the Scaffold Law. Most other hazards on unsafe work sites, such as an unshored trench, an unguarded saw, or a slippery floor, come under Labor Law §241(6) and the state Industrial Code.
Labor Law §200 sits behind both as the general duty to keep a workplace reasonably safe, and it usually reaches only the parties that controlled the work or knew of the hazard.
A Section 241(6) claim must rest on a specific, concrete Industrial Code rule, as the Court of Appeals held in Ross v. Curtis-Palmer. Matching the hazard to the right rule is the core of most Section 241(6) claims, and a New York Labor Law 241(6) construction accident lawyer can identify which Industrial Code provisions apply to your accident.
Vehicle Crashes While on the Job
Delivery drivers, utility crews, flaggers, and anyone else who drives or works near traffic can sue a negligent driver who is not a co-worker. Two New York rules shape these cases.
Comp benefits are deducted from no-fault benefits under Insurance Law §5102(b), so comp usually pays first. And to recover for pain and suffering from the at-fault driver, Insurance Law §5104 generally requires a "serious injury," such as a fracture, significant disfigurement, or a permanent or significant limitation of a body function.
Defective Machines, Tools, and Safety Equipment
A saw with a missing guard, a lift that fails, or a harness that tears can support a product liability claim against the manufacturer or distributor. These claims generally focus on a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a failure to warn, and they do not depend on who employed you.
The equipment itself is often the most important evidence, so you should preserve it exactly as it was after the accident. Our product liability attorneys handle these cases on and off the job.
Unsafe Property Where You Were Sent to Work
Building service workers, home health aides, cable installers, and delivery workers spend much of the day on property their employer does not own. A broken stair, an icy walkway, or a collapsed railing can support a slip-and-fall or negligence claim against the property's owner or manager.
Workers Who Most Often Have Third-Party Claims
Third-party claims come up most often for:
- Construction laborers, carpenters, ironworkers, electricians, and other trades
- Union members working through a hiring hall on multi-employer sites, whose union worker injuries raise their own benefit and lien questions
- Commercial drivers and delivery workers
- Building maintenance, porter, and window-cleaning crews
- Utility and telecommunications workers
Immigration status does not remove these protections. In its Balbuena decision, the Court of Appeals held that federal immigration law does not bar an undocumented worker's lost wage claim in a Labor Law case, provided the worker did not obtain the job with false work papers.
How Do Comp and a Third-Party Case Work Together?
Comp and a third-party case run side by side, but they are not independent. Section 29 ties them together through the carrier's lien, its right to approve a settlement, and a deadline for starting the lawsuit.
The Lien and the Future-Benefit Credit
A third-party recovery does not simply sit on top of comp. Under Section 29, the comp carrier has a lien on the recovery for the benefits it paid, calculated after reasonable litigation costs, including attorney's fees, are deducted. The carrier may also be entitled to a credit against future benefits.
Carrier Consent and the Assignment Deadline
Settlement rules matter just as much. Section 29(5) generally requires the carrier's written consent or a court's approval before a third-party case settles, and settling without either can put future comp benefits at risk.
Timing is part of the same statute: if you accept comp and do not start the third-party lawsuit within the period Section 29 allows, the claim can be assigned to the carrier after it gives written notice.
Handling these rules is part of the third-party case we build. We account for the lien, the carrier's credit, and the consent requirement from the start, so any settlement reflects what the client will actually keep.
What Can a Third-Party Work Injury Claim Recover?
A successful third-party claim can include:
- Past and future lost wages and loss of earning capacity
- The value of lost benefits, such as union annuity and pension contributions
- Medical expenses, including the cost of future care
- Pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life
- A spouse's claim for loss of services and companionship
Fault still matters. In most work injury cases, the Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) applies pure comparative fault under CPLR 1411, so your own share of responsibility reduces the award but does not bar it. For example, if a jury values a delivery worker's claim for a fall on a broken stair at $600,000 and finds the worker 25 percent at fault, the recovery becomes $450,000.
Two exceptions pull in opposite directions. When a Labor Law §240(1) violation causes the fall, the worker's own negligence does not reduce recovery, as the Court of Appeals confirmed in its Blake decision.
In an injury case arising from a motor vehicle accident covered by New York's no-fault law, an amendment to the same statute now bars recovery when the worker's share of fault exceeds the defendants' combined fault.
