Caddo Parish · Louisiana

Shreveport Construction Accident Lawyers

Shreveport construction accident lawyers across from the Caddo Parish courthouse explain how a job-site injury claim works, from workers compensation to third-party suits. No fee unless we win.

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Trey Morris

Shreveport construction work sits on the highway and interchange jobs along I-20 and I-49, the medical-district builds near the Ochsner LSU Health campus on Kings Highway, and the casino and hospitality projects on the Red River waterfront, where heavy equipment and large crews share one footprint. A worker hurt on one of those sites is taken to Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport, the Level I trauma center on Kings Highway, or to Willis-Knighton Medical Center on Greenwood Road. When police respond, the Shreveport Police Department writes the report inside the city limits and the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office writes it outside them, and that report and the agency’s investigation records become part of the evidence. A Caddo Parish suit can be filed at the Caddo Parish Courthouse, 501 Texas Street, in the First Judicial District Court. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers is at 509 Milam Street downtown, across the street from the courthouse. We identify every contractor on the site and request the incident report.

The law that governs the claim is Louisiana law, and it is the same in every parish. A Caddo Parish job-site injury runs on two tracks at once: a workers compensation claim against the company that signs your paycheck, and a third-party negligence claim under La. C.C. Art. 2315 against any company outside workers compensation’s protection whose crew, equipment, or shortcut put you in the hospital. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers starts that file with the employment question under La. C.C. Art. 2320 (who employed the worker at fault, and whether he was doing his job when it happened), because the first words out of the other side are exclusive remedy, the Louisiana rule that generally stops you from suing your direct employer, or a general contractor that counts as your statutory employer, in civil court. That phrase is not the whole case.

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  • $32,195,000Industrial / Workplace

    Failure to maintain proper safety protocols led to an explosion at an industrial plant causing a series of catastrophic injuries from broken bones, burns, spinal injury, and mental anguish.

  • $31.5 MillionIndustrial / Workplace

    Brain and spinal injuries followed an oil-field company failing to maintain equipment and provide a safe work site.

  • $1.65 MillionIndustrial / Workplace

    At a worksite, an excavator operator dropped a crane mat onto our client.

  • $1,315,000Industrial / Workplace

    An oil-field safety violation injured our client.

  • $975,000Industrial / Workplace

    The other vehicle failed to yield the right of way and collided with our client, who suffered back injuries.

  • $740,000Industrial / Workplace

    The at-fault driver failed to yield the right of way and collided with our client, who suffered neck injuries.

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts.

Trey Morris Injury Lawyers has handled construction injury claims in Shreveport and across Louisiana for more than two decades.

Construction Site Accidents in Shreveport and Caddo Parish

Construction is one of the most dangerous industries in Louisiana. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks fatal occupational injuries by state, and construction sits among the top categories for Louisiana worker deaths year after year.

Industrial and energy work across the parish carries its own hazards, and Louisiana industrial injury lawyers handle the overlap where a construction accident is also an industrial worksite injury.

The First Judicial District Court hears the full range of personal injury litigation, third-party construction claims against general contractors, subcontractors, equipment owners, and property owners included. If your site was across the river in Bossier Parish, the suit can be filed in the 26th Judicial District Court in Benton.

This week, write down the full name of every company that had people on that site: the general contractor, your employer, the crane or equipment outfit, the property owner. Names on paper become defendants later.

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Workers Compensation and the Exclusive Remedy Doctrine

Exclusive remedy closes a door. Workers compensation is generally the only claim you have against the company that hired you, and the same protection covers a statutory employer (La. R.S. 23:1032, 23:1061): a general contractor whose own contract with the owner includes your employer’s work, or a company that a written contract with your employer names as your statutory employer. It leaves open your claims against companies outside that protection, which is why a construction file is worth reading twice.

Comp pays your medical treatment and a share of your lost wages whether or not anyone was careless, and you prove no fault to get it. The trade is that the benefits are capped and comp pays nothing for pain and suffering. That gap is what the third-party claim is for.

If a company outside that protection caused your injury, such as another subcontractor whose crew created the hazard, the outfit that owned or made the failed equipment, or a general contractor or property owner that is not your statutory employer, you file against it while your employer’s carrier keeps paying benefits. The two claims are not alternatives: they run on different rules, name different defendants, and pay for different things, and in most cases you pursue both at the same time.

