Long Island Forklift Injuries

Forklift incidents happen all too often on construction sites. This heavy machinery’s size and weight distribution make it unwieldy and easy to destabilize.

Catastrophic forklift injuries can result—and entirely turn a worker’s life upside down. Medical expenses on top of the inability to work creates a nearly impossible situation. That’s when you should call the construction accident lawyers at Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP.

Our dedicated injury attorneys can work diligently to bring you the financial compensation you need to restore your life. Contact us now for a free case review following your Long Island forklift injuries. Our legal team can get the facts of your case and let you know how we can serve you during your time of need.

Table of Contents

• Take Legal Action in Your Forklift Accident With Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP
• Legal Help You Can Afford for Your Forklift Incident
• How Much Compensation Can I Recover in a Forklift Incident on Long Island?
• Our State’s Labor Laws Protect Construction Workers
• Statute of Limitations for Forklift Incident Claims
• Call Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP After an Injury in a Forklift Incident on Long Island

Take Legal Action in Your Forklift Accident With Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP

Our injury law firm wants to go the extra mile for clients. We aim for results and get them by putting our experience and resources to work for you. Our construction accident lawyers serving Long Island could offer the right fit for you when:

You Need Aggressive Legal Action

Our attorneys put time and commitment into each case to seek favorable results. We diligently prepare each case, gathering evidence, working with experts, and implementing aggressive litigation strategies to maximize your compensation. Staying on top of the personal injury and insurance laws of Long Island allows us to ensure we use every available legal recourse to pursue compensation for your forklift incident claim.

You Want Experience on Your Side

Over 100 years of combined legal experience backs every client we take on. That’s over 100 years of skill and legal knowledge fighting insurance companies, supporting injury victims, and trying cases for those who cannot do it alone. Additionally, since our beginning decades ago, we’ve only handled personal injury cases.

We feel proud to say that 100 percent of our practice remains devoted to litigation and obtaining the best possible results for clients like you. The personal injury lawyers on our team have been named SuperLawyers and members of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. We have a reputation for achieving some of the highest case results possible for injury victims.

You Need a Law Firm With Financial Capability Serving Long Island

Insurance companies and large corporations know we spend the time and money to build a strong case for trial. Being well-prepared gives us an advantage in the courtroom and in negotiating. We invest in every case to maximize results.

Our law firm hires experts and works with medical professionals, economists, reconstruction specialists, engineers, and safety experts who expand our knowledge base and substantiate our cases with their professional insights. We don’t mind taking your forklift case to trial to get the compensation you deserve.

You Want Attorneys Who Care

We have a reputation on Long Island because we put our clients first. We see every case as personal to us, so you’ll never be just another file in our office.

Our legal service has drawn the recognition of judges who’ve referred their loved ones to us. Some adjusters have also referred their friends and family to our practice. That’s because we come through for our clients, securing multiple high-value settlements and case verdicts.

Legal Help You Can Afford for Your Forklift Incident

Our lawyers do not take any money upfront. Instead, we work for our clients on a contingency-fee basis. In other words, you pay us nothing to represent you unless we win your case in a financial settlement or trial verdict. It’s our way of ensuring you can afford the help you need. Once we recover compensation, our legal fees come as a portion of the financial award. You never pay out-of-pocket.

How Much Compensation Can I Recover in a Forklift Incident on Long Island?

Forklift injuries tend to prove catastrophic if the victims survive. They could face years of emotional, physical, and financial costs. Ongoing medical care, loss of earning ability, and substantially reduced quality of life constitute some of the primary ways you might face effects from a forklift incident.

Our state allows injury victims to seek special damages and general damages. Victims may receive these damages if they suffered harm due to the negligent or intentional actions of others. Special damages compensate you for directly quantifiable financial losses, like the cost of physical therapy. General damages refer to compensation for an emotional or physical loss that broadly affects your life.

In a forklift incident claim or lawsuit, you could recover:

• Medical treatment costs
• Lost income from your construction job or additional employment
• Lost earning capacity
• Physical therapy or occupational therapy costs
• Permanent disability
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Pain and suffering
• Scarring and disfigurement
• Reduced quality of life

Wrongful Death Resulting From Forklift Injuries

If the forklift incident on Long Island caused the death of your loved one, you have our sincerest condolences. Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP can help you take a stand against the unacceptable negligent actions that took your family member’s life. While you cannot sue your loved one’s employer, we could investigate to determine if other parties could bear liability for this tragic incident.

It’s our job as a personal injury law firm to hold negligent parties accountable and stop dangerous practices. A construction incident attorney can represent your family in a wrongful death case.

You could recover:

• Final arrangement expenses
• End-of-life medical costs
• Lost financial support
• Loss of household services
• Loss of care, society, or parental guidance
• Emotional pain and suffering

We intend to do everything in our power to help your family heal during this emotional time. In addition, we aim to relieve the financial strain you may experience.

