The Claim Your Employer Won't Tell You About
Workers' compensation — if your employer even carries it, since Texas uniquely doesn't require it — pays limited medical and wage benefits and nothing for pain, impairment, or your family's losses. The rest of your recovery lives in claims most injured workers never hear about. Third-party claims reach everyone on the site who isn't your employer: the general contractor controlling safety, other subcontractors whose crews created the hazard, equipment manufacturers whose machines failed, property owners, and delivery drivers. Non-subscriber lawsuits apply when your employer opted out of workers' comp — and Texas law strips those employers of their best defenses: they cannot blame your contributory negligence or your co-workers. We evaluate every track in one free review, because the difference between comp benefits alone and a full third-party recovery is routinely life-changing.
The Fatal Four — and the Rest of the Hazard List
OSHA's "Fatal Four" cause most construction deaths: falls from scaffolds, roofs, and ladders where guardrails and fall protection were missing; struck-by incidents involving vehicles, cranes, and dropped loads; electrocutions from contact with live lines and ungrounded equipment; and caught-in/between injuries in trench collapses and unguarded machinery. Around them: crane and forklift accidents, defective power tools, welding burns and explosions, toxic exposures, and highway work-zone strikes. Each hazard maps to a safety rule someone was responsible for following — and each violated rule maps to a defendant.
How We Prove Construction Cases
Construction sites are controlled by the defendants: the records, the witnesses' paychecks, and the scene itself. We counter immediately — preservation demands for site photos, incident reports, toolbox-talk and safety-meeting records, subcontracts allocating safety responsibility, and equipment maintenance logs; OSHA investigation findings and citations, which carry real weight with juries; and independent testimony from co-workers interviewed before pressure sets in. Site control documents matter most of all: the contracts that show who held safety authority decide who answers for the injury, and general contractors who retained control of safety can't hide behind the subcontractor chain.
East Texas Construction, Oilfield, and Industrial Work
Our home region works hard: commercial construction across Dallas and the I-30 corridor, plant and industrial work around Tyler and Longview, pipeline and utility projects threading rural counties, and highway work zones on I-20 and I-30 where traffic and construction mix dangerously. We represent the trades — framers, electricians, roofers, operators, laborers — and we speak the language of the work, in English and Spanish. Injured workers worry about retaliation and immigration questions; know this: your injury rights don't depend on status, retaliation for pursuing them is illegal, and your consultation with us is confidential.
What a Full Construction Recovery Includes
Every category Texas law allows: all medical care past and future — surgeries, hardware, rehabilitation, prosthetics; lost wages and the earning capacity a construction career would have produced over decades; pain, mental anguish, impairment, and disfigurement; and, in gross-negligence cases — safety rules knowingly skipped to keep schedule — exemplary damages, which remain available against non-subscribers and third parties and, in fatality cases, even against subscribing employers. For families who lost a worker, our wrongful death practice pursues both the family's losses and the estate's survival claim.
Why Injured Workers Choose McKay Law
Because we handle the whole picture — comp coordination, third-party litigation, and non-subscriber suits — under one roof, on contingency, with all case costs advanced and no fee unless we win. Because our Rapid Response team documents sites before they change, our staff nurse steers medical care, and our attorneys have the trial credentials that make site insurers negotiate honestly. And because we're from here: East Texas roots, offices across the state, se habla español, and phones answered 24/7 for an industry that doesn't work banker's hours.
Who's Who on a Texas Job Site — and Who Answers for Your Injury
Liability follows control, and construction sites layer it. The property owner answers for pre-existing site dangers and, when they retain control over work methods, for how the work is done. The general contractor typically holds site-wide safety authority — scheduling trades, controlling access, running the safety program — and Texas law ties their liability to that retained control, which their own contracts and safety manuals usually prove. Subcontractors answer for hazards their crews create that injure others outside their own employment. Equipment manufacturers and lessors answer for defective and poorly maintained machines under product liability and negligence. And Chapter 95 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code sets special rules for claims against property owners by contractors' employees — control-plus-knowledge requirements that make early evidence about who directed the work decisive. Mapping this hierarchy correctly, fast, is the case.
Highway Work Zones: Where Construction Meets Traffic
Work-zone injuries merge two of our practices. Workers struck by public traffic in zones on I-30, I-20, and the state system have third-party claims against the driver — often with intoxication or distraction aggravators — plus potential claims involving the traffic-control plan: barrier placement, signage, flagger staffing, and TxDOT-standard compliance, responsibilities allocated among contractors by the project documents. Motorists injured by construction vehicles or negligent zone design have mirror-image claims. Both versions demand rapid documentation of a scene that changes nightly by design, and both frequently involve governmental entities whose notice deadlines run in months. If a work zone hurt you — from either side of the barrels — the clock is shorter than you think.
