DFW led the nation in construction job growth from January 2025 to January 2026, adding more than 30,000 jobs to one of the most active building markets in the country. That activity means thousands of workers on thousands of sites. Evidence disappears fast. Equipment gets moved. Hazards get patched. Witnesses move to the next job. In Texas, where a construction worker suffers a fatal injury approximately every other workday, the decisions made in the hours and days after an accident matter as much as anything that happens later in a courtroom.
Our team at Marchand Law includes a former nurse and a former engineer. That combination shapes how we read construction accident cases. Injuries that look minor at the scene can signal spinal trauma or internal damage. Site conditions that look like routine construction have engineering and OSHA compliance histories behind them. When we evaluate these claims, we’re not just reviewing what happened. We’re reconstructing why it happened and who was responsible for making it happen that way.
If you or someone in your family was hurt on a Dallas job site, the steps below aren’t formalities. They’re the foundation of whatever legal options remain available to you.
Get Medical Attention Before You Do Anything Else
Adrenaline is a reliable deceiver. Spinal trauma, traumatic brain injury, and internal bleeding often don’t produce obvious symptoms immediately after an accident. Workers who feel shaken but functional at the scene sometimes discover hours later that they’ve sustained injuries requiring surgery or extended recovery. Go to a medical provider the same day, even if you don’t feel seriously hurt.
The records created at that first visit do two things: they establish that your injury existed at the time of the accident, and they document the causal connection between what happened and how your body responded. Insurance carriers routinely argue that a gap between the accident and the first medical visit means the injury was minor, unrelated, or exaggerated. That argument is far harder to make when there’s a same-day record. When you describe your symptoms, tell the provider exactly how the accident happened. That account becomes part of your medical record and will be referenced at every stage of the claim.
Report the Accident & Lock Down the Evidence
Texas’s workers’ compensation system requires injured workers to notify their employer within 30 days of the accident. Missing that deadline can put your benefits at serious risk, regardless of how serious your injuries are. Report in writing, keep a copy, and note the date you submitted it.
The clock on physical evidence runs much shorter than any legal deadline. In a market adding construction jobs at the fastest rate in the country, active sites are modified daily. A defective scaffold gets repaired. A missing guardrail gets installed. The surface that caused a fall gets resurfaced. If your health allows, take these steps before leaving the site:
- Photograph and video the area where you were injured
- Get the names and contact information of anyone who witnessed the accident or was nearby
- Preserve any hard hat, harness, or other equipment involved rather than returning it to the job site
- Request a written incident report from your employer and review it carefully
- If the report contains inaccuracies, note them in writing and keep that record
Understand Who Can Be Held Responsible
Construction accidents rarely involve just one responsible party. A typical Dallas job site has a general contractor managing the overall project, multiple subcontractors handling specific trades, a property owner with obligations over site conditions, equipment manufacturers whose products may have failed, and inspectors or safety personnel with independent roles. Each of those parties can carry liability that exists entirely separately from your employer’s responsibility.
Texas is the only state that doesn’t require private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance. An employer that opts out is called a nonsubscriber. If yours is one, they lose the common-law defenses that otherwise shield employers from direct negligence lawsuits. That means you can sue them directly and pursue damages the workers’ comp system doesn’t cover, including pain and suffering and full lost wages. Knowing your employer’s status isn’t a procedural detail; it determines which legal path is open to you.
A third-party liability claim, filed against someone other than your direct employer, can run alongside a workers’ comp claim. When a subcontractor’s negligence caused your injury, when defective equipment was involved, or when the property owner failed to maintain safe conditions, those claims belong to you in addition to whatever workers’ comp covers. Product liability claims against equipment manufacturers follow a separate legal framework and require a detailed analysis of the equipment’s design, maintenance history, and compliance with applicable standards.
Know Your Deadlines Before the Clock Runs Out
Three separate deadlines run simultaneously after a construction accident, and none of them wait for you to feel ready.
- 30 days to notify your employer of the injury under Texas workers’ compensation rules administered by TDI-DWC.
- One year from the date of injury to file the formal workers’ compensation claim with the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation.
- Two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury or third-party lawsuit under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003, the statute of limitations for negligence claims, applicable whether the defendant is a subcontractor, a property owner, or an equipment manufacturer.
If your employer is a nonsubscriber, the timeline for any policy-based claim may differ depending on the specific coverage arrangement, and that determination requires a review of the actual policy. Keep in mind that the practical deadline for preserving useful evidence is shorter than any of these legal deadlines. In a market as active as Dallas’s, useful site evidence has a window measured in days, not months.
Protect Your Claim From Common Mistakes
Within days of a reported accident, an insurance adjuster will likely call. That call will feel routine and even sympathetic. It isn’t a neutral conversation. A recorded statement given without legal counsel is a document the insurer will use to build its defense. You have the right to decline until you’ve spoken with an attorney, and in almost every case, that’s the right choice.
Quick settlement offers follow the same pattern. Insurers move fast when injuries are significant because settling early, before the full scope of injuries and liability is understood, limits their exposure. Signing any release or accepting any payment before that picture is clear permanently forfeits your right to additional compensation, even if your injuries later prove more serious than they first appeared.
Construction accident cases require analysis that general personal injury work doesn’t routinely involve. OSHA Fatal Four violations, including falls, struck-by hazards, electrocution, and caught-in incidents, each carry specific compliance standards. Equipment failure claims involve engineering and maintenance records. Multi-party liability chains require a clear-eyed map of who controlled what and when. Proportionate responsibility under Texas’s 51% rule, which bars recovery if a claimant is found more than 50% at fault, means the way fault is assigned across parties has direct consequences for what you can recover.
The steps taken in the first days after a construction accident determine what legal options stay open and which ones close permanently. Our backgrounds in nursing and engineering inform how we identify what insurers and opposing counsel miss. If you were hurt on a job site, we’re available to talk through what happened. Call Marchand Law at (903) 345-1807.