Construction Accident Death Consequences for Irving Companies

Written by Geoffrey Dashner. Read more about the author.

Construction keeps Irving moving. The cranes along Highway 183, the commercial builds near Las Colinas, the infrastructure projects threading through the city — that work does not stop. And neither does the risk that comes with it. When someone dies on a construction site, the consequences reach far beyond the tragedy itself. Families lose breadwinners. Projects stall. And the company responsible faces a wave of legal, financial, and regulatory consequences that can threaten its survival.

At Dashner Law Firm | Irving Injury & Accident Attorney, we have handled construction accident cases for families across the Dallas–Fort Worth area. I have seen firsthand what these cases cost companies and what they mean for the workers and families left behind. This post lays out what actually happens — legally, financially, and operationally — when a construction worker dies on the job in Texas.

How Does a Construction Accident Death Affect a Company in Texas in Irving?

The consequences are immediate, layered, and expensive. Here is what a company faces after a fatal construction accident in Irving, Texas.

OSHA Steps In Within Hours. Under federal law, employers must report any work-related fatality to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) within eight hours. OSHA will open a formal investigation, send compliance officers to the site, and — if violations are found — issue citations. Serious violations carry fines up to $16,550 per violation in 2026, and willful or repeated violations can reach $165,514 per violation. A single fatal accident can generate multiple citations across different violation categories.

The Site Gets Shut Down. Not just the area where the death occurred — OSHA can shut down an entire site or specific operations until the hazard is controlled. Every day of downtime on a commercial project has a direct dollar cost: idle crews, delayed milestones, contract penalties.

Criminal Exposure Is Real. Texas Penal Code allows criminal prosecution for workplace deaths caused by criminal negligence. The company itself, and individual supervisors or project managers, can face charges. These cases are rare but not unheard of, particularly when safety violations are egregious or documented.

Civil Liability Through Wrongful Death Claims. The deceased worker’s family has the right to bring a Texas wrongful death claim against any liable party — which can include the general contractor, the subcontractor, the property owner, or equipment manufacturers. Unlike workers’ compensation claims, wrongful death suits can produce verdicts or settlements far above the cap on comp benefits. Damages include lost future income, loss of companionship, funeral costs, and the family’s pain and suffering.

Workers’ Compensation Costs Climb. Texas is the only state that does not require most private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Companies that do carry it will see their experience modification rate increase after a fatality, which drives up premiums for years. Companies that opted out face direct civil liability without the liability shield that comp coverage provides.

Reputation and Contract Risk. General contractors and owners vet subcontractors on safety records. A fatality and the OSHA citation that follows it becomes part of a company’s public record in OSHA’s inspection database. Losing bids because of a documented fatality is a real, long-term business consequence.

In my experience, the companies that handle these situations worst are the ones that try to minimize or manage the optics before they address the legal exposure. The first calls should go to legal counsel, not the PR department.

What Causes Construction Accidents in Texas?

Most fatal construction accidents in Texas trace back to a short list of causes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks these nationally, and the Texas pattern mirrors the federal data closely. Falls remain the single leading cause of construction fatalities — falls from scaffolding, ladders, open floors, and rooftops. In 2024, falls accounted for roughly 37% of all construction worker deaths in the United States.

Beyond falls, the major causes include struck-by incidents (workers hit by vehicles, falling objects, or swinging equipment), caught-in or caught-between incidents (workers caught in machinery or between heavy equipment and fixed structures), and electrocution from contact with overhead power lines or faulty wiring.

The root causes behind those events are typically more mundane: inadequate safety training, pressure to meet deadlines that leads workers to skip protective steps, equipment that is not maintained, and worksites where safety planning was treated as a checkbox rather than a working practice. Subcontracting chains complicate this further. A general contractor might have a solid safety program, but a sub two tiers down may be cutting corners that the GC never sees.

Heat is a growing cause in Texas specifically. Outdoor workers in the DFW area face sustained summer temperatures that exceed safe working conditions, and Texas currently lacks a state-specific heat safety standard, though federal OSHA has pushed for expanded protections. When a worker collapses from heat stroke on an Irving site, the question of who should have acted first — and did not — becomes central to any claim.

What Are the Most Common Construction Accidents in Texas?

Falls top the list and cause the most severe injuries. Falls from scaffolding at height are particularly devastating — they frequently cause traumatic brain injuries, spinal fractures, and death. A fall of even 10 feet onto a concrete surface can be fatal.

Scaffold collapses are a separate category. When a scaffold is improperly assembled or overloaded, multiple workers can be injured or killed at once. These events tend to generate significant litigation because the liability chain — scaffold manufacturer, rental company, contractor, site supervisor — often involves multiple parties.

Crane accidents are less frequent but consistently catastrophic. Crane collapse or load drop incidents cause deaths not just to crane operators but to ground crews and bystanders. Irving’s commercial construction density makes crane operations a recurring risk.

Trench collapses kill workers regularly in Texas. OSHA requires protective systems for trenches deeper than five feet, but enforcement gaps persist. Workers buried in a trench collapse typically have seconds. The injuries that result — crush injuries, asphyxiation — are frequently fatal or permanently disabling. Texas premises liability law can also apply when a trench collapses on a worksite controlled by a property owner.

Electrocutions occur most often when workers contact overhead power lines that were not de-energized before work began. Texas has a significant number of these incidents annually because of the volume of outdoor infrastructure work.

Who Is Responsible in a Construction Accident in Texas?

Texas does not follow a simple “one employer, one claim” model for construction accidents. Responsibility gets distributed across a network of parties, and identifying the right defendants is one of the most consequential things a Texas construction accident lawyer does in the early stages of a case.

