Construction professionals face a myriad of legal challenges. Many of them find themselves caught up in legal battles with employers, customers, or employees.
The major problem is that most construction employers and employees don’t understand the legal implications of their actions. That’s probably why some employees and attorneys take advantage to file for injury claims – hence costing companies a lot of money in terms of legal costs and paying claims.
The following are some of the common challenges faced by construction professionals:
- Finding the right lawyer
This is one of the common challenges that most construction workers face. Most of them are not able to find the right type of lawyers to understand and appropriately deal with their issues.
The problem is that some lawyers take up jobs that they are not qualified or even accredited to do. That is why most construction professionals end up losing their cases when they are sued by their clients or employees. The best thing to do is to conduct a thorough search of lawyers who are well versed in personal injury law.
One of the ways to achieve this is to find injury lawyers with reviews online. Through the online reviews, you will be able to see feedback from people who have previously been served by a particular lawyer.
- Workplace safety
This is a major hurdle for most construction companies and their employees. Most states require construction companies to fulfill certain levels of safety requirements before they are permitted to commence operations.
Nonetheless, not all companies often fulfill all employee safety requirements. This noncompliance leaves employees vulnerable to workplace injury. At the end of the day, it is the employer who suffers when an injury claim is launched successfully.
- Meal and rest period compliance
As a construction employee, you should be familiar with the meal and rest period laws. It is important to note that different states have different meal and rest period laws. For example, some states prohibit employers to keep workers for more than five hours without a meal.
This, therefore, means if an employee is not aware of such a law, then employers are likely to take advantage and exploit them. Some construction workers are often afraid to speak out against violations – for fear of victimization and reprisal.
- Employment agreements
This is another challenge that most construction professions face. In most cases, disagreements arise when the employment contract is not clear. Some employers intentionally issue unclear employment letters with the intention of exploiting their employees.
For instance, there are employers who claim to have agreements for independent contractors, yet they are unable to fulfill the requirements associated with independent contractual agreements.
- Inability to afford personal injury lawyers
Some construction workers often fail to get justice simply because they are unable to hire injury personal injury lawyers. Besides that, there are several other legal costs associated with filing a personal injury case.
That’s probably why most workers are unable to file personal injury claims. Others fail to do so with the fear that they might lose their job source of income.
In general, there are many legal woes faced by construction professionals. In most cases, it is the construction employees who bear the brunt of noncompliance to labor laws by construction companies.