Construction Accident Settlement Calculator, from your losses, your share of fault and your state's rules.
Estimate a construction accident settlement against someone other than your employer, then read construction site accident law by state, quoted from each code.
How construction accident settlements are calculated
This calculator adds up the losses you enter, multiplies the injury losses for pain and suffering, and then applies your share of fault, your state's rules and any policy limit you give it. Here's what each step actually does to your number.
What the formula returns at these inputs
These are outputs of the calculator on this page, not settlements anyone received. Each row feeds the inputs described into the same formula the calculator runs, and the last column is the number it returns. We hold no dataset of closed cases, so we publish the formula working instead of figures we cannot source.
Every row is run in Arizona with no share of fault assigned to the claimant. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. Arizona is used because our state-law data records it as a pure comparative fault jurisdiction with no damages cap of any kind, so nothing here is clipped by a state limit and you can see the formula itself. Pick your own state in the calculator above and the number moves.
A construction site accident can mean two claims
A worker hurt on a construction site can have a workers' compensation claim and an injury claim against someone else on the site. They are different claims, under different rules.
Workers' compensation pays benefits for a work injury without anyone having to prove fault. It is a claim through your employer's coverage, it pays on a statutory schedule, and it has its own notice and claim deadlines. This site has a separate calculator for it.
A construction site holds more than one company. A general contractor, other subcontractors, the property owner, an equipment rental company and the maker of a machine may all have had a hand in what happened. A claim against one of them is an ordinary injury claim: it turns on fault, it can include pain and suffering, and it runs on the state's injury filing period. That is the claim the calculator on this page estimates.
The two claims meet in two places. Your state decides which companies count as your employer for compensation purposes, and so which of them a lawsuit can be brought against. And your state decides what the compensation insurer takes back from a recovery against someone else. The panel below quotes both, state by state.
Where a code could not be opened, the panel says so rather than guessing: Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin show no construction injury law here, because the codes could not be opened for this page.
Workers' compensation and the employer
Of the provisions read for this page, the panel quotes an exclusive-remedy provision for 29 jurisdictions.
An exclusive-remedy provision makes workers' compensation the employee's claim against the employer in place of a lawsuit. The provisions quoted on this page do not all say the same thing about their exceptions. Some name an employer that failed to carry the required coverage, some an injury the employer intended, and some the co-workers who share the employer's protection. The panel quotes each provision with the exceptions it states, and no exception is stated here that the provision does not.
This matters to the estimate in one way: the calculator is for a claim against someone else, because the claim against the employer is the compensation claim in the states whose provision is quoted. If you think an exception applies to your employer, that is a question for a lawyer in your state, with the provision the panel quotes in front of you.
General contractors, property owners and the other companies on the site
Whether a general contractor or a property owner is treated as your employer is set by each state's code, and the panel quotes the provisions read for 28 jurisdictions.
Some codes make a contractor that subcontracts work liable for compensation to a subcontractor's employees, in some only where the subcontractor carried no coverage. Some of the same codes then treat that contractor as an employer for the exclusive-remedy provision, which can close the lawsuit against it; others say nothing about that in the text read. Some reach an owner who hires work done; others leave the owner out.
Those differences decide which companies on a site a lawsuit can be brought against, and they cannot be stated as one rule. The panel quotes what each state's provisions say, in their own words, and adds nothing of its own about which company the law protects.
A construction accident lawsuit against someone else, and the insurer's share
The codes quoted on this page preserve the injured worker's claim against someone other than the employer, and say what the compensation insurer recovers from it: the panel quotes them for 29 jurisdictions.
A compensation insurer that paid benefits is not left out of a recovery against someone else. The provisions quoted on this page give it a lien, a right of subrogation, a credit against future benefits, or more than one of these, and they divide the attorney fees and costs of the recovery in different ways. Some let the employer or insurer bring the claim itself if the worker does not, after a period the statute sets.
The calculator does not compute the insurer's share. The provisions differ in what they reach and in how fees are divided, and a figure built from them would read as a rule of law. The panel quotes the provision for your state, and the estimate is the claim before it.
Construction safety statutes, and when they have civil effect
Of the provisions read for this page, the panel quotes a construction safety statute with a civil effect it states, or a court quoted with it states, for six jurisdictions.