Seeking Damages in a Third-Party Forklift Incident Case

Our injury law firm on Long Island works hard to get justice for construction incident victims. Workers’ compensation claim may cover your medical bills and some of your lost income, but it doesn’t account for the other expenses that your forklift injuries may have left you with. Nor does it consider your emotional injury or the quality of life that you and your family lost.

To ensure we seek to cover the full breadth of your losses, we could pursue damages from the negligent party through a third-party claim or lawsuit. If you believe your forklift incident was preventable, you may want to seek help from a construction accident lawyer.

Our construction accident attorneys can delve into your case to conduct a complete investigation. We can search for the cause of the incident and gather evidence of negligence from the at-fault party to determine liability.

Your forklift incident may have resulted from negligence from:

• Construction site property owners
• Third-party service provider/contractors
• Construction equipment manufacturers
• Forklift manufacturers, sellers, designers, or engineers

If a problem with the forklift, such as a manufacturing defect or machinery malfunction, led to your injuries, we may pursue compensation through a product liability claim. Three basic product liability issues could factor into a forklift incident’s cause.

The Forklift Was Defective as a Matter of Design

If the forklift that injured you had a defect in its design, you may have a product liability case.

Forklift Was Defective as a Matter of Manufacturing

An error in the physical creation of the forklift could have caused the incident. Perhaps faulty parts were used to manufacture the lift cylinder that raises and lowers the forks, or the drive tires were prone to wear.

The Forklift Had a Defective Warning or Misleading Information

Inadequate warnings about the dangers the forklift poses can result in a defective warning claim. Additionally, suppose the forklift was sold or marketed with information that misled you or your construction employer to reasonably think that you could use it in a certain fashion. In that case, you could hold the manufacturer responsible for any damages arising from using it in that way.

Common Causes of Forklift Injuries

Around 34,900 forklift incidents occur in the U.S. each year, according to a report by safety equipment manufacturer OEA Safeguard. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports that nearly 100 people die yearly in forklift incidents. Most of these are preventable.

The tip-over is the most common type of forklift incident, also known as a forklift overturn. The forklift operator can easily get crushed or pinned underneath the overhead guard. NIOSH reports that forklift overturn constitutes the number one cause of forklift fatalities, accounting for 25 percent of forklift-related deaths.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released a report providing ways to prevent what the organization dubbed the Fatal Four, the four primary causes of death on construction sites.

They include:

• Falls
• Being struck by objects
• Getting caught between objects
• Electrocution

Three of these four causes of death can occur in forklift incidents, and they rank among the most common types of forklift incidents.

According to the NIOSH, the most frequent types of forklift incidents are:

• Forklift top-overs
• Falling from a forklift
• Being struck by a moving forklift
• Being crushed between a forklift and another surface
• Being struck by a falling forklift
• Being run over by a forklift

Our State’s Labor Laws Protect Construction Workers

Our state protects construction workers’ and visitors’ rights to safety on construction sites under state Labor Laws 200, 240, and 241. These labor laws allow workers to sue a general contractor, subcontractor, or building/construction site owner for their injuries and collect workers’ compensation. Our law firm can work with your workers’ compensation lawyer to coordinate your claims and maximize your results.

Labor Law 200

NY Labor Law 200 protects the rights of both workers and visitors on a job site. It requires that construction companies and contractors take steps to make sure their site is reasonably safe. Visitors to the site should also have protections, such as from guardrails.

Labor Law 240

Known as the Scaffold Law, NY Labor 240 mandates construction sites have scaffolding and other safety measures to prevent workers from falling or from falling objects striking them.

Labor Law 241

NY Labor Law 241 requires site owners and contractors to provide a safe work site during construction, demolition and excavation. 241(6) requires a violation of a specific industrial code in order to recover under this section.

A construction accident attorney at our firm can assess your case and investigate if the state’s labor laws apply to your forklift incident. If so, we can help you take action.

Statute of Limitations for Forklift Incident Claims

State law generally gives personal injury victims three years to pursue legal action against the party responsible for their harm. If you do not file your lawsuit within that time frame, you risk losing your chance to recover compensation at trial.  There are other rules that may apply which could significantly shorten the time you have, including when a municipality or municipal organization is a defendant.

An attorney can inform you of any exceptions that apply to your situation, so you should get in touch with one as soon as possible. You’ll need time to build a proper case, including investigating the circumstances of your forklift incident for any owner or contractor negligence. Our team can ensure your case remains on track so you don’t have to.

Call Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP After an Injury in a Forklift Incident on Long Island

At Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP, our personal injury lawyer team cares about your financial recovery. We know the devastation a forklift incident can leave you with. We’ve seen too many to count. Call us today for a free case evaluation if you lost a loved one or sustained forklift injuries on Long Island. You could recover the money you deserve for the suffering you’ve endured. Our attorneys can assist you in Spanish as well.

Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP

1176 Portion Road
Holtsville, NY 11742