One wrinkle to know now rather than at the settlement table: your employer’s comp insurer generally has the right to be paid back out of the third-party money for what it spent on you. That lien is not always collected at full value, and how it gets negotiated changes what lands in your hands.

Ask the comp adjuster in writing for a printed benefit ledger, everything paid on your claim to date, medical and indemnity, itemized. That page is the number the lien argument runs on.

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  • Adam W.
    Shreveport Office · Oct. 16, 2026

    Trey Morris what a great experience if I ever have to suggest a lawyer's office Morris is my first choice will be suggesting to friends and family

  • Jaime C.
    Shreveport Office · May 4, 2026

    I had a great experience with [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] in Shreveport.Trey Morris and his team really took care of everything from the beginning and kept me informed the whole time. They were easy to work with and always made sure I understood what was going on. I truly felt like they fought for me.

  • Dena H.
    Shreveport Office · Jun. 2, 2025

    I would greatly recommend [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] wholeheartedly, I have known Kristen for years and to know that she has moved to such a wonderful law firm and continues to be such a wonderful person, extremely knowledgeable in her field.I highly recommend her as a paralegal to answer all your questions, as all of the group, couldn't ask for more professional and helpful law firm that puts you first and at ease.

  • Kasey L.
    Shreveport Office · Apr. 28, 2025

    Maliyah and Leah have been nothing but great!They are always so pleasant to speak with, very informative, and truly go above and beyond to assist. One of the things I appreciate most is that they always pick up the phone, making communication effortless. It's clear they genuinely have your best interests at heart. I Highly recommend them.

  • Caroline M.
    Shreveport Office · Apr. 28, 2024

    [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] is an amazing personal injury firm.Meghan Nolen and her team are extremely capable, professional and knowledgeable!

  • Meyoka A.
    Shreveport Office · Apr. 29, 2023

    I got into an accident and I didn't know who to call.A friend of mines told me to call [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] and I did. They changed my life and I never felt better about that decision. Thank you all

  • Shawanda H.
    Shreveport Office · Apr. 29, 2023

    They was so amazing, communication was awesome!Made sure I was comfortable with my case and I’m grateful for them!

  • Catherine H.
    Shreveport Office · Apr. 29, 2022

    [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers]yer has been the biggest help to me, i highly recommend this company.They are all so nice and they treated me like family.

Testimonials do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

Third-Party Liability: Who Can You Sue Beyond Your Employer?

The work in the civil claim is naming the right defendants. The right to be paid at all comes from La. C.C. Art. 2315, the article the Louisiana law of negligence rests on: every act of a person that causes damage to another obliges the one at fault to repair it. On a construction site, that obligation reaches well past the company on your paycheck.

A general contractor that is not your statutory employer can answer for an unsafe condition it controlled, if it knew or should have known of the hazard and failed to use reasonable care to fix it. Courts look at who carried safety responsibility in the contract and at who was running it on the ground, and those are not always the same company. A property owner or custodian answers for a dangerous condition on the same terms: it must have known or should have known of the defect and failed to use reasonable care (La. C.C. Art. 2317.1).

Subcontractors whose people or equipment hurt you are defendants too. A sub’s crane operator drops a load onto you and that sub has civil exposure even though you clocked in for somebody else. La. C.C. Art. 2320 is the mechanism: respondeat superior makes an employer answerable for the damage its employees cause in the exercise of the functions they are employed for.

Respondeat superior matters for a practical reason. The man who made the mistake rarely has the money to pay a judgment; the company that directed him does. Proving the employment relationship, and proving he was doing his job when it happened, is central work rather than a technicality.

Pull the site sign-in sheets, daily reports, or badge records if you can still get to them, and note which company each name belonged to. If that paper is already out of reach, give us the date and the names you remember.

OSHA Violations as Evidence of Negligence

An OSHA citation written up after your Shreveport accident can be offered in a Louisiana civil case as evidence of the standard of care, subject to the rules of evidence. OSHA standards set the federal safety floor every Caddo Parish site has to clear. The citation is not proof of liability by itself. It is evidence that a specific safety rule applied and was broken, and you still have to show the rule was meant to protect someone in your position and that the violation caused your injury.

Hold onto that distinction, because the defense leans on it: your lawyer still has to connect the broken rule to what happened to your body. OSHA investigation records, the inspector’s notes, and the contractor’s citation history are among the first documents we request in discovery.

A general contractor can answer for a subcontractor’s OSHA violation when the general kept control of the hazard. Your direct employer may be the sub that got cited, and the general’s supervisory role can still pull it into the case.

