LF Martin LLC

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The Employer is Immune. The Jobsite is Not

Preparing the Workplace-Injury Third-Party Case (for the Plaintiff or the Defense)

A workplace injury becomes a lawsuit only when it escapes the workers’-compensation bargain — and in the overwhelming run of cases it escapes sideways: not against the employer, whom the exclusive remedy shields, but against the general contractor above, the subcontractor alongside, the owner of the premises, the manufacturer of the machine, or the supplier of the chemical. In that third-party posture the decisive questions — who controlled the work, who created the hazard, what the exposure actually was, and what the machine or the scene would have shown had anyone preserved it — are technical questions before they are legal ones, and they are answered from a record that begins disappearing the day of the incident.

LF Martin LLC / lfmartinphd@gmail.com / 401.663.7058