Construction Accident Attorney in San Francisco

over three decades of legal experience

Over $100M Recovered for our clients

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Construction Accident Attorney in San Francisco

You deserve to feel safe when you’re on the job — even when your job is in construction. Sadly, it’s not easy to feel safe working on construction sites when you look at the numbers:

Nearly 27,000 California construction workers were hurt on the job in 2020.
Roughly 5,300 of those injured workers were hurt so badly that they could not fully return to their jobs.
Between 2013 and 2019, 464 California construction workers were killed on the job.

Those numbers are enough to make your stomach turn — especially if you have lived through a construction accident or lost a loved one to one. Here’s another disturbing thought: Many of the thousands of construction workers injured in our state every year never get real justice for what happened to them. You don’t have to be counted among them. With the help of the San Francisco construction accident attorneys at Delfino Green & Green, you can pursue real justice for your construction site injury in the form of maximum compensation. Read on to learn more about how we are prepared to fight for you.

Injured On A Construction Site?

Contact us online or give us a call at 415-442-4646 to schedule a free consultation with one of our experienced construction injury attorneys in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Why Contact Our Construction Accident Attorneys?

Serious injuries call for serious representation. Here’s why you need to contact our construction accident lawyers today:

You’ve Been Wronged

Construction injuries aren’t just “part of the job.” Every worker deserves a safe working environment. When you get hurt on the job, you have been done wrong. Someone was acting carelessly or being negligent. When someone has hurt you through negligent or reckless actions, you suddenly find yourself in a fight for some measure of justice to undo the wrong that’s been done. And that’s exactly what our attorneys are trained to help you do. Real praise from Delfino Green & Green clients: “Bill Green taking my case was life changing, I truly do not know what I would have done had I not retained his services.” – Staci G.

Your Options Are Limited

Here’s what almost never happens after a serious construction accident that causes injuries: The at-fault party or insurance company simply hands over fair compensation without any pushback. In other words, expect a fight if you’re hurt in a construction accident. Almost immediately, insurers, employers, manufacturers, and any number of other potentially liable parties will start covering their tracks in an attempt to reduce their liability for your injuries. Stunningly quickly, your chances at recovering fair compensation start to dwindle. But a qualified construction injury attorney can immediately get to work on your case. We preserve evidence, start the paperwork, make sure you don’t accidentally say the wrong thing, and keep you fully informed at every step. Real results for Delfino Green & Green clients: $700,000 recovered for a forklift accident.

You Deserve Compensation

Whether yours is a workers’ compensation claim or a personal injury lawsuit, you may be legally entitled to compensation for your construction injury. But keep this in mind: In California, being legally entitled to something does not ensure that you’re going to get it. That’s why so many injured construction workers call in the big guns: trusted Bay Area construction accident attorneys with a proven track record of success. Real praise from Delfino Green & Green clients: “Such amazing and professional attorneys. … [They have] the right attitude and level headed legal knowledge to assert what’s wrong and bring justice where it is needed.” – Amy W.

The Process: Suing for a Construction Site Accident

How do you get justice for an injury on a construction site? In many cases, justice looks like a personal injury lawsuit. Here’s the general breakdown of the construction injury lawsuit process in California.

Gathering the Documents

A lot of paperwork goes into pursuing compensation for a construction accident. Your legal team at Delfino Green & Green will likely need to gather the following documentation to begin the lawsuit process:

Any written records of your injury or the accident from your employer
Medical records related to your injuries
Policy documents for all potentially applicable insurance policies
Records of medical bills related to your injuries

With these documents in hand, we will be prepared to start building a strong case to help you recover every dollar you’re owed.

Building Your Case

To give you the best possible chance of recovering compensation for your construction accident, we will gather and preserve every possible piece of evidence. That might mean obtaining security camera footage of the accident, requesting police reports related to your accident and injuries, identifying expert witnesses who can testify on your behalf at a potential trial, and much more.

Negotiating on Your Behalf

Many construction accident injury cases in California settle before a trial becomes necessary. While we are experienced litigators who won’t back down from a trial, many of our clients hope to receive a favorable settlement offer before they have to go to court. And that is precisely what we will begin to negotiate for once we have the basics of your case put together. We will make your case with the at-fault party’s defense attorneys and/or the insurance company to convince them that offering a fair settlement may be their best option.

