Who’s Liable If A Contractor Gets Injured On Your Property?
What to Know About Homeowner Liability Before Hiring Contractors
You want to get some work done around the house, so you hire a contractor. Things are going well, but then out of nowhere a freak accident happens and the contractor is seriously injured. Are you liable? You could be. Premises liability essentially says that a homeowner is liable if someone else sustains injuries on their property. Yet homeowner liability cases are far from straightforward. The facts are incredibly important, and a judge or jury will want to know how the injury happened, to what extent planning was pursued, how the job was executed, and several other important details before making a decision regarding where liability should be placed.
If you’re facing a contractor injury lawsuit, then it’s best to get in touch with a homeowner liability attorney so you can discuss your legal strategy. But, before you do, familiarize yourself with the points below so you can give the attorney a clear image of what happened during your first consultation.
Homeowners Cannot Put Contractors at Risk on Their Properties
In a perfect world, you’d hire a contractor and plan out all the details before any work is conducted. The planning phase is incredibly important, for it’s during this phase where homeowners can tell contractors about potential hazards that exist on their properties. For example, if you’re hiring a roofing company to install shingles on an old house that has a notoriously faulty roof, you must tell a contractor about this situation so they can plan accordingly. Should you leave out this information and a worker falls through your roof, it is likely you’d be held responsible in a contractor injury lawsuit, specifically because you failed to acknowledge a potentially dangerous situation with full knowledge of its presence.
Now, say you hired the roofing company specifically to fix your potentially dangerous roof. An injured contractor may find it difficult to hold you liable as there was acknowledgement of the risks before any work ever began.
Homeowners Who Oversee Projects
It makes sense that many homeowners like to have a role in the work that’s being done on their properties, but homeowners who get involved in projects often open themselves up to a wide range of liability issues. If you’re inexperienced in the field of construction and you’re directing workers, you could end up on the hook for injury compensation should a worker get hurt following your instructions. Homeowner contractor liability may be avoided if you let the workers do the job you hired them to do. Therefore, you should pay attention during the hiring phase so you hire a company that’ll work independently and not put you at any liability risk.
Hiring a Homeowner Liability Attorney
If a contractor is injured while doing work on your property, the best thing to do immediately is hire a homeowner liability attorney. Our team at Sandberg Law Firm has been helping individuals protect their rights in court for years, and we can help you navigate a contractor injury lawsuit. Get in touch with us now to set up a free consultation. Contact us online or by calling (507) 282-3521.