Austin Construction Accident Lawyer

Austin’s ongoing building boom means construction sites all over the city — and construction remains one of the most dangerous industries to work in. According to the most recent federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction accounted for 1,034 fatal work injuries nationwide in a single year, more than any other private industry. If you were hurt on a construction site in Austin, your legal options are often broader than a typical workplace injury case — because construction sites usually involve multiple companies, not just your direct employer.

The Leading Causes of Construction Injuries and Deaths

OSHA tracks four causes — often called the “Fatal Four” — that account for a large share of construction deaths every year:

• Falls — from scaffolding, roofs, ladders, and unprotected floor and wall openings. Falls, slips, and trips remain the single largest cause of construction deaths, accounting for well over a third of all construction fatalities in recent federal data.
• Struck-by accidents — falling tools, materials, or equipment, or being hit by vehicles or machinery on site
• Caught-in/between accidents — trench collapses, being caught between equipment and a fixed surface, or cave-ins
• Electrocution — contact with power lines or faulty wiring, especially common on sites still under construction

Why Your Legal Options May Be Broader Than a Typical Workplace Injury

Construction sites are rarely run by a single employer. A general contractor typically oversees multiple subcontractors — framing, electrical, plumbing, roofing — each with their own employees. If you’re a subcontractor’s employee and you’re hurt because of another company’s negligence on the same site, workers’ comp exclusivity (if your own employer subscribes) only protects your own employer from a lawsuit — it doesn’t protect the general contractor, other subcontractors, or equipment manufacturers whose negligence contributed to your injury. That means a construction accident can produce both a workers’ comp claim and a separate third-party negligence lawsuit at the same time.

And as with any Texas workplace injury, the first question always matters: does your employer carry workers’ compensation at all? Texas is the only state where private employers can legally skip it. If your employer is a non-subscriber, Texas Labor Code § 406.033 strips them of several standard defenses in a negligence lawsuit — see our workplace injury page for the full breakdown of how that works.

What About the Property Owner?

Texas law limits when a property owner can be held liable for a construction injury on their land. Generally, a property owner isn’t liable to a contractor or their employees for an injury from construction work unless the owner both retained some actual control over how the work was performed — beyond simply having the right to order work to start or stop, or to inspect and receive reports — and had actual knowledge of the specific danger and failed to adequately warn about it. Both have to be true. Sorting out exactly who controlled what on a given job site is often a central issue in these cases.

Common Sources of Negligence on a Job Site

• Missing or inadequate fall protection (guardrails, harnesses, netting)
• Poorly maintained or defective equipment and machinery
• Inadequate training on hazardous tasks
• Unsafe trench or excavation practices
• Failure to mark or de-energize live electrical lines
• Falling debris from upper floors or scaffolding

Building Your Case

A strong construction accident case usually requires OSHA incident reports (OSHA investigates most serious construction accidents independently), site safety records and training documentation, equipment maintenance logs, witness statements from other workers on site, and often an accident reconstruction or safety expert to establish exactly what went wrong and who was responsible for preventing it. Because multiple companies are typically involved, identifying every potentially liable party early is critical to recovering full compensation.

Why The Traub Law Office?

Construction accident cases are genuinely complex — multiple companies, overlapping insurance policies, and the added layer of Texas’s unusual workers’ comp system. We investigate who actually controlled the conditions that caused your injury, identify every liable party, and pursue full compensation — medical costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering. We take these cases on contingency: no fee unless we recover money for you.

If you were injured on a construction site in Austin, call the Traub Law Office at (512) 246-9191 for a free consultation.