Before you decide whether you have a case, there is one question worth answering first: does the company you were working for actually carry workers' compensation insurance?
In Texas, there is a real chance it does not. Our Dallas construction accident lawyer handles job site injury claims across Dallas County, including cases against non-subscriber employers, general contractors, subcontractors, and equipment companies. Javier Perez Law represents injured workers in English and Spanish, and consultations cost nothing.
Call +1 (214) 499-0667 to find out which kind of claim you actually have. That answer changes everything else on this page.
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Table of contents
- Does Your Employer Actually Carry Workers' Compensation?
- Who Else Can Be Held Responsible for a Dallas Job Site Injury?
- Can an Undocumented Worker File a Construction Injury Claim in Texas?
- What Kinds of Dallas Construction Accidents Lead to Third-Party Claims?
- How Long Do You Have to File a Construction Injury Claim in Texas?
- What Can a Texas Construction Injury Claim Cover?
- Why Injured Workers in Dallas Hire Javier Perez
- What Does a Dallas Construction Accident Attorney Cost?
- Questions Dallas Construction Workers Ask Us
- The Site Is Already Changing
Does Your Employer Actually Carry Workers' Compensation?
Maybe not. Texas is the only state that lets most private employers opt out of workers' compensation entirely. Employers that opt out are called non-subscribers, and about 24% of Texas employers were non-subscribers as of the 2024 report from the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers' Compensation.
Construction is one of the industries where opting out is most common.
This matters more than almost anything else about your case, because the two paths are completely different.
What Happens If Your Employer Is a Non-Subscriber
You can sue your employer directly for negligence. And under Texas Labor Code § 406.033, that employer gives up three defenses it would normally use against you. It cannot argue that you were partly careless yourself (contributory negligence), that you knew the work was risky and did it anyway (assumption of the risk), or that a coworker caused the accident (the fellow employee's defense).
You still have to prove the company was negligent. But it loses the arguments it would lean on hardest, which is why non-subscriber cases are worth taking seriously rather than settling early.
What Happens If Your Employer Is a Subscriber
If your employer does carry workers' comp, Texas Labor Code § 408.001 generally makes those benefits your only remedy against that employer. They cover medical care and part of your lost wages. They do not cover pain, and they rarely cover the full financial hole.
What most injured workers are never told: that bar applies to your employer and no one else. Which brings us to the part of the case that usually carries the real value.
Who Else Can Be Held Responsible for a Dallas Job Site Injury?
Often, several. A typical Dallas commercial or multifamily project involves a property owner, a general contractor, a half dozen subcontractors, an equipment rental company, and a scaffolding or crane vendor. Any of them can be liable, and a claim against them is separate from workers' comp. Texas Labor Code § 417.001 says it directly: an injured worker may pursue comp benefits and seek damages from a liable third party.
General Contractors and Who Controlled the Site
General contractors are the most common third-party defendant on a Dallas job site, because they usually control safety on the project. The legal question is whether the GC kept control over the work that hurt you and knew about the hazard.
Texas has a specific rule. Chapter 95 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code limits when a property owner can be sued by a contractor's employee: the owner generally must have retained control and had actual knowledge of the danger. Proving both takes site documents, safety meeting records, and testimony, which is why these cases are built early or not at all.
Equipment Makers, Rental Companies, and Other Subs
A defective lift, a rented aerial platform with no working safety interlock, a subcontractor who removed a guardrail and did not put it back: each creates a claim against someone who is not your employer and not covered by any comp bar.
If a piece of equipment or a section of scaffolding was involved in your accident, the evidence is on a job site that will not look the same in two weeks. Call +1 (214) 499-0667 and we can send a preservation letter before it is gone.
Can an Undocumented Worker File a Construction Injury Claim in Texas?
Yes. Texas law does not require citizenship or work authorization to recover damages for a personal injury. In Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Guzman, 116 S.W.3d 233 (Tex. App. Tyler 2003), a Texas appeals court said so plainly regarding lost earning capacity.
Texas courts are also skeptical of letting immigration status into evidence at all. In TXI Transportation Co. v. Hughes, 306 S.W.3d 230 (Tex. 2010), the Texas Supreme Court reversed a verdict partly on that basis, warning that appeals to ethnic prejudice cannot be tolerated in a Texas courtroom.
One federal case gets quoted at injured workers to scare them off. Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB (2002) limited back pay in a labor board case. It does not govern common law injury damages, and the U.S. Department of Labor has said it does not strip undocumented workers of rights under other laws.
We handle these conversations in Spanish, and we do not ask for documents we do not need.
What Kinds of Dallas Construction Accidents Lead to Third-Party Claims?
The ones where the hazard belonged to someone other than the injured worker. OSHA groups the most serious construction hazards into the Construction Focus Four: falls, caught-in or caught-between, struck-by, and electrocution.
Federal data shows why falls dominate. Of the 1,034 fatal injuries in the construction industry in 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics attributed 389 to falls, slips, and trips, more than any other category. OSHA's fall protection rule, 29 CFR 1926.501, requires protection at six feet on most surfaces, with separate triggers for scaffolds and steel erection.