Deadlines That Apply to Work Injury Lawsuits
A work injury can start two sets of clocks at once: the comp rules that protect your benefits and the civil rules that govern the third-party lawsuit. The general time limits in New York are:
| What must happen | Time limit | Where the rule comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Written notice of the injury to your employer | 30 days after the accident | Workers' Compensation Law §18 |
| Comp claim filed with the Workers' Compensation Board | Two years after the accident or death (occupational disease claims follow a separate rule) | Workers' Compensation Law §28 |
| Notice of claim against New York City or another public entity | 90 days after the accident | General Municipal Law §50-e |
| Lawsuit against the City or another municipality | One year and 90 days after the accident | General Municipal Law §50-i |
| Third-party lawsuit against a private owner, contractor, driver, or manufacturer | Three years after the accident | CPLR 214(5) |
| Wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family | Two years after the death | Estates, Powers and Trusts Law §5-4.1 |
Claims against New York State go to the Court of Claims, which has its own short deadlines, and the Workers' Compensation Board can excuse a late notice to the employer only in limited situations.
Exceptions and tolling rules can change any of these periods, and the Section 29 assignment rule can run sooner than the civil deadline, which is one more reason to have a lawyer review the case early.
Evidence That Builds a Strong Third-Party Case
Construction sites and commercial properties change quickly, and evidence can disappear within days. The strongest cases draw on several kinds of proof:
- Video: site security cameras, building cameras, dashcams, and phone footage
- Physical evidence: the ladder, scaffold component, tool, or harness involved, preserved as it was
- Digital records: vehicle event data recorders and fleet telematics in a crash case, plus site access logs
- Documents: site safety plans, daily logs, incident reports, inspection records, and contracts showing who controlled the work
- Witnesses: co-workers, other trades, foremen, and bystanders, interviewed while memories are fresh
A citation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) can also be useful evidence of unsafe conditions, but it does not decide a New York Labor Law case on its own. A Section 241(6) claim must rest on the state Industrial Code.
What to Expect From Our Firm After a Workplace Injury
Our role is to handle your third-party injury case from the first investigation through settlement or trial, coordinated with any comp benefits you receive.
Building the Case From the First Investigation
Our attorneys have recovered over $1 billion for injured New Yorkers, and every case gets personal attention from the lawyer handling it. We start building a case from the first investigation, well before a complaint is filed, and we bring in outside engineers, doctors, and economists when the injury, the equipment, or the economics call for it.
When you call us after a workplace accident, you can expect:
- A free consultation, available 24/7
- A close look at every company involved in the accident, not only your employer
- Early steps to preserve site video, equipment, and records before they are lost
- Straight answers about how your comp benefits and the lawsuit fit together
Those steps give us a clear picture of who may be responsible before any insurer starts shaping the story.
Protection From Early Settlement Pressure
We also know how the other side works. A release signed early, before anyone has measured the full injury, can end a third-party claim for far less than it is worth, so we tell clients not to sign anything from another company's insurer until the claim has been reviewed.
Spanish-speaking members of our team can take a client's account in the language they are most comfortable using. We represent injured workers in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. If you are not sure whether anyone besides your employer shares the blame, call us at 212-406-1700 for a free review of what happened.
FAQs: Workplace Accident Lawyer in NYC
These answers cover questions injured New York workers often ask about claims beyond workers' comp.
Can I sue if I was hurt at work as an independent contractor in New York?
Often, yes. New York's workers' comp bar protects employers from suits by their own employees, so a true independent contractor generally keeps the right to sue a negligent company that hired them or ran the site. A contract label or a 1099 tax form does not settle the question, because the Workers' Compensation Board and courts weigh factors such as who controlled the work.
What if my employer did not have workers' comp insurance?
Under Workers' Compensation Law §11, a New York worker whose employer failed to carry the required comp coverage can choose between claiming comp benefits and suing the employer for damages in court. In that lawsuit, the worker does not have to prove freedom from fault, and the employer cannot blame a co-worker or argue that the worker assumed the risk of the job.
What if my work injury came from a toxic exposure instead of an accident?
An illness caused by exposure to a harmful substance at work, such as chemical fumes, dust, or lead, can support a New York third-party claim against the manufacturer or another responsible company. Under CPLR 214-c, the three-year filing period for these latent exposure cases generally runs from when the injury was discovered, or should have been discovered, rather than from the date of exposure.
Is a third-party work injury settlement taxable?
For a New York worker, the part of a third-party settlement or verdict that compensates a physical injury is generally not taxable income under federal tax law. Punitive damages are taxable, and amounts for emotional distress without a physical injury can be too. The details depend on how the settlement is structured, so confirm with a tax professional.
Do I need a separate lawyer for my workers' comp claim?
You can pursue a New York workers' comp claim on your own or hire a separate comp attorney, but our firm does not represent clients in workers' compensation proceedings. A comp attorney's fee needs Board approval under Workers' Compensation Law §24. We focus on the third-party injury lawsuit and coordinate it with your comp case and any lien, so the two do not work against each other.
Talk to a Workplace Accident Lawyer in NYC
If you were hurt at work and someone other than your employer played a part, you may have a claim for damages that comp does not pay. Consultations are free, and we are available 24/7. Call Washor Kool Sosa Maiorana & Schwartz, LLP at 212-406-1700, or visit us at the Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway #2020, New York, NY 10279.
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