Queens Construction Accident Lawyers

A Queens Job-Site Fall Is Often a Claim Against the Owner

A Queens construction accident claim usually runs against the property owner and the general contractor, since workers' comp already covers your employer.

When the injury came from a fall or a falling object, New York Labor Law § 240(1) holds them responsible for safety devices that were missing or failed.

A share of fault on your part does not reduce that claim.

Workers' comp keeps paying your medical care and part of your wages while the lawsuit goes forward.

If a City agency, NYCHA, the School Construction Authority, or the Port Authority owns the job, a notice deadline may already be running.

Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review from our office on Steinway Street in Astoria. You Win or It's Free.

Why the Owner and General Contractor Answer for a Fall Under § 240(1)

The Scaffold Law puts the duty to provide proper ladders, scaffolds, hoists, and other protective devices on the owner and the contractor, whether or not either one supervised the work.^[1] If a missing or failed device was a cause of your fall, they are liable, and the Court of Appeals has held that a worker's comparative negligence is not a defense.^[2]

The statute has limits. It covers elevation risks, meaning a fall from height or an object that fell because it was badly hoisted or secured. It also fails where the worker's own conduct was the only cause, a defense our page on the sole proximate cause argument takes apart.

• Labor Law § 241(6). Covers injuries that are not falls, such as a trench, a saw, or a slippery deck, but only when a specific Industrial Code rule was broken, and your share of fault can reduce it.
• Labor Law § 200. The ordinary duty to keep a safe workplace, which reaches an owner or contractor that controlled how the work was done or knew about the hazard.
• The homeowner exemption. Owners of one- and two-family houses who contract for the work but do not direct or control it are outside §§ 240 and 241, though the contractors on the job are not.

That last rule comes up constantly on Queens jobs, where much of the work is on two-family houses. Whether the owner stepped into directing the work decides the claim against them, and our page on when the homeowner exemption breaks shows how it is tested.

Where Queens Construction Injuries Happen, From Court Square to JFK

Queens issued more new-building permits than any other borough in 2025, 605 of them, and the Department of Buildings counted 56 construction incidents, 42 injuries, and 4 deaths on Queens building sites that year.^[3] Those figures cover building work only, so road and transit jobs are not in them. Each kind of Queens job brings its own defendants and its own records.

High-Rise Towers in Long Island City and Court Square

The 2001 rezoning of 37 blocks around Court Square and Queens Plaza turned Long Island City into a high-rise district, and towers like the 67-story Skyline Tower now rank among the borough's tallest. Tower work means formwork, hoisting, open floor edges, and loads moving overhead, and mid-rise jobs share the same hazards: in December 2025, DOB reported, a worker on a six-story new building on Crescent Street fell about 30 feet through unsecured formwork. Our page on formwork and concrete collapses covers how those claims are built.

Two-Family Renovations in Astoria, Sunnyside, and Jackson Heights

Gut renovations, roof work, and add-on floors on attached houses produce ladder and roof falls, and they raise the homeowner exemption on almost every file. In July 2025 a worker installing solar panels fell from the roof of a two-and-a-half-story house in Jackson Heights without a harness, according to DOB. The general contractor and any subcontractor that controlled the roof remain defendants even when the owner is exempt. Roof claims have their own page on roofing falls under the Labor Law.

New Construction in Flushing and Willets Point

Downtown Flushing's mixed-use towers and the Willets Point redevelopment, where the 25,000-seat Etihad Park is scheduled to open for the 2027 season, keep large crews on site.^[4] In March 2025 a worker on a 16-story new building in Flushing fell from a seventh-floor balcony to the floor below. On jobs this size the owner, the construction manager, and several trade contractors each carry their own insurance, and our page on who answers on a multi-contractor site sorts out which one pays.

Airport Work at JFK and LaGuardia

The Port Authority describes JFK as a $19 billion transformation at the peak of construction, with the first phase of New Terminal One expected in 2027.^[5] A claim against a private terminal builder or contractor runs on the ordinary three-year clock. A claim that names the Port Authority needs a sworn notice served at least 60 days before suit and a lawsuit within one year, which is far tighter than most workers expect.

Knowing what kind of job it was usually tells us which defendants and which deadline apply before anyone has pulled a single record.