Fighting for You in Court

If the other side won’t make a fair settlement offer that truly covers every way in which this construction accident has harmed you, our next step will be to bring your case to trial. There, we will fight tirelessly for you to convince the judge or jury that you deserve nothing less than full compensation.

Types of Construction Accident Cases

Injuries at construction worksites can lead to a relatively wide variety of legal claims from the injured party. That’s thanks to California’s personal injury and workers’ compensation systems, which can overlap when injuries happen in the construction industry. Here are some of the most common types of construction accident cases:

Personal Injury

The personal injury claim process is what we have mostly been discussing so far. In California, you can file a personal injury lawsuit when the following facts are true:

Someone owed you a duty of care. In this case, likely the duty to provide a safe work environment or manufacture safe tools.
They failed in that duty. Usually, this failure amounts to negligent, reckless, or purposeful behavior.
You were injured as a result of that failure. Injuries can include both physical injuries and psychological damage, as well as the financial and intangible results of those types of injuries.

As you can imagine, the kinds of conditions that can lead to personal injury claims are common on construction sites.

Defective Products

Third-party claims — those that involve an at-fault party other than you or your employer — are also common in construction-related cases. One of the most common types of these claims involves product liability. Construction companies purchase and use all kinds of vehicles, tools, and heavy machinery. When one of those products malfunctions or is somehow defective and causes an injury as a result, the manufacturer of the product may be liable for the fallout from the injury. Suing, for example, a forklift manufacturer, is no easy feat. These are often major companies with teams of attorneys defending them. That’s why it can be so helpful to come to the table with a construction accident attorney already backing you up.

Workers’ Compensation

The California workers’ compensation system is meant to protect injured workers from financial devastation and employers from personal injury claims. In general, this system does what it was designed to do when it comes to construction accidents: provide workers’ comp benefits to injured workers. That means you may instantly be entitled to partial wage-replacement benefits, medical care, and more if you are injured while working on a construction worksite in California — regardless of who was at fault for the accident. Unfortunately, many workers’ comp insurance companies push back hard when injured workers make claims. That is why so many injured construction workers retain an experienced lawyer. Our attorneys can hold the workers’ comp insurers and your employer to account if they try to avoid their duty to compensate you.

Fatal Accidents

Sadly, many San Francisco construction accidents lead to wrongful death claims. The families of construction workers killed on the job are grieving while they try to cope with the loss of their loved one’s income, support, companionship, and love, and they also have to plan and pay for the funeral and burial. Nothing can make up for what these families have lost, but fair compensation through a wrongful death claim can provide the financial breathing room you need to properly grieve and adjust to life after this loss. No matter how deserving of fatal accident compensation surviving family members may be, the liable parties rarely hand it over willingly. That’s why so many grieving families get a construction accident attorney involved.

Personal Injury Lawsuits for Construction Accidents

Workers’ compensation is meant to provide partial wage replacement and similar benefits to injured construction workers, and that is a very good thing. However, some construction accidents call for a personal injury claim that is outside of the workers’ comp system. Personal injury claims can fully compensate victims for their injuries, lost wages, emotional trauma, and many other damages, while workers’ comp can only account for parts of those losses. However, if you pursue the personal injury route, you will need to show that someone else was negligent and at fault for your injuries. Meanwhile, there is no such requirement to receive workers’ compensation benefits. Generally, injured construction workers can sue outside of the California workers’ comp system when one of the following factors is true:

A third party other than your employer caused your injury.
A defective product caused your injury.
Your employer does not have proper workers’ comp insurance.
Your injuries were the result of an intentional action.

Our firm can help you understand which route may be best for your unique case.

Compensation for Injured Construction Workers

If you file a personal injury claim for your construction accident, you may be able to recover compensation for the following damages, among others:

Current medical bills
Future medical expenses
Lost wages during your recovery
Future lost wages due to an inability to work
Pain and suffering
Emotional trauma
Loss of consortium

These are among the most common damages listed in construction accident lawsuits, but really, any way in which this accident has caused harm in your life may be accounted for in your claim. Our experienced attorneys can help you calculate the monetary value of each of the damages so you don’t miss out on a single dollar.

What Causes Construction Accidents?