An OSHA citation does not automatically win your case. Texas treats OSHA standards as evidence of what a careful contractor should have done, not as proof of liability. In practice it is a strong document to have and a reason to request the inspection file early.
Cases we work on regularly include falls from scaffolding and roof edges, trench and excavation collapses, crane and rigging failures, electrical contact injuries, forklift and heavy equipment strikes, and workplace burn injuries. Where a worker does not survive, we handle construction fatality claims for the family.
How Long Do You Have to File a Construction Injury Claim in Texas?
Generally two years from the date of the accident. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003 sets a two year deadline for personal injury suits, and a separate two year deadline for a death case that runs from the date of death rather than the date of the injury.
Two years sounds like plenty. It is not, for one reason: the deadline governs when a lawsuit must be filed, not when the evidence stops disappearing. Job sites get finished, equipment goes back to the rental yard, crews move to the next project, and daily logs get archived.
The workers' comp system also runs on its own much shorter clock if your employer is a subscriber. Those deadlines are not the same as the two year civil deadline, and missing one does not always end the other.
Two dates matter in your case and they are almost never the same. Call +1 (214) 499-0667 and we will calendar both for you at no cost.
What Can a Texas Construction Injury Claim Cover?
A third-party claim can reach categories that workers' compensation does not. Depending on the facts, an injured worker may be able to pursue:
- Medical costs, both the bills already incurred and the care a doctor says is still coming
- Lost income and lost earning capacity, including the difference between what you earned before and what your body will let you earn now
- Physical pain and mental anguish, which workers' comp does not pay at all
- Physical impairment and disfigurement, which matter in amputation, crush, and burn cases
- Exemplary damages, in narrow circumstances. Under § 408.001(b), a surviving spouse or heirs may pursue exemplary damages where a worker's death was caused by the employer's gross negligence
Texas also reduces recovery by the injured person's own share of fault. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.001, a person who is more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing. At 50 percent or less, the award is reduced by that percentage. Expect the other side to work hard on that number.
Why Injured Workers in Dallas Hire Javier Perez
Because job site cases sit at the intersection of injury law and employment law, and this office practices both.
Javier Perez is Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, a certification fewer than one in ten Texas attorneys hold. He earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, has been licensed since 2012, and has served twice as President of the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association and as a Director of the Dallas Bar Association.
That background matters in three ways here:
- Employment law fluency. Misclassification as a 1099 contractor, retaliation after reporting an injury, and unpaid wages are common on job sites and often travel with the injury claim. We handle workplace injury lawyers matters directly.
- Trial readiness. More than a dozen civil jury trials, bench trials, and final arbitration hearings. Carriers price a file differently when it is built for a Dallas County jury at the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building rather than for a quick settlement.
- Full Spanish service. Not a translation line. The attorney handling your case speaks Spanish. En español.
What Does a Dallas Construction Accident Attorney Cost?
Nothing up front, and nothing unless we recover money for you. These cases run on a contingency fee, so the fee comes out of the recovery rather than your pocket: $0, no fee unless we win. The first conversation is free and does not obligate you to hire anyone.
Questions Dallas Construction Workers Ask Us
Do I have to file an OSHA complaint before I can bring a claim?
No. An OSHA complaint and an injury claim are separate tracks, and neither is a prerequisite for the other. OSHA can cite an employer, but OSHA does not pay you. If an inspection happened, we request the file, because the inspector's photos were taken while the site still looked the way it did the day you were hurt.
I was paid as a 1099 contractor. Does that end my case?
Not necessarily. What a company writes on a tax form does not decide your legal status, and it has almost no effect on a claim against a third party such as a general contractor or equipment company. Classification is fact specific and often disputed, and it is exactly the kind of question this office litigates.
My employer offered to pay my medical bills directly. Should I sign anything?
Read anything before you sign it, and be cautious if the document includes a release. Direct bill payment sometimes comes attached to language that closes out your right to bring a claim later. In Texas, a pre-injury waiver of a non-subscriber claim is void under § 406.033(e), but a post-injury release you sign yourself can be enforceable.
The company says the accident was caught on camera and the video shows it was my fault. What now?
Ask for the video in writing, and do it soon. Most job site cameras overwrite footage on a cycle measured in weeks. A written preservation request creates a record, and if the footage disappears after it, Texas courts have tools to address that. A company describing a video is also not the same as a company producing one.
What if I already went back to work and the pain came back months later?
You may still have a claim. The two year filing deadline runs from the accident in most injury cases, so returning to work does not close the door. It does create a documentation gap, and insurers use gaps. The fastest fix is a medical record that connects your current symptoms to the original incident.
The Site Is Already Changing
The crew that saw what happened is on another job. The lift has been returned. The daily log for that morning sits on a superintendent's laptop, and nobody has a reason to keep it.
That is the honest reason to call sooner rather than later, and it has nothing to do with pressure. Evidence on a construction project has a short shelf life.
Javier Perez Law, One Energy Square, 4925 Greenville Avenue, Suite 1450, Dallas, TX 75206.
Speak with a Dallas construction injury attorney in English or Spanish at +1 (214) 499-0667, or email info@javierperez.legal. Free case review. No fee unless we win.