While the safety of cranes has gone up over time, accidents still happen and they’re devastating to workers. Dozens of people die and many more are injured each year because of crane accidents. When accidents happen, get a Belleville crane accident lawyer you can rely on.
Morelli Law has helped accident victims get over $1 billion dollars in settlements. Our aggressive team of Belleville personal injury lawyers will fight the insurers and get you what you deserve, whether that’s through workers’ compensation or a lawsuit.
When Can I Sue My Employer Over a Crane Accident?
Most crane accident victims will be workers, and we’re often asked if workers can sue employers for workplace injuries. The answer is usually not, and it’s because of the workers’ compensation system. Workers’ comp can help workers pay for injuries and lost wages faster than a lawsuit.
However, there are exceptions. If your employer deliberately harms you on the job, their worker’s compensation insurance should refuse to cover them. In that case, you can sue your employer for damages.
Also, there are some employers who do not carry workers’ compensation despite regulations. If they do not carry workers’ comp insurance, then you will have to sue your employer for compensation, and odds are that you may have a good chance of success.
Why Sue Instead of Using Workers’ Compensation?
Workers’ compensation only covers part of your damages, and doesn’t cover pain and suffering. Crane accidents often involve heavy loads falling or crushing someone. You could be permanently disabled by what happened.
Fortunately for victims, it’s not an either-or proposition. If the person responsible for injuring you was a third party, like another contractor, you can pursue workers’ compensation against your employer and still sue the third party.
Besides non-economic damages, our crane accident attorneys in Belleville can help you recover economic damages that aren’t covered by workers’ compensation. For example, you can get the lost wages that workers’ compensation doesn’t give you.
Belleville Crane Accident Lawyer Near Me 877-751-9800
Can You Help Me with My Workers’ Compensation Claim?
Absolutely. We can guide you through filing workers’ compensation in Illinois. The first step in any workers’ compensation claim is to notify your employer that you have been injured and intend to pursue workers’ compensation.
After that, you will need to submit a claim to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. Our Belleville crane accident lawyers can help you file your claim so you can get the most money possible and the lowest chance of rejection.
If you have filed on your own, got rejected, and wish to appeal, you have a small window to prepare for your meeting. Speak with one of our lawyers as soon as possible to get legal guidance so you don’t miss your opportunity to claim workers’ comp.
Causes of Crane Accidents
Proving negligence is the key to winning a crane accident lawsuit. Part of that process is discovering the cause of the crane accident. From there, we can target who is liable and how to proceed with your case.
Common causes of crane accidents include:
- Touching power lines with the crane
- High winds and bad weather pushing a poorly installed crane over
- Collapse by a mechanical malfunction
- Falling or spilled loads
- Swinging a load incorrectly and striking someone
- Operator or rigger error
For a workers’ compensation claim, you only need to prove you were injured on the job. You do not have to prove negligence, which makes those cases much easier to process.
What Else Is Necessary to Prove Negligence?
Your Belleville crane accident attorney has to prove three other things besides the cause of the accident to prove negligence. These are:
- Who are the parties responsible that had a duty of care to keep you safe?
- How did those parties break their duty of care and put you in a dangerous situation?
- How were you injured and how has that affected your life after the accident?
Proving these three, plus proving that their breach of care caused the accident, will tell the insurers and the court that you have a valid case and are owed compensation for what happened. The next phase is calculating how much your case is worth.
Determining the Value of a Crane Accident
The value of any accident you’re in depends on what happened to you and how it affected your life. An accident lawyer can give you an estimate of how much your case is worth, but you won’t know the full value until they perform an investigation.
The value of a case is often more than what victims think it is. That’s because there are costs that you can pursue that you may not have even considered. For example, did you know you can sue for home renovation costs to accommodate a disability caused by an accident?
Also, there are non-economic damages like pain and suffering that do not have a dollar amount. These have to be negotiated between an insurer and their lawyer, or argued for before a judge and jury.
The fact remains that if you want to know the true value of a case, you must work with a lawyer. Our job is to get you the most money possible. Period.
How Are Crane Accident Lawyers Compensated?
When you hire one of our crane accident lawyers in Belleville, you will owe nothing unless they help you win your case, and we can only get paid out of your compensation. This means that anyone can afford to work with a lawyer on their case.
If you are successful, your lawyer will take a percentage of how much you won based on the difficulty of your case and what legal services you need to win. A simple example is trial. Cases that go to trial are more expensive than cases that settle (though you could get more through trial as well).
If you lose your case and get nothing, you will owe your lawyer nothing. This way of compensating lawyers is called working for contingency. You will not have to pay an hourly fee or pay a retainer fee when working with us for a crane accident case.
Get Crane Accident Representation in Belleville, IL
If you are injured in a crane accident, it’s time to pick up the phone and call Morelli Law. Our crane accident lawyers are ready to speak with you about what happened. You can call us from the hospital or have a loved one call on your behalf if you’re too injured.
You may not return to work for months after a crane accident, but you don’t have to wait that long to get financial support. Rely on our lawyers. Learn your legal options for compensation by calling or emailing us to schedule a free case evaluation. Contact us today and you’ll be one day closer to getting paid.