If a construction accident in Newport left you hurt, Rhode Island law usually gives you more than one place to look for compensation.
One route is a workers’ compensation claim through your employer. The other is a claim against whoever actually created the hazard that hurt you: a general contractor, another subcontractor, the property owner, or the company that made the equipment. Both can run side by side.
An accident you partly caused does not automatically end your claim here, and there is generally a three-year deadline to bring one.
At Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd., we walk through how a workers’ compensation claim and a third-party case fit together, so you know what is actually available before you decide anything. We represent injured workers throughout Newport and the surrounding area.
Ronald J. Resmini on Construction Site Claims
A construction case turns on two questions: who owes you compensation, and where and how the claim actually gets filed. Ronald J. Resmini wrote a volume of the Rhode Island Practice Series on each one. His published work on products liability applies when the fault points at the maker of defective equipment rather than, or alongside, a contractor on the site.
Those books are *Tort Law and Personal Injury Practice*, on the rules that decide who owes you compensation, and *Rhode Island Civil Practice and Procedure*, on where and how a case gets filed. He clerked for the Rhode Island Supreme Court, founded court-annexed arbitration in this state, and published on products liability law in the Suffolk University Law Review.
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Who Else Might Be Liable Besides Your Employer
Your own employer is usually the one company you cannot sue. Rhode Island’s workers’ compensation law makes those benefits your exclusive remedy against it under § 28-29-20, even on a site where several companies are working alongside each other. The same rule reaches your employer’s “directors, officers, agents, or employees”, so a co-worker is not a third-party defendant either. The statute does carry its own exception. Where an employer never secured the workers’ compensation coverage the law requires, the worker can elect damages against it instead, on written notice within ninety days of the injury.
Everyone else on that site is a different question. § 28-35-58 covers anyone other than your employer or a co-worker who may carry legal responsibility for what happened. In practice, that third party is usually:
- A general contractor
- Another subcontractor
- A property owner
- The maker of defective equipment
The insurer that paid your workers’ compensation is not left out of the picture. It is reimbursed out of whatever you recover from that third-party claim.
Rhode Island’s comparative negligence rule under § 9-20-4 still applies to a claim against any of them. It also says an open and obvious danger does not bar recovery, which matters on a site where the hazard was in plain view.
Read more about how we handle workplace accidents in Newport.
What happens to the workers’ compensation you have already been paid
The same statute that lets you bring the third-party claim also decides what you keep from it. Section 28-35-58 entitles you to receive both damages and compensation. In return, it requires you to pay back whoever covered that compensation, counted up to the amount already paid out by the time the case ends in a judgment or a settlement.
So the insurer that has been covering your wages and medical care has a claim on your recovery. The number that matters to you is what is left after that reimbursement, not the headline settlement figure. Negotiating that reimbursement down is a routine and important part of resolving a construction case, and it is why the gross figure and the amount a worker actually takes home can differ by a lot.
What If You Were Partly at Fault
Being partly responsible for a construction accident does not end your claim. Rhode Island follows pure comparative negligence under the same statute, so your own share of the fault reduces what you recover rather than wiping it out.
The finder of fact cuts your damages in proportion to your own negligence. No share of fault is large enough, on its own, to bar you from recovering, because there is no cutoff percentage written into the statute. What your share changes is the size of your recovery, not whether you have a claim at all.
How Long You Have to File a Claim
Rhode Island generally gives you three years from when the claim accrues to bring a personal injury action, under § 9-1-14(b). A missed deadline usually ends a claim, though a small number of exceptions can move that date.
A fatal construction accident follows a related but separate three-year clock under § 10-7-2. That one runs from the date of death, or from when a wrongful act that was unknown at the time of death was or should have been discovered.
Those windows govern a court claim against a third party. A workers’ compensation claim through your employer’s insurer runs through a different process.