If OSHA came to your site, note the date they were there and the inspector’s name if anyone gave it to you. We request the file; that detail speeds it up.

Evidence Preservation and Spoliation

A job site does not wait for you. The morning after an accident, equipment gets moved, repaired, or hauled off, and crews finish and scatter to the next job. The condition that hurt you is often corrected within hours, which is good news for the next man up there and a problem for your claim if nobody photographed it first.

Spoliation is the destruction, alteration, or loss of evidence a party had a duty to preserve. When a responsible party lets site conditions, equipment, or records disappear after notice of a claim, a court can impose consequences for the loss.

That is why Trey Morris Injury Lawyers sends written preservation letters to the general contractor, the subcontractors, and the equipment owners once the facts give an honest basis for a claim. The letter puts them on formal notice to hold the equipment itself, the daily logs, maintenance logs, inspection records, photographs, and internal emails about the accident. A company that destroys or alters that material anyway has handed you an argument in the litigation.

Preserve what you control too: photographs taken before repairs, witness names and cell numbers, your medical records, and the tools, harness, boots, and hard hat you had on, kept in the condition they were in. Records from the hospital that treated you, dated the day it happened, are part of the evidence from the start.

Put your gear in a box today without cleaning or repairing it, and write out your own account of the accident while you can still see it. Ask every hospital and clinic that has seen you for a full copy of your chart, not the discharge summary, with itemized bills.

Types of Construction Accidents in Shreveport

OSHA’s Fatal Four are the four leading causes of construction fatalities: falls, struck-by incidents, electrocutions, and caught-in or caught-between accidents. Those four account for most construction worker deaths every year, and all four turn up regularly in Caddo Parish claims.

Falls from heights kill more construction workers than anything else: scaffold collapse, leading-edge falls, ladder failures, falls off roofs and elevated platforms. When fall protection was missing or rigged wrong, the companies responsible for it carry exposure for the injuries and deaths that follow.

Struck-by means a worker hit by a falling object, a swinging load, or a moving vehicle. A dropped tool off an upper floor can be fatal before the man below has a second to look up. When a crane, forklift, or truck strikes a worker, the analysis turns on the operator’s conduct, the maintenance records for that machine, and whether anyone was controlling traffic on the site.

Caught-in and caught-between covers a worker pulled into rotating machinery, pinned between moving equipment and something fixed, or buried in a trench that gave way. Bulldozers, excavators, and concrete mixers are the usual machines. Trench cave-ins are the subset nobody survives without immediate extraction.

Electrocutions come from overhead power lines, unprotected wiring, or defective equipment. You do not have to be the electrician. Workers in the next trade over get hurt when the area was never cleared or energized equipment was never isolated.

A scaffold collapse rarely takes down one man. Several go with it in a single event, each with an independent claim against whichever of the scaffold installer, the general contractor, or the equipment owner was at fault and sits outside workers compensation’s protection.

Louisiana Tort Reform and Filing Deadlines

Louisiana calls the filing deadline the prescriptive period; most states call it the statute of limitations. You have two years from the day you were hurt to file the third-party construction suit (La. C.C. Art. 3493.1). Blow it and the claim is almost always gone for good, however clear the fault was.

Comparative fault is the Louisiana rule that cuts what you collect by your own share of the fault. Under La. C.C. Art. 2323, for accidents on or after January 1, 2026, a finding that you were 51% or more at fault ends the case with nothing. At 50% or less, your damages are reduced by your percentage. That is the 51% bar, and one point is the whole case. Defense lawyers and adjusters build a construction file around pushing your number over that line, usually by arguing you knew the risk or broke a safety rule, so the fault evidence has to be gathered early rather than at the first mediation.

Write your date of injury on the front of a folder and count two years forward. That is the outside edge of your case, and everything else works backward from it.

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What Compensation Does Louisiana Law Allow After a Construction Accident?

A third-party civil claim pays both economic and non-economic damages.

Economic damages are the medical bills you have and the ones ahead of you, the wages you lost while you were out, and loss of earning capacity when the injury permanently cuts what you are able to make. Loss of earning capacity is the gap between what you could have earned over your working life and what you can earn now; a vocational expert calculates it and an economist reduces it to present value. Future care and lifetime earnings figures hold up only with testimony from treating specialists, vocational experts, and economists. Nobody wins those numbers by estimating them on a legal pad.

