Content reviewed by:
Alex Shulman
Cranes lift tons of steel, concrete, and equipment dozens of stories into the air, often directly above workers and pedestrians below. When something fails, the people below tend to get seriously hurt. A crane accident lawyer in Yorktown from Shulman & Hill can investigate what went wrong and identify every party who may be responsible for what happened to you.
Our firm isn’t a high-volume practice. We take on complex, high-stakes cases like these, and we build them with the strategy they require. We’ve recovered over $1 billion for injured New Yorkers so far. A Yorktown workers’ compensation lawyer on our team can walk you through your options at no cost.
What Causes Crane Accidents
Most crane accidents come down to a specific breakdown somewhere in the process.
The crane wasn’t maintained properly, and a part failed. The load was heavier than the crane’s rated capacity. The rigging was done incorrectly. The operator made a mistake, or wasn’t properly trained in the first place. The ground underneath the crane’s setup couldn’t support the weight. Or nobody accounted for high winds on a day they should have.
Each of these traces back to a different person or company making a bad call. That matters because New York law generally requires you to show whose decision caused the accident, and that decision often points straight to who should be paying for your injuries.
Injuries Crane Accidents Commonly Cause
Cranes handle enormous loads at extreme heights, so when something goes wrong, the injuries tend to be severe. Victims commonly suffer:
- Traumatic brain injuries from falling debris or being struck by a swinging load
- Spinal cord injuries and paralysis
- Crush injuries and internal organ damage
- Amputations from rigging or mechanical failures
- Fatal injuries, in the most serious incidents
These injuries usually mean extended hospital stays, multiple surgeries, and sometimes a permanent change in someone’s ability to work at all. When the stakes are that high, it’s worth making sure every possible source of compensation gets pursued rather than settling for the first one that’s obvious.
Who Can Be Held Responsible
Crane accidents rarely come down to just one party’s mistake. Several companies typically share a job site, and any one of them may bear some responsibility for what happened to you, for example:
- The crane operating company may be liable if the equipment wasn’t properly maintained, inspected, or run by a qualified operator.
- The general contractor or site owner is responsible for overall site safety, including making sure the crane was set up on stable ground.
- The crane manufacturer may face liability under product liability law if a mechanical defect or design flaw caused the failure.
- The rigging or signal crew may share fault if a load was improperly secured or a signal was missed.
Identifying which of these parties, often more than one, actually caused your accident takes a thorough investigation by a crane accident lawyer in Yorktown. Most injured workers never find out on their own who else besides their employer might be responsible.
New York’s Scaffold Law and Crane Accidents
Falls from height and being struck by falling objects both fall under New York Labor Law sections 240 and 241, known together as the Scaffold Law. This law holds property owners and general contractors strictly liable for these specific hazards.
That word, strictly, matters. You generally don’t have to prove the owner or contractor was careless, only that your accident falls within the type of hazard the law covers. That’s a much lower bar than a typical negligence claim, and it’s part of why crane accident cases so often involve substantial insurance coverage.
Workers’ Compensation and Your Right to a Separate Claim
If you were injured on the job, New York’s workers’ compensation system should cover your medical care and part of your lost wages, regardless of who was at fault. That coverage comes automatically once you report the injury.
What it doesn’t cover is pain and suffering, and it doesn’t fully replace your lost income. Since crane accidents so often involve a company other than your employer, like the crane operator, the manufacturer, or a subcontractor, you may also have a separate claim against them running alongside your workers’ comp claim.
Pursuing both at the same time is often how injured workers actually recover what the accident cost them.
How These Cases Get Investigated
Crane accident cases run on technical evidence that isn’t easy to get without legal help, and most of it sits with the crane company or contractor, not with you.
Our firm runs an in-depth, in-house investigation that typically includes reviewing crane inspection, maintenance, and certification records, pulling OSHA citations or safety violation history for the site or equipment, examining the crane’s load charts and rigging plans, checking operator training and certification records, gathering site photos, video, and eyewitness accounts, and looking into the weather conditions at the time of the accident.
Timing matters here. Inspection logs get filed away, rigging setups get taken apart once equipment goes back into service, and witnesses move on to their next job. Starting the investigation soon after the accident is often what separates a strong claim from one built on guesswork.
What You Can Recover
Depending on the details of your case, compensation may include medical expenses and future care, lost income and reduced earning capacity, pain and suffering, and permanent disability or disfigurement.
Because crane accidents tend to be so severe, these cases frequently involve multiple insurance policies at once: the crane company’s, the contractor’s, and sometimes the manufacturer’s. That’s one more reason it’s worth having someone look at every angle of your claim instead of accepting the first offer that comes in.
Why Acting Quickly Matters
New York generally gives injury victims three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury or Labor Law claim. But the evidence that supports a strong crane accident case disappears much sooner than that. Waiting even a few weeks can mean losing access to inspection records, rigging setups, or witnesses who’ve already moved on.
Speak With a Crane Accident Lawyer in Yorktown
A crane accident attorney in Yorktown at Shulman & Hill can investigate every angle of your accident, identify every liable party, and pursue the full compensation you’re owed.
Consultations are free, and you pay nothing unless we win.