Construction Workers

Construction is the industry where the second claim matters most. A jobsite has a general contractor, an owner, multiple subcontractors, equipment suppliers, and manufacturers — and workers' compensation is only exclusive as to your own employer.

The two questions in every construction injury:

1. What does the comp claim cover? 2. Who else was on that site, and does the Privette doctrine block them or not?

The Privette problem, and the three ways through it

Under Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689, a property owner or general contractor who hires an independent contractor is generally not liable for injuries to that contractor's employees. The law presumes responsibility for jobsite safety was delegated along with the work.

That doctrine ends a great many construction cases, and any honest page has to say so. But it has real exceptions:

Retained control — Hooker v. Department of Transportation (2002). A hirer is liable where it retained and exercised control over the contractor's work in a manner that affirmatively contributed to the injury. Failing to prevent a hazard is not enough. Directing how the work is done, controlling the schedule in a way that forced an unsafe method, supplying defective equipment, or ordering the crew into a condition the GC created — those are affirmative contribution.

In Sandoval v. Qualcomm Inc. (2021) 12 Cal.5th 256, the Supreme Court tightened this considerably, reversing a verdict in an arc flash case where the hirer's involvement was held insufficient. The bar is real.

Concealed hazard — Kinsman v. Unocal Corp. (2005). A landowner must warn of a latent hazard on the premises not reasonably detectable by the contractor. Buried utilities, contamination, a structurally compromised element, an energized line believed dead. The duty is discharged if the contractor knew or should reasonably have discovered it.

Negligent hiring and non-delegable duties, in narrower circumstances.

Which means the case is made or lost on evidence about control — daily reports, safety meeting minutes, RFIs, schedule directives, the subcontract itself, and testimony about who told whom to do what. That evidence disappears fast, and it is why a construction case should be investigated in weeks rather than after the comp claim resolves.

And the defendants Privette does not touch

Equipment and product manufacturers. Scaffolding, ladders, lifts, nail guns, saws, cranes, hoists, trench boxes, fall arrest systems. A products case is unaffected by Privette.

Equipment rental and maintenance companies.

Other subcontractors on the site. Privette protects the hirer. A different sub whose negligence hurt you is an ordinary third-party defendant. This is the most commonly missed defendant on a jobsite.

Drivers and delivery vehicles.

And engineers and designers, where the design itself created the hazard.

How third-party claims and liens work.

The licensing rules that decide who your employer is

Labor Code § 2750.5 provides that any person performing work for which a contractor's license is required "shall hold a valid contractors' license as a condition of having independent contractor status."

So an unlicensed person doing licensed work is not an independent contractor. They are an employee — of whoever hired them.

And so is their crew. A worker hired by an unlicensed sub is frequently deemed an employee of the licensed general contractor or the property owner who hired that sub — which is very often a solvent, insured defendant standing behind an insolvent one.

This is the single most valuable fact on this page for a day laborer or a cash-paid crew member, and it is almost never explained.

And if nobody carried insurance: the Uninsured Employers Benefits Trust Fund pays benefits, and § 3706 permits a civil action where § 3708 presumes negligence and strips the contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and fellow-servant defenses. How.

Being paid in cash changes nothing about your rights. Labor Code § 3357 presumes anyone rendering service for another is an employee. And immigration status does not affect eligibility for California workers' compensation.

What the work does

Falls — the leading cause of construction fatalities. Roofs, ladders, scaffolds, leading edges, floor and skylight openings. Brain injury. · Spinal cord injury.

Struck-by — falling material, swinging loads, vehicles and equipment, nail guns.

Caught-in and crush — trench collapse, equipment, unguarded machinery. Amputation.

Electrocution and arc flash — which combines thermal burn, blast, hearing damage, and frequently head injury. Burns.

Silica — cutting, grinding, and drilling concrete, masonry, and engineered stone. This is the most consequential current exposure in California construction. Silicosis claims.

Asbestos and lead — renovation and demolition of older buildings, which is ongoing. Asbestos claims.

Heat — roofing, paving, and concrete work are the highest-risk trades in the state. Heat illness.

Noise — and the audiogram configuration usually answers the age argument. Hearing loss.

And cumulative trauma — knees from kneeling and stairs, shoulders from overhead work, backs from lifting, hands from vibrating tools. A body that wore out over twenty years is a claim. How cumulative trauma works. · Knee · Shoulder · Low back

Preserve this now

Do not let the equipment be repaired, modified, or scrapped. In a machine, scaffold, or vehicle case, preservation is the difference between a product claim and no product claim.

Photograph the scene and the condition — guards, fall protection, shoring, the ladder, the surface.

Get the Cal/OSHA investigation file. A serious injury or fatality triggers an investigation, and the file contains witness statements taken close in time.

Identify every company on that site. Names on trucks, on hard hats, on the sign at the gate, on the sign-in sheet.

And get the daily reports and safety meeting minutes before they are archived. That is the retained-control evidence.

Frequently asked questions