Albuquerque Crane Accident Lawyer

Crane Accidents in Albuquerque

Federal data on crane fatalities over a recent seven-year period found that just over half of the workers killed were struck by an object or by the equipment itself, most often a load falling from the crane or something the crane set in motion. Nearly half of those deaths were in private construction. The detail that matters most for injured people is this: the worker killed usually wasn't the operator. Riggers, signal persons, laborers on the ground, and workers from other trades who happened to be under the load are the typical victims.

Cranes are also the most heavily regulated machines on a job site. Since 2018, federal rules have required crane operators in construction to be certified and then evaluated by their employer on the specific equipment they run. There are rules for ground conditions before a crane is assembled, for clearance from power lines, for who can give signals, and for inspections at every shift. When a crane accident happens, one of those rules was usually broken somewhere in the chain.

If a crane accident injured you or killed someone in your family, contact us for a free consultation. Crane cases involve more companies than almost any other construction claim, and identifying all of them early is what determines what a family can recover.

How Crane Accidents Happen

• Dropped or swinging loads. Rigging that wasn't rated for the load, hooks without latches, loads that weren't balanced, and lifts made over people. This is the single largest cause of crane deaths.
• Contact with power lines. A boom or load line touches an overhead line and the current runs through the crane and anyone touching it. Federal rules require a minimum clearance and specific precautions when a lift is near lines.
• Tip-overs and collapses. Outriggers set on ground that wasn't compacted or tested, lifts beyond the load chart, and booms extended past their rating. Wind is a factor here, and Albuquerque's spring wind season is a hazard crane crews plan around.
• Boom and jib failures. Structural cracks, worn pins, and hydraulic failures that inspection should've caught.
• Assembly and disassembly. Some of the most dangerous work happens when the crane isn't lifting anything: raising and lowering booms, pinning sections, and removing counterweights.
• Falls. Workers riding the load, working at height during rigging, or climbing the structure without fall protection.

Injuries We See in Crane Cases

The injuries in crane cases are the ones that define catastrophic claims: crush injuries and amputations from falling loads, electrical burns and cardiac injury from power line contact, spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries from falls and struck-by events, and deaths. When a crane accident is fatal, the family's wrongful death claim proceeds against every company that shared responsibility.

Who Is Responsible in a Crane Accident

A crane lift on an Albuquerque site can involve six or more companies before anyone counts the workers. Each one has defined duties under federal safety rules, and each one is a potential defendant if it failed them.

The crane owner or rental company. Most cranes on construction sites are rented. Whether the rental included an operator, and who agreed to inspect and maintain the machine, is spelled out in the rental contract and often decides who's liable for a mechanical failure.

The operator's employer. The company that employs the operator is responsible for certification, for evaluating the operator on that equipment, and for the operator's judgment on the day of the lift.

The controlling contractor. Federal rules put specific obligations on the contractor controlling the site, including making sure the ground can support the crane before it's set up and coordinating work near power lines.

The rigging crew and signal person. Rigging has to be inspected and rated for the load. The signal person has to be qualified. When either fails, the company employing them is responsible.

The lift director or lift planner. Critical lifts require a plan. A plan that got the weights, the radius, or the ground conditions wrong is a professional failure with its own liability.

The manufacturer. Design and manufacturing defects in structural components, hydraulics, load-moment indicators, and anti-two-block systems support a product liability claim.

The utility. Utility owners must provide voltage information when work is near their lines, and in some circumstances share responsibility for contact incidents.

Because most crane victims work for someone other than the company that caused the failure, workers' comp exclusivity rarely blocks these claims. It protects your own employer from suit for ordinary negligence. The rental company, the controlling contractor, the rigging subcontractor, and the manufacturer get no such protection.

What We Investigate

Crane cases are document cases. We secure the lift plan and load chart, the crane's inspection records and annual certification, the operator's certification and employer evaluation, the rigging inspection records, the rental agreement, the site's power line survey and clearance plan, the ground-condition assessment, weather data for the day of the lift, and the state safety bureau's investigation file. A crane engineer is retained early, and we send preservation demands so the crane, the rigging, the load, and any failed components aren't repaired or returned before they're examined.

What a Crane Injury Claim Can Recover

For a worker injured by a company other than his or her own employer, a personal injury claim recovers what workers' comp won't: full lost income and diminished earning capacity, the cost of care beyond what comp covers, compensation for pain and permanent disability, loss of consortium for a spouse, and punitive damages where the conduct was reckless, which crane cases involving ignored safety rules sometimes are. Wrongful death claims recover for the family's losses when the accident is fatal.