If you have been drawing workers’ compensation, one date falls earlier than the three-year deadline, and letting it pass can take the third-party claim out of your hands. That can only happen where your employer or its insurer sent you written notice first, so a letter of that kind is your warning. Under § 28-35-58(b), where no lawsuit has been filed against the third party within two years and eight months of the injury, your employer or its insurer may bring that claim itself and step into your rights. It may only do so if it gave you written notice, by personal service or certified mail, at least twenty-six weeks before that date.
Where a Construction Injury Case Is Heard in Rhode Island
Where your case is heard does not depend on where you were hurt. Venue for a Superior Court case turns on where the parties live, or where a defendant can be found, under § 9-4-3.
So a Newport construction accident does not have to be litigated in Newport itself. Venue follows where you live, or where the responsible contractor, subcontractor, or property owner can be found, which comes up when a general contractor or equipment maker is based elsewhere in the state.
What a Resolved Third-Party Workplace Case Looks Like
Our published case results include a worker hurt by a tractor-trailer in the course of his employment. We reduced the workers’ compensation lien to maximize what he ultimately recovered, and the case resolved for more than $1 million.
The same process applies whatever caused the accident, from a fall to being struck by equipment. Construction sites can produce catastrophic harm, including spinal cord injury, and the way you pursue compensation does not change with how serious the injury turns out to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to choose between workers' compensation and a claim against the contractor?
No. Drawing benefits now does not close off a claim against whoever created the hazard, because the statute lets you receive both damages and compensation. The two meet only at the end, when you reimburse what was already paid out of whatever the third-party case recovers. A workers’ compensation claim and a third-party case run on separate tracks toward the same recovery.
If the hazard that hurt me was clearly visible, does that bar my claim?
No. Rhode Island’s comparative negligence statute says a danger being open and obvious does not bar recovery. It is simply one more factor weighed when fault is divided. A hazard anyone could see can still support a claim against whoever left it that way.
Who can bring a wrongful death claim, and is there a minimum recovery?
An executor or administrator brings the main wrongful death claim, under the same three-year statute. Family members bring loss-of-society and consortium claims separately, in their own names, under § 10-7-1.2. A defendant found liable owes not less than $350,000. That is a floor on the award, not a figure the family is certain to collect.
What if the vehicle that struck me on the site was uninsured or underinsured?
Under § 27-7-2.1(a), your own insurer must provide uninsured motorist coverage equal to your bodily injury liability limits, unless you signed down to a lower limit in writing. A signed-down limit can never fall below the state minimum. That coverage explicitly includes an underinsured motorist, so if the other driver’s policy cannot cover your claim in full, your own coverage may still apply.
Does my health insurance pay for treatment while my claim is pending?
Usually, yes. Rhode Island is an at-fault state with no personal injury protection coverage and no tort threshold, so the at-fault party’s liability insurer is ultimately responsible for paying your claim. In the meantime, your own health insurance generally covers treatment, and health insurers commonly seek reimbursement out of any settlement you later receive.
Is the minimum insurance on a truck or vehicle enough to cover a construction injury?
Often it is nowhere near enough. Rhode Island sets the floor for a registered vehicle at $25,000 per person for bodily injury, under § 31-47-2(13)(i)(A), and a serious construction injury can run past that quickly. That is why the other parties who may carry responsibility for the site matter, and why your own coverage can matter too.
If a co-worker caused the accident, can I bring a claim against them?
Not as a third-party claim. The exclusive remedy rule that protects your employer also reaches its directors, officers, agents and employees, so a co-worker sits on the same side of that line as the company you work for. What is left open is the rest of the site: a general contractor, another subcontractor, the property owner, or the maker of defective equipment. Those are the parties a third-party claim is aimed at.
Talk to Us About Your Construction Accident
Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, Accident & Injury Lawyers, Ltd. offers a free consultation to talk through what happened on your Newport construction site and what your options actually are. That covers how a workers’ compensation claim and a third-party case might work together in your situation, who besides your employer may carry responsibility for the hazard, and what the reimbursement out of any recovery would look like.
If the three-year deadline is anywhere close, it is worth making that call sooner rather than later. There is no cost to finding out where you stand, and we represent injured workers throughout Newport and the surrounding area.
Call 401-367-4655 or contact us to get started.