The first thing we ask an injured worker is what the permit board on the fence said. Then we act fast to find the witnesses while the job is still running. Crews on Queens jobs change week to week, and the worker who saw the fall may be on a site in New Jersey by the time anyone asks.

What Is a Queens Construction Accident Case Worth?

A Labor Law case pays what workers' comp does not. Comp covers medical care and two-thirds of your average weekly wage, capped at $1,281.50 a week for injuries on or after July 1, 2026, and it pays nothing for pain or for the career you lost.^[6] The lawsuit can recover:

• Full lost earnings, including union wages, overtime, and the pension and annuity contributions that stopped
• Lost earning capacity when the injury ends work in the trades
• Future medical care beyond what comp will authorize
• Pain and suffering, with no cap in a New York construction case

The comp carrier gets back what it paid out of the recovery, after its share of the legal costs, and then stops paying until the net recovery is used up. That repayment is part of the settlement arithmetic, so the comp file and the lawsuit have to be valued together.

A Demolition Fall From a Six-Foot A-Frame Ladder

In one of our New York cases, a client breaking out material with a chipping gun on a 24th-floor demolition job was knocked off a six-foot A-frame ladder when the bit caught and the tool kicked back. He landed on his right side and went on to have a cervical fusion and knee surgery. Pled under Labor Law § 240(1), the case settled for $2,050,000. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Value follows the surgery, the years of work lost, and whether § 240(1) applies, because a Scaffold Law claim is not cut down by a fault percentage the way a § 241(6) claim can be.

How Long You Have After a Construction Fall, From 60 Days to Three Years

The owner of the site decides the deadline, so it is the first fact we confirm.

• A private owner or contractor. Three years from the accident under CPLR § 214(5).
• A City agency project. A sworn notice of claim within 90 days and a lawsuit within one year and 90 days.
• A NYCHA building. The same 90-day notice, and suit within one year and 90 days.
• A public school job built by the School Construction Authority. A 90-day notice, and suit within one year.
• A Port Authority job at JFK or LaGuardia. A sworn notice at least 60 days before suit, and suit within one year.
• A death on the job. Two years from the date of death for the wrongful death claim.

The comp claim runs on its own calendar: written notice to your employer within 30 days and a claim with the Workers' Compensation Board within two years. Our page on notices of claim against public bodies explains what the 90-day notice has to say and where it goes.

A late notice on a public job can sometimes be fixed by a court, but only on an application and never after the deadline to sue, so a public owner moves the whole case onto a shorter timetable from the first week.

The Site Records We Demand in the First Week After a Fall

Sites change fast after an accident. Scaffolds come down, ladders go back on the truck, and the deck that failed gets rebuilt.

• The ladder, scaffold, or harness itself, preserved before it is repaired or thrown out
• DOB permits and job filings, which name the owner, the general contractor, and the registered site safety contacts
• Daily logs, toolbox talks, and the site safety plan for the day of the fall
• The contractor's incident report and any OSHA or DOB inspection that followed
• Subcontracts and insurance certificates, which decide which company's policy pays first
• Photographs and video from coworkers' phones and neighboring cameras

Every record on that list is one the owner or the contractor controls. A preservation letter in the first week tells them to keep it, and you do not have to ask anyone on the crew for any of it. Our page on ladder accident claims covers what the ladder itself can prove.

Construction Injury Cases Prepared for a Jury in Jamaica or Long Island City

Queens County Supreme Court hears civil cases at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica and at 25-10 Court Square in Long Island City.^[7] A Queens accident can be filed in Queens County, and New York's venue rule also allows the county where any party lives, so some Queens cases are tried elsewhere. What carries over everywhere is how the case is prepared.

• Track record across 40,000 cases. Lawsuit Legal has recovered more than $100 million for injured people, with a recovery in 98 percent of its cases.
• Queens office, New York license. Our working office is at 32-56 Steinway Street in Astoria, and Don Worley has been admitted in New York since 2005.
• Built for a Queens jury. Insurers price a Labor Law claim partly on whether they expect a trial, so every file is prepared to be tried.
• Engineers and safety experts paid by the firm. We advance the costs of the case, offer free consultations around the clock with Spanish-speaking intake, and charge no fee unless it recovers.

Immigration status does not bar a Labor Law claim in New York, and being paid in cash makes lost wages harder to prove, not impossible. Our page on injury claims for undocumented workers covers the details.