Proving Construction Accident Liability in McAllen, TX

Written by Geoffrey Dashner. Read more about the author.

Construction work puts people in harm’s way every day. The Rio Grande Valley has seen significant development over the past several years — new commercial buildings, highway expansions, residential subdivisions — and that growth means more workers exposed to serious risks. When someone gets hurt on a job site, the legal question that follows almost immediately is: who pays for this? That question is harder to answer than most people expect.

At Dashner Law Firm | McAllen Injury & Accident Attorney, I have worked with injured construction workers and their families throughout the Valley, and the single biggest obstacle I see is that injured workers don’t understand how liability actually gets established. They assume their employer’s insurance will cover everything, or they accept an early settlement that doesn’t come close to covering their long-term medical costs. This post lays out the liability process in plain terms so you know what you’re actually dealing with.

How to Prove Liability in a Construction Accident in Texas in McAllen?

Proving liability in a construction accident in McAllen requires establishing four things under Texas law: that a party owed you a duty of care, that they breached that duty, that the breach caused your accident, and that you suffered actual damages as a result. That’s the standard negligence framework under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and it sounds straightforward — but on a construction site with multiple contractors, subcontractors, equipment vendors, and property owners, pinning down exactly whose breach caused your injury takes real investigative work.

Texas does not require most private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance. That’s not a typo. Under the Texas Labor Code, private employers can opt out of the state’s workers’ compensation system. Many large general contractors carry it, but subcontractors — particularly smaller specialty subs common in the Valley — sometimes do not. If your employer is a “non-subscriber,” that actually opens up your ability to sue them directly in civil court without the usual workers’ comp limitations. The trade-off is that you carry the burden of proof. You must show negligence.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. A worker falls from scaffolding on a commercial project in McAllen. To prove liability, we need to show who was responsible for erecting and maintaining that scaffold, whether it met OSHA standards under 29 CFR 1926.451, whether a supervisor was aware of any defect, and whether the general contractor exercised sufficient oversight. Each of those answers may point to a different party. In my experience, the strongest cases come from acting fast — before evidence disappears, before witnesses forget details, and before the site is cleaned up.

The evidence that matters most includes OSHA incident reports, site safety logs, equipment inspection records, photos and video from the scene, payroll records showing who employed whom, and expert testimony about whether industry safety standards were followed. Texas courts also apply a modified comparative fault rule under Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — meaning your compensation gets reduced by your percentage of fault, and if you’re found more than 50% responsible, you recover nothing. Insurance adjusters know this and will try to shift blame to the injured worker early in the process.

The Most Common Construction Accidents in Texas

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks fatal occupational injuries by industry, and construction consistently leads all sectors. In Texas, which has one of the largest construction workforces in the country, the pattern holds.

Falls are the leading cause of construction fatalities nationally and in Texas. Falls from roofs, ladders, scaffolding, and elevated platforms account for a disproportionate share of both deaths and severe injuries. A fall from just 10 feet can cause a traumatic brain injury or spinal damage that permanently alters a person’s life.

Struck-by incidents are the second most common category. A worker gets hit by a swinging crane load, a vehicle moving through the site, a falling tool, or ejected material from a saw or grinder. These accidents happen fast and often leave no time for the worker to react.

Caught-in or caught-between incidents involve workers getting trapped in machinery, between heavy equipment and a fixed object, or in trench collapses. OSHA data shows trenching fatalities spike during periods of rapid construction activity — which describes South Texas right now.

Electrocutions round out what OSHA calls the “Fatal Four.” Contact with overhead power lines, unguarded electrical panels, and improperly grounded equipment kills construction workers every year. These deaths are largely preventable.

Beyond the Fatal Four, I regularly handle cases involving heat illness (a serious and underreported hazard in the Rio Grande Valley’s climate), chemical exposure, and heavy equipment accidents involving forklifts, cranes, and bulldozers.

What Causes Construction Accidents in Texas?

The CDC and OSHA data consistently point to a short list of root causes, and in my caseload, those same factors appear again and again.

Inadequate safety training is at the top. A worker who doesn’t understand fall protection requirements, or who never received instruction on how to recognize an unstable trench, can’t protect themselves from hazards they don’t recognize. Texas has a large population of workers whose first language is Spanish, and job site safety materials are not always provided in the language workers actually read. That’s a failure of the employer.

Pressure to meet deadlines drives corners being cut. When a general contractor threatens to pull a subcontractor’s contract if they don’t finish a phase faster, supervisors sometimes reduce safety checks. I’ve seen this dynamic directly contribute to accidents on projects throughout the Valley.

Equipment that isn’t properly maintained or inspected fails. A scaffold with a corroded connection point, a forklift with worn brakes, a harness past its service life — these aren’t freak accidents. They’re predictable outcomes of deferred maintenance.

Inadequate supervision is another recurring factor. When an experienced foreman is replaced by someone with less authority or knowledge, or when supervisors are stretched across multiple job sites at once, the site safety culture breaks down.

Finally, multiparty job sites create confusion about who is responsible for safety oversight. A general contractor may assume a subcontractor has covered a particular hazard; the subcontractor assumes the general contractor’s safety officer has it handled. The worker falls through the gap between those assumptions.

Who Is Responsible in a Construction Accident in Texas?

Texas construction projects involve overlapping legal relationships, and liability rarely falls on just one party. Our team at Dashner Law Firm spends considerable time tracing those relationships in every case we handle.

The general contractor bears broad responsibility for overall job site safety under both OSHA standards and Texas common law. Even when a subcontractor’s employee is injured, the general contractor can be held liable if they retained control over the method or manner of work, or if they were aware of a dangerous condition and failed to correct it. This is sometimes called the “retained control” exception to the general rule that employers aren’t liable for independent contractor injuries, and it comes up often in Texas premises liability claims involving property owners as well.