According to standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), construction companies cannot require workers to work in hazardous conditions or conditions that are otherwise dangerous to health and safety. Despite this strict requirement, many employers still do put their workers in harm’s way. Here are some of the most common causes of injuries in construction accident claims:

Falling objects
Electrocution
Crane accidents
Falling from elevations like scaffolding
Improper operation of a forklift
Explosions and fires
Improper employee training
Slips, trips, and falls
Poor equipment maintenance
Hoist accidents
Toxic substance exposure
Building collapses

Injuries in Construction Accidents

The injuries that result from construction work can range from minor to severe. Here are some of the most common injuries in these types of cases:

Traumatic brain injuries
Back and spine injuries
Amputations
Broken bones
Burns
Hearing loss
Crushing injuries

Who to Sue for a Construction Site Injury

Lots of people and organizations are involved in a construction job site. That means you likely have more than one person to consider naming in your construction accident lawsuit. Here are some of the most common defendants in construction-related personal injury cases:

Construction companies
General contractors
Subcontractors
Property owners
Tool and equipment manufacturers

A construction personal injury lawyer from our law firm can help you determine which party to name in your lawsuit.

Claim Your Free Consultation with a Construction Accident Attorney

Whether you are having trouble with workers’ compensation insurance or interested in filing a personal injury lawsuit, you can learn what you need to know in a free case review with Delfino Green & Green. We are construction accident attorneys who have helped accident victims like you get real justice countless times. We’re ready to work tirelessly to help you, too. To schedule your free case evaluation, reach out to our team today. Give us a call at 415-442-4646 or contact us online.

Verdicts & Settlements

We've recovered millions for our clients

$10,400,000

Construction Death

The husband and father of 4 young children was working at a construction site when he died because of another contractor's negligence. After more than two years of hard fought litigation, our team of experts was able to win a tremendous victory on behalf of our clients and ensure that all of their financial needs will be met. We could not bring back the husband/father for this family, but we were able to protect them from the financial devastation that can and often does result where the primary source of income for the family is taken away. We then worked with our team of financial planners to make sure that this family will always have financial security.

$10,000,000

Bad Faith Insurance Claim

Insurance Coverage/Bad Faith Bad Faith – Pollution Coverage Prior to forming his own firm, Mr. Green worked at one of the largest and most prestigious firms in the U.S. He was the primary attorney on an environmental insurance case that went to trial in San Francisco. After a several week trial, Mr. Green came away with a trial verdict against the insurers with a value of over $10,000,000 in available insurance coverage.

$5,750,000

Traumatic Brain Injury

A 16 year old developmentally disabled kid was hit by a bus while in a crosswalk. He suffered a concussion which turned into post concussive syndrome, where the symptoms of the concussion don't heal completely. This is also known as a mild Traumatic Brain Injury ("mTBI"). Our firm was hired as trial counsel 6 months before trial because of our expertise in TBIs as well as cutting edge trial techniques. When we first associated into the case, there was a very minimal settlement offer and it did not appear that the Defense was taking the case seriously. Our team of attorneys, experts and staff immediately immersed ourselves in the case as we prepared to demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of this incident. Shortly before trial, the Defense could see that we had put all the pieces together to prove liability and that full justice for our young client required damages in the many millions of dollars. The matter settled for $5,750,000.

$2,400,000

Disability Claim

Disability – Neurological Issues Our client became disabled from neurological issues. Our attorneys were able to work with the client and his physicians to quickly assemble all of the documentation necessary to support out client’s claim of total disability. The insurer agreed that our client was totally disabled and paid his claim.

$2,000,000

Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury to Child A three year old child was being carried across the street when she was struck by an oncoming car. The child suffered a serious traumatic brain injury when she hit the ground. Her injuries were so serious she had to be hospitalized for several months. Our firm negotiated a settlement of $2,000,000 by forcing the payment of all of the available insurance from the driver’s automobile insurer ($1,250,000), the entire amount of the homeowners insurance limits available ($500,000), and all of the amounts that the person carrying the little girl was able to recover from the negligent driver ($250,000). We then arranged for another firm to prepare and fund a large Special Needs Trust for the health and welfare of the injured child.

$1,800,000

Heart Condition Disability

Our client became disabled by a heart attack. The insurer refused to pay, claiming that our client was still able to perform his occupation. We met with all of our client’s doctors, obtained reports confirming the client’s inability to perform his prior occupation, and ultimately convinced the insurance company to pay the claim in full.

$1,700,000

Builder’s Risk/Collapse

A contractor suffered a severe collapse at one of his sites. The claim was submitted to the insurer and denied. Mr. Green reviewed all of the facts, researched the law, and brought together the necessary experts to prove that the Contractor’s Builders Risk insurer was responsible for a substantial portion of the loss. He also proved that a subcontractor was negligent and the subcontractor’s insurer also paid a substantial settlement. In total, Mr. Green was able to obtain more than $1,700,000 in compensation for his client.