A safety rule on a work site is one thing. A narrower question decides a lawsuit: whether a statute puts a duty on an owner, a general contractor or their agents for construction, demolition or work at height, and says that breaking it creates liability or is evidence of negligence in the injured worker's case. The provisions quoted on this page answer that question differently, and where none was found the panel says so, which is not a finding that none exists.
Where such a statute applies, it changes what has to be proven about fault, on the terms the statute sets. The panel quotes each one in its own words, with any limits it states.
Filing deadlines: the injury claim, the repose period and the compensation claim
Three clocks can run on one injury, and each starts from a different event.
The claim against someone other than your employer runs on the state's general injury filing period. Across the 51 jurisdictions in our data, that period runs from 1 to 6 years, with 25 using 2 years. The panel prints it for the state you pick, with the provision it is cited to, and in Tennessee it is the earliest the deadline can fall, not necessarily the deadline itself.
A repose period for building work is a different clock. It runs from the completion of an improvement to real property, not from the injury, and it can end a claim against a builder, contractor or designer of the work before the injury period runs out. It never lengthens it. The panel quotes a repose provision for 27 jurisdictions.
The compensation claim has its own deadlines: a notice to the employer and a claim filed with the state board, commission or court. The panel quotes them for 28 jurisdictions, in their own words.
In Colorado, Hawaii and Kentucky, the state also has a separate filing period written for motor-vehicle claims. It could reach a worker struck by a vehicle on a site, and it cannot reach a worker who fell, so this page shows the general period and the panel says the other one exists, with its length and its citation.
Fault, and the employer's share
Whether a jury may assign a share of fault to the employer in the worker's lawsuit against someone else is set by each state; the panel quotes a provision on it for 25 jurisdictions.
Your own share of fault reduces what you recover, and in some states a high enough share bars the claim. The calculator lets you set that share yourself and assumes none because of your trade or the site.
The employer is a harder question, because in the states whose exclusive-remedy provision is quoted here the compensation claim stands in place of a lawsuit against it, with the exceptions each provision states. Some codes let fault be assigned to a person who is not a party; some do not; some speak to it only through the compensation insurer's lien. Where nothing on it was found in the provisions read, the panel says so.
When to talk to a construction accident lawyer
This site is not a law firm, does not refer anyone to a lawyer, and cannot say what a lawyer would recover.
The questions on this page are the ones that decide a construction injury case, and each is answered by your state's own law: which companies can be sued, what the compensation insurer takes back, whether a safety statute applies, and which clock runs out first. A lawyer who handles construction injuries in your state can answer them for your facts. Bring the written injury report, the names of every company on the site, photographs, witness names, your medical and pay records, the compensation insurer's letters and the provisions the panel quotes.
The law that decides who an injured construction worker can claim against, state by state
Pick a state to see the filing period for a claim against someone other than your employer, and, in the provisions' own words with the copy read named: whether workers' compensation is the only claim against the employer, how the law treats a general contractor and a property owner, the claim against someone else and what the compensation insurer takes back from it, any construction safety statute with civil effect, the repose period for building work, the compensation notice and claim deadlines, and fault assigned to the employer.
Each topic quotes the provisions read for this page. It does not say how a court has applied them, and the calculator above does not use them: its figure is for a claim against someone other than your employer, and workers' compensation is a separate claim.
Choose a state to see what the provisions read for this page say.
What actually moves your settlement
Two cases with the same medical bills can settle for very different amounts. These are the variables that pull them apart.
Filing deadlines by state
Once this deadline passes, your case is gone, regardless of how strong it was. The calculator counts each period from the date of the incident, and a lawyer in your state can confirm when yours began.
Do you need a lawyer?
- Minor injury only, no lasting impact
- Clear liability, soft-tissue injury with a fast recovery
- Insurer's first offer meets your documented damages
- You're comfortable negotiating and have time to document
- Any surgery, hospitalization, or permanent impairment
- Disputed liability, multiple parties, or commercial defendant
- Insurer is delaying, denying, or lowballing
- Policy limits exceeded or underinsured issues
- You're unsure what your case is worth, which is what this tool is for