Subcontractors are liable for the safety of their own employees and for the conditions they create on the site. If a sub installs scaffolding incorrectly, they can be held liable not just to their own workers but potentially to workers from other trades who use that scaffolding.

Equipment manufacturers and rental companies can face product liability claims when defective equipment contributes to an accident. If a piece of equipment fails in a way it shouldn’t under normal use, that’s a products liability claim worth pursuing alongside any negligence claims.

Property owners who retain control over a construction site — particularly when acting as their own general contractor on a development project — can face direct liability. Texas premises liability law requires property owners to maintain reasonably safe conditions for workers they invite onto their land.

Third parties — including delivery drivers, utility workers, and even other subcontractors operating outside their scope — can also bear fault when their actions contribute to an injury. In cases involving a fatal accident, Texas wrongful death claims against multiple defendants are not unusual.

Who Conducts Accident Investigations on a Construction Site in Texas?

Multiple parties investigate after a serious construction accident, and their interests do not all align with yours.

OSHA is required to investigate fatal construction accidents and certain severe injuries under 29 CFR Part 1904. OSHA investigators document the scene, interview witnesses, review safety programs and training records, and ultimately issue citations and penalties if violations are found. OSHA reports are public record and can be obtained by injured workers or their attorneys. They’re valuable evidence, but they’re not the final word on civil liability — an OSHA citation doesn’t automatically prove negligence in court, and the absence of a citation doesn’t mean no negligence occurred.

The employer and general contractor will conduct their own internal investigation, usually immediately after the accident. Be careful here. The purpose of an internal investigation is partly to identify what went wrong so it doesn’t happen again — but partly to create a narrative that protects the company. Statements made by workers during employer investigations can later be used against them.

The insurance carrier for the general contractor or employer will send its own adjuster and possibly a liability investigator to the scene. That investigator is looking for evidence that reduces the insurer’s exposure — including evidence of worker fault.

Your own investigation, conducted through a Texas construction accident attorney, is the one that protects your interests. That means hiring an independent accident reconstruction expert, securing photographs and video before the site is altered, subpoenaing payroll and safety records, and interviewing witnesses while memories are fresh. The window to preserve this evidence closes quickly. In my experience, waiting even two weeks can mean critical evidence is gone.

How to Determine Fault in a Construction Accident in Texas?

Fault determination in a Texas construction accident is an evidence-driven process. It starts with identifying every party who had a role in creating or tolerating the condition that caused the injury.

Texas follows modified comparative fault principles under Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Each defendant’s percentage of fault is determined by the jury, and damages are allocated accordingly. This means it’s possible for three or four parties to each bear a share of responsibility, and each one pays a proportional share of the judgment. It also means that placing some of the blame on the injured worker is a standard defense strategy. Knowing that going in shapes how we build a case.

The key documents in a fault analysis include the general contractor’s safety plan, OSHA Form 300 injury logs, subcontractor agreements (which often specify who is responsible for particular safety measures), equipment maintenance logs, training records, and any surveillance or drone footage of the site. Texas courts allow discovery of all of these, and a skilled construction injury lawyer knows how to compel production of documents that companies would rather not share.

Expert witnesses play a major role. A construction safety expert can testify about whether specific OSHA standards were violated, whether the site met industry norms, and what a reasonable general contractor would have done differently. A medical expert establishes the connection between the accident and the injuries. In cases involving brain trauma or long-term disability, the medical evidence must be developed carefully and early, because future care costs are often the largest component of a construction accident case.

Texas also has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003. Two years sounds like a long time. It isn’t, especially when the first several months are consumed by medical treatment and recovery. By the time some clients call me, they have six months left and crucial evidence has already been lost or altered.

What Your Case May Be Worth?

I won’t put a number on a case without reviewing the facts, but I can tell you what drives value in Texas construction accident claims. Medical expenses — both past and projected future costs — form the foundation. Lost wages, including diminished earning capacity if you can no longer do the same work, add substantially to that number. Pain and suffering damages under Texas law are available in civil suits, as are damages for disfigurement and mental anguish.

Texas caps punitive damages in most cases at the greater of $200,000 or two times economic damages plus up to $750,000 in non-economic damages, under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 41.008. Punitive damages come into play when you can show the defendant acted with malice or gross negligence — which in a construction context means knowing about a serious hazard and consciously disregarding it. I have seen situations where an employer knew workers weren’t using fall protection and chose not to enforce it. That is gross negligence.

You can review our verdicts and settlements to get a sense of the outcomes we’ve achieved for clients in serious injury cases across Texas.

Talk to a Construction Accident Attorney Before You Do Anything Else

The decisions made in the first days after a construction accident shape the entire claim. What you say to an employer investigator, whether you sign any paperwork, whether a family member posts anything on social media — all of it matters. The other side has lawyers working immediately. You should too.

Dashner Law Firm | McAllen Injury & Accident Attorney represents seriously injured construction workers and their families throughout South Texas. We take construction accident cases on a contingency fee basis, which means no upfront cost to you.

If you or someone you care about was injured on a construction site, contact us as soon as possible. Call our McAllen office today at (956) 303-6170, or visit us at 813 N Main St #608, McAllen, TX 78501. You can also learn more about our Texas construction accident practice and how we handle cases like yours across the state.

The clock is running on your claim. Don’t wait to find out what your rights actually are.

Written by Geoffrey Dashner. Geoffrey B. Dashner is a personal injury attorney based in McAllen, Texas, representing injured workers and accident victims throughout the Rio Grande Valley and across Texas. Read more about the author.