After the Injury: Protecting Your Claim in the First Two Weeks
What happens right after a site injury shapes everything. Report the injury immediately and insist it be documented — unreported injuries become "disputed" injuries by Friday. Get emergency care and tell every provider exactly how the incident happened; those first records anchor causation against later "degenerative condition" arguments. Photograph what you safely can: the equipment, the missing guard, the trench, your injuries. Write down crew names before the roster scatters to other jobs. Do not give recorded statements to any insurance representative — including your employer's comp carrier — before legal advice, and be cautious with company-drafted incident reports that put conclusions in your mouth. Keep your hard hat, harness, and boots; gear condition is evidence. Then call us: our Rapid Response team documents sites before they change, and the consultation costs nothing while telling you exactly where you stand across comp, third-party, and non-subscriber tracks.
Serving Injured Construction Workers Across Texas
From Sulphur Springs, Dallas, Tyler, Greenville, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso, McKay Law represents the trades building this state: commercial crews on the Dallas skyline and the I-635 corridor, industrial and plant workers around Tyler and Longview, residential framers and roofers across fast-growing Hunt and Hopkins Counties, and highway crews in the work zones of I-30 and I-20. Consultations are free, confidential, and available 24/7 in English and Spanish at (903) INJURED. We advance all case costs, take no fee unless we win, and treat every hard-working client the way this firm was built to: Texas Tough, on your side.
Falls From Height: Construction's Deadliest Hazard, Case by Case
Falls kill more construction workers than any other hazard, and fall cases follow the protection that wasn't there. Scaffold cases turn on assembly, planking, guardrails, and the competent-person inspections OSHA requires; roofing cases on anchor points, personal fall arrest systems, and warning lines; ladder cases on selection, placement, and condition; and floor-opening cases on covers and perimeter protection that cost almost nothing compared to what their absence costs a family. Liability rarely stops with the immediate employer: the contractor who controlled the schedule that rushed the work, the sub who removed a guardrail and left it off, the equipment lessor whose scaffold components were damaged — each owns a share. The injuries — spinal damage, TBIs, shattered heels and ankles that end careers in the trades — demand the life-care and earning-capacity analysis we bring to every catastrophic file. Fall protection rules exist because gravity doesn't negotiate. Neither should you, until your claim's full value is on the table.
One more thing worth saying plainly: the free consultation is genuinely free, and genuinely useful even if you never hire us. In thirty minutes you'll learn whether your employer subscribes to workers' comp, which companies on your site are realistic third-party defendants, what deadlines apply to your situation specifically, and what a full recovery would actually include. Injured workers who understand their options make better decisions — and that knowledge costs nothing at (903) INJURED.
Your Questions, Answered
Can I sue if I'm getting workers' comp?
You generally can't sue a subscribing employer, but comp doesn't block third-party claims against general contractors, other subs, equipment makers, and property owners — where most of a serious injury's value usually lies.
My employer doesn't have workers' comp. What now?
That makes them a non-subscriber, and Texas law favors you: you can sue them directly for negligence, and they've lost the right to blame your own negligence or co-workers. These are strong cases — bring us the facts.
The company says the accident was my fault. Is my claim over?
No. Against non-subscribers, contributory negligence isn't a defense at all; against third parties, Texas's 51% rule applies and fault fights are exactly what site records and OSHA findings resolve.
Will pursuing a claim get me fired or reported?
Retaliation for pursuing injury rights is illegal, and your rights don't depend on immigration status. Consultations are confidential, and we've guided many workers through exactly this fear.
An OSHA investigation is underway. Should I wait for it?
No — cooperate with OSHA, but don't wait. Your civil claim proceeds independently, evidence needs preserving now, and OSHA findings become powerful exhibits when they arrive.
How long do I have to file?
Generally two years, but site conditions change within days and comp-related deadlines can be much shorter. Treat it as urgent.
What does it cost?
Nothing upfront, all case costs advanced, no fee unless we win. Free consultation 24/7 in English and Spanish.
I'm paid cash / classified as a 1099 contractor. Do I still have rights?
Yes. Misclassification is rampant in construction and doesn't erase injury claims — it often strengthens the non-subscriber analysis, since employers can't claim comp's protections for workers they refused to cover. Pay arrangement never waives safety duties owed to you.
The equipment that hurt me was repaired or hauled off. Is the case gone?
Not necessarily. Maintenance records, purchase and rental histories, exemplar machines, and spoliation consequences for destroyed evidence can carry the claim. But this is exactly why calling before the site changes matters so much.