If you suffered an electrical injury on a construction site, a NYC electrical injury lawyer can help you hold the responsible parties accountable and recover for what the injury cost you. Electrical injuries are among the most severe hazards in construction, and when a live wire, a faulty system, or a missing safety step causes a shock, a burn, or an electrocution, the law lets you recover.
Electricity is unusual among job site hazards because the damage it does is mostly out of sight. Current travels through the body and injures tissue, nerve, and heart along the way, and the visible mark on the skin is often the smallest part of it. Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower handles construction electrical injury cases and moves quickly to protect them. Below are straight answers to the questions injured workers ask our electrical injury attorneys most.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
You likely have a case if you were injured by electricity on a job site because of an unsafe condition, a faulty system, or someone's failure to follow safety steps. Like other construction accident claims, you do not have to prove your employer was at fault to recover, because owners and contractors owe strong safety duties on a New York site. You also do not need to know whether the fault was in the wiring, the tool, or the shutdown procedure. Our electrical injury lawyers review what happened at no cost.
Nearly every construction electrocution comes from one of a handful of paths, and each one points at a different party and a different set of records.
A boom, a ladder, a length of pipe, or a scaffold frame brought within reach of an energized line kills more construction workers than any other electrical hazard. The protections that get skipped are the ones that cost time: keeping the required clearance, posting a spotter, insulating or sleeving the line, or having the utility de-energize it. These cases often run alongside crane and hoist claims.
A circuit is supposed to be shut off, locked, tagged, and tested dead before anyone works on it. When another trade re-energizes a panel, when the wrong breaker is pulled, or when nobody verified the circuit was actually dead, the worker with hands in the box takes the current. Lockout and tagout failures are documented failures, because the procedure creates paperwork when it is followed and leaves a hole when it is not.
Job sites run on temporary power, and temporary power is where damaged cords, missing ground pins, overloaded circuits, and absent ground fault protection show up. Ground fault protection is required on construction sites for exactly this reason, and a site without it is one wet cord away from an injury.
Water on a slab, rain, standing water in a cellar, and metal that was never bonded turn a minor fault into a fatal one. Workers get shocked through equipment they never thought of as electrical, including pumps, lights, scaffolds, rebar, and metal ladders.
An arc flash releases heat and pressure in a fraction of a second. It causes deep burns without any contact at all, ruptures eardrums, throws workers off ladders and lifts, and ignites clothing. Arc rated protective clothing, proper labeling, and de-energizing before work are the protections, and their absence is provable.
Most construction electrical injuries trace back to a safety failure that should have been prevented. The cases our electrical injury attorneys handle most include:
Electricians take the worst of this, and our electrical injury lawyers regularly represent union electricians, including Local 3 members, along with laborers, operators, plumbers, and carpenters hurt by systems they were never trained on.
Yes. Standard building current at 120 volts kills workers every year, and severity depends on the path the current takes through the body, how long the contact lasts, and whether the skin was wet. A shock that leaves almost no mark can still stop a heart or damage nerve tissue along its path. Never let anyone talk you out of an examination because the voltage was low or because you felt fine an hour later.
Most of these cases run on New York's site safety rules, which require electrical equipment and temporary wiring to be installed, guarded, and maintained safely, and require protective equipment where workers are exposed. A claim can also run on ordinary negligence against the contractor, the trade, or the utility that created or ignored the hazard, and on a product claim against the maker of a defective tool or component.
The Scaffold Law enters when a shock or an arc blast throws a worker off a ladder, a scaffold, or a lift. The fall is then a height case, and responsibility sits with the owner and the general contractor regardless of what the worker did. Many electrical cases are worth far more once that second route is pleaded, and it is routinely missed.
Often more than one party is responsible, and usually not just your employer. The property owner, the general contractor and construction manager, the electrical subcontractor, the trade that energized or re-energized a circuit, the temporary power provider, the equipment rental company, the maker of a defective tool, and the utility on a power line case can all share the blame. When the work is for the City, the MTA, a school authority, or another public agency, that agency belongs in the case as well, on a much shorter deadline.
Finding every responsible party is what opens the door to full compensation, because each one brings its own insurance to the table.
Electrical injuries tend to be severe and long lasting. The ones our electrical injury attorneys see most include:
The skin is the toughest tissue in the path, so a small entry and exit mark can sit above muscle and nerve damage that only declares itself over days. Doctors commonly check the heart after a significant shock for exactly that reason. Workers also report memory, concentration, sleep, and mood problems weeks later, along with numbness, weakness, and pain that never fully resolves, and those complaints are easy for an insurer to dismiss when they first appear in a record months after the accident.
Tell every treating doctor that the injury was electrical, describe where the current entered and exited, and report new symptoms as they come rather than saving them for a later visit. Photograph burns as they heal. That record is what a scarring and disfigurement claim is built on.
Often, yes. Workers' compensation can pay part of your medical bills and lost wages no matter who was at fault, but it does not cover pain and suffering, disfigurement, or the full value of the work you can no longer do, and it usually blocks a claim against your employer. When someone other than your employer, such as an owner, a contractor, an equipment maker, or a utility, contributed to the injury, the separate case is where the meaningful recovery comes from.
At the end of that case the compensation carrier is repaid part of what it spent, and that amount can be negotiated down. Our electrical injury lawyers pursue both claims and handle the lien as part of the work.
These cases turn on physical evidence and on records that exist only because a procedure was supposed to be followed. That includes the tool, cord, panel, or component involved, kept in the condition it was in, along with lockout and tagout logs and tags, the temporary power plan and inspection sign-offs, ground fault testing records, electrical permits and inspection certificates, utility records showing whether de-energizing the line was requested or refused, arc flash labeling and protective equipment issued to the crew, daily logs and toolbox talks, and site video. Buildings Department violations and OSHA inspection files show what was known beforehand.
Photographs of the scene and of the burns matter enormously here, and so does the clothing and footwear you were wearing, which often carries the physical proof of the current's path. Keep it rather than throwing it out.
Get medical care first, then protect the case before the site changes.
Yes. Your immigration status does not stop you from bringing a construction electrical injury claim in New York, and it does not stop you from recovering. It also does not matter whether you were paid off the books. Injured workers have the right to a safe worksite regardless of status, and our electrical injury lawyers protect that right without involving anyone else in your status.
In most cases you have three years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit, and two years in a death case. If a public entity or a public authority is involved, a much shorter notice deadline can apply, sometimes as little as ninety days. Filing for workers' compensation does not preserve the case against a contractor, an equipment maker, or a utility. Because the deadline depends on who is responsible, confirm yours early rather than assume you have years.
When an electrical injury is caused by a safety failure, the compensation is meant to cover what it took from you. No lawyer can promise a number, but a claim can pursue:
Burn cases are also long cases, because grafts, revisions, and scar treatment continue for years. Resolving one before the treating doctors can describe the final result almost always undervalues it.
Nothing upfront. Our electrical injury lawyers handle these cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay no attorney's fee unless there is a recovery for you. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation.
Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower carries the case so you can focus on your recovery. Our electrical injury lawyers:
Our electrical injury lawyers prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that is what makes an owner, a contractor, and their insurers take the claim seriously. A settlement on the right number is welcome. A settlement that shortchanges what the injury cost you is not one this firm accepts just because it comes early.
An electrical injury can leave you with burns, lasting damage, and mounting bills, and the evidence on the job site will not wait. The sooner your case is built, the stronger it is. Contact Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower for a free consultation about your NYC construction electrical injury.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
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