$1,000,000

Heart Condition Disability

Our client had worked for the government for many years when she began suffering from a serious heart condition. All of her doctors told her that she could no longer work and if she continued to do so, she would be risking further injury to her heart or even death. Based on thi

$1,000,000

Traumatic Brain Injury

Our client suffered a mild Traumatic Brain Injury when heavy object struck her in the head. The responsible party denied all fault and insisted until the very end that our client had not suffered a brain injury and offered nothing to settle the case. Our firm assembled a team of world renowned expert‘s to demonstrate that our client had suffered a mild Traumatic brain injury. The case settled shortly before trial.

$985,000

Traumatic Hand Injury

Our client was working at a manufacturing plant. While operating a piece of machinery, his glove became caught in the machinery and part of his hand was severely injured. Ordinarily, this type of injury would be restricted to remedies available through Worker’s Compensation. However, through the knowledge, ingenuity, and creativity of our team of attorneys, we were also able to obtain a very substantial civil settlement for our client in addition to the workers comp settlement of his case.

$975,000

Aviation Death Settlement

A husband and father of two small children was killed in an aviation accident involving a small aircraft. Our firm represented the widow and two children against the pilot of the aircraft. By hiring experts in aviation (to prove negligence) and economists (to prove damages), and utilizing William Green’s expertise as an instrument-rated pilot, we were able to make a very powerful case and obtain a very favorable settlement that allowed the family to survive financially.

$700,000

Forklift Accident

A construction supervisor went to pick up some materials for a construction job. A worker at the yard neglected to set the parking brake on a piece of heavy equipment a few yards away. While the construction supervisor had his back turned, the machine rolled into him, pinning him against the side of his pick-up truck. He suffered several broken ribs, but that was the least of his injuries. Within several weeks of the accident, he had partially lost his sight. By working with medical experts, our firm was able to directly connect the sight loss to the injuries caused by the machine that rolled into our client. The case settled at Mediation without any need for a trial.

Words of Praise from Our Clients

“I had the pleasure of working with Sharon Delfino on my workmens comp case. She definitely had my best interest at hand. She was able to find me a great doctor and help me resolve my case. The staff there are always polite and friendly, never had an issue. It was a pleasure working with Delfino Green & Green !”

- Tabitha W

“I’ve known the firm’s founder, Bill Green, for many years and I can say that he is one of the best attorneys I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He and his associates at Delfino Green & Green are hard-working, highly responsive, and very professional, and they get the job done, without excuses. Bill is a great communicator, both with clients, and in Court, and invests time and money to include visual storytelling in his trials and mediations. You won’t find an attorney who cares more about you, and getting you an outstanding result for your case. Bill is one of the “good guys” in the legal profession…a great person to have on your side when dealing with the craziness of litigation.”

- Tim M

“A few years ago, I referred a friend of mine to the attorneys at Delfino Green & Green. He was extremely happy with the job they did on his case. He was severely injured when a car hit him when he was crossing a street and this event had the potential to ruin him in a number of ways – financially, physically, emotionally, etc. We kept in close contact during the lawsuit and he told me how great his lawyer and his assistant were throughout the process. Caring, compassionate and very knowledgeable. My friend ended up with a great result – fair financial compensation and great treatment for his injuries. Little did I know when I referred my friend that a few years later, I would need a lawyer for injuries I suffered, but I did. Based on my friend’s experience, I knew that Delfino Green & Green would be the right attorneys for me. So I hired Bill Green and his team to help and they jumped right into action. Now I can saw that I too have firsthand knowledge of just how great these guys are. They knew the law, they knew just how to handle my particular case, and they helped me get my life back after the horrible events that lead to my injury. I can’t imagine that you could do any better than hiring these folks. I’m so grateful for all they did for both me and my friend.”

- Evelyn A

“The work Delfino Green & Green did on my case was beyond excellent. The final result was superb, but I also truly appreciated how Mr. Green and the team kept me up-to-date at every stage of the case. I was able to reach someone whenever I needed something or had something important to report and the firm always let me know what was going on in my case. That was very important to me because I hadn’t found that to be true with other attorneys. In short, really top flight work, great people and results that met all of my expectations above and beyond.”

- Byron H

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