The general contractor typically has the broadest safety responsibility on a site. They control the schedule, coordinate trades, and are usually responsible for site-wide safety protocols. When their supervision or safety planning fails, they carry significant liability.

Subcontractors carry responsibility for their own workers and equipment. If a subcontractor’s crew creates a hazard — an unsecured load, an unguarded opening, a defective scaffold — that subcontractor can be liable to workers from other trades who are injured by that hazard.

Property owners retain liability in Texas under premises liability theory when they control the work or the site conditions. If the owner of a Las Colinas office development retained control over how concrete pours were timed and that decision contributed to a fatality, they can face a direct claim.

Equipment manufacturers face product liability claims when a defect in a machine — a crane’s hydraulic system, a scaffold component’s weld, a saw’s guard mechanism — contributes to an injury or death. These claims exist independent of any workplace negligence and can be brought even when the employer did everything right.

Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule. A plaintiff can recover damages as long as they are not more than 50% responsible for their own injuries. If a worker was partially at fault, their recovery is reduced proportionally — but not eliminated unless they exceeded that 50% threshold.

Who Conducts Accident Investigations on a Construction Site in Texas?

Multiple parties investigate a fatal or serious construction accident, and they do not always coordinate with each other.

OSHA arrives first in most cases. Federal OSHA covers most private-sector construction in Texas, and their investigators document the scene, interview witnesses, collect physical evidence, and review records. OSHA’s investigation focuses on whether safety standards were violated and whether citations are warranted. Their report becomes public and is routinely used in civil litigation. The American Bar Association has published guidance on how OSHA investigations intersect with civil and criminal liability — an important overlap that employers rarely understand until they are in it.

The employer’s insurance carrier sends its own investigator. Their job is to document liability exposure from the insurer’s perspective. Workers who have been in the system sometimes mistake the insurance investigator for a neutral party. They are not.

Local law enforcement may respond if criminal negligence is suspected. In Texas, a local police department or the county sheriff’s office can open a parallel criminal investigation. The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation, gets involved when a comp claim follows the accident.

The family of the deceased has the right to hire independent investigators — accident reconstruction specialists, structural engineers, safety consultants — to build their own account of what happened. In my practice, we almost always bring in independent experts before the site changes or evidence is disturbed. Site conditions change fast. Equipment gets moved. Scaffolding gets taken down. Acting quickly to preserve evidence is critical, which is why families should speak with a construction accident attorney in Texas as early as possible.

How to Determine Fault in a Construction Accident in Texas?

Fault determination in a Texas construction case is built from several layers of evidence, and the process is more methodical than most people expect.

Physical evidence comes first. Photographs, video footage, equipment inspection records, and the physical condition of machinery and structures at the time of the accident form the factual foundation. When I take a case, one of the first things we do is secure whatever surveillance or dash-cam footage exists before it gets recorded over.

Witness accounts matter but need to be gathered quickly. Witnesses’ memories degrade, and on large sites, crews may disperse before anyone thinks to collect statements. We have had cases where workers were transferred to different sites within 48 hours of an incident — not by accident.

Safety records and training documentation reveal whether the company followed its own protocols. OSHA 300 logs, pre-task safety analysis sheets, toolbox talk records, and equipment inspection logs all become relevant. If the company’s records show that a particular piece of equipment had repeated maintenance flags and nothing was done, that pattern is significant.

Expert testimony ties the physical evidence and records to the applicable safety standards. A licensed safety engineer can explain to a jury exactly which OSHA regulation required a guardrail on that particular scaffold, what the standard says, and why the failure to install it was a direct cause of the fall. The Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute maintains accessible summaries of federal safety regulations that give a useful starting framework.

The OSHA citation itself, while not automatically admissible as a determination of fault in civil court, is powerful evidence of the conditions at the site and the violations that existed. Texas courts have allowed evidence of OSHA violations to come in as relevant to a negligence per se theory.

Texas also allows an injured party — or a deceased worker’s family — to pursue claims against third parties entirely outside the workers’ compensation system. If a subcontractor’s negligent operation of a boom lift killed a general contractor’s employee, that family can sue the subcontractor directly in civil court for full damages. Understanding which claims to file, against whom, and in what order is where the specific skill of an experienced Texas construction accident lawsuit attorney makes a material difference in what a family ultimately recovers. You can also review our client results and verdicts to see how we have approached similar cases.

What Families in Irving Should Do After a Fatal Construction Accident?

Do not wait to speak with an attorney. The two-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 sounds like a long time, but evidence disappears fast and OSHA investigation records become harder to access as time passes. Most construction accident attorneys in Texas, including our team, offer free initial consultations.

Document everything the family already has: any communications from the employer or their insurance carrier, the decedent’s pay stubs and employment records, any photos or video taken at or near the scene.

Do not sign anything presented by the employer’s insurer without legal review. Early settlement offers in wrongful death cases are almost always below what the case is worth, especially before the full scope of the loss — lost lifetime earnings, survivors’ benefits, the family’s long-term financial picture — has been calculated.

Learn more about our team and experience if you want to understand the background behind how we handle these cases. Construction accident deaths are among the most complex cases in personal injury law, and the families we represent deserve attorneys who know how OSHA investigations work, how to identify every responsible party, and how to build the evidence needed to establish what actually happened on that site.

Talk to a Construction Accident Attorney in Irving

If you lost a family member in a construction accident, or if you were seriously injured on a job site in or around Irving, contact Dashner Law Firm | Irving Injury & Accident Attorney to discuss your situation. We serve clients throughout Texas, and our office is located at 4500 Fuller Dr, Irving, TX 75038.

Call us at (972) 635-4460 or schedule a consultation online. There is no fee unless we recover for you.