Non-economic damages cover the pain, the mental anguish, and the permanent physical limits you are left with. Louisiana law allows them in civil tort claims. What they are worth turns on how bad the injury is, how long the pain lasts, and what it took out of your day. Permanent disability keeps producing damages, through your working years and past them.

If a worker died of his injuries, the surviving family has claims under Louisiana’s wrongful death statutes. The wrongful death claim and the survival claim travel the same civil road as any other third-party negligence suit and face the same comparative fault rules, but the wrongful death claim has its own deadline: the longer of one year from the death or two years from the injury (La. C.C. Art. 2315.2). Where the injury left permanent, catastrophic harm, our catastrophic injury lawyers page covers that ground.

Put the rest in that folder: the benefit ledger, your medical records, the photographs, and the company names. Bring it to Milam Street and we will tell you what is missing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between workers compensation and a third-party construction accident claim in Louisiana?
Workers compensation is a no-fault system that covers your medical expenses and a portion of your lost wages when you are hurt on the job. It is generally the exclusive remedy against the company that hired you and against a statutory employer, such as a general contractor whose own contract includes your employer's work. A third-party claim is a separate civil lawsuit against a company outside that protection whose fault contributed to your injury, such as another subcontractor, an equipment owner or manufacturer, or a property owner that is not your statutory employer. The third-party claim allows recovery for pain and suffering, full lost wages, and future damages that workers compensation does not cover. In most cases where a third party contributed to the injury, you can pursue both at the same time.
Who can be sued in a Shreveport construction site accident besides my direct employer?
Potential defendants include other subcontractors whose workers or equipment caused the injury, the owner or maker of defective or poorly maintained equipment, and a general contractor or property owner that was at fault and is not your statutory employer under La. R.S. 23:1061. Under the principle of respondeat superior in La. C.C. Art. 2320, an employer is answerable for the negligent acts of its employees committed within the course of their work, which is how a subcontractor is drawn in for the conduct of its crew. The specific defendants depend on whether a contract makes the general contractor or owner your statutory employer, who controlled the hazard, who employed the negligent worker, and whether any equipment failed. Identifying every viable defendant requires a review of the contract structure, the site control documents, and the OSHA investigation record.
What is the filing deadline for a construction accident lawsuit in Caddo Parish?
The prescriptive period for a third-party personal injury claim from a construction accident in Louisiana is two years from the date of injury under La. C.C. Art. 3493.1. A prescriptive period is the Louisiana term for the legal filing deadline, and missing it almost always bars recovery permanently. Civil construction injury claims arising in Caddo Parish can be filed in the First Judicial District Court at 501 Texas Street in Shreveport.
How do OSHA violations affect my construction accident case in Louisiana?
An OSHA citation issued after your accident can be offered as evidence of the standard of care that applied to the site, subject to the rules of evidence. Your attorney uses that record to establish negligence by connecting the violation to the mechanism of your injury. The citation is not proof of liability by itself, and you still have to show the rule applied, was meant to protect someone in your position, and that the violation caused your injury. OSHA investigation files, inspector notes, and citation history are primary discovery targets in construction accident litigation, and a general contractor can face exposure for a subcontractor's violation when the general contractor retained control over the condition that caused the harm and is not your statutory employer.
Can I file both a workers compensation claim and a personal injury lawsuit at the same time?
Yes. When a third party outside workers compensation's protection (not your employer, a statutory employer, or a co-worker) contributed to your injury, you can receive workers compensation benefits from your employer's insurer and pursue a civil lawsuit against the third party at the same time. The workers compensation insurer typically holds a lien against any third-party recovery for amounts it paid in benefits, and that lien must be accounted for in the settlement calculation, along with the credit against your future benefits that any money left to you after that repayment can create. The lien is not always enforced at full value, and how it is handled in negotiation directly affects your net recovery.
What evidence should I preserve after a construction site accident in Shreveport?
Preserve photographs of the accident scene before anything is moved or repaired. Collect the names and contact information of every witness on the site. Keep your medical records from Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport, Willis-Knighton, and every treating provider. Hold onto your equipment and personal protective gear in the condition it was in at the time of the accident. Save any OSHA inspection notices and any communications from your employer or the general contractor after the accident. Write your own account of what happened as soon as you are able.
How does Louisiana's 51% comparative fault rule apply to construction accident cases?
Under La. C.C. Art. 2323, for accidents on or after January 1, 2026, if you are 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. If you are 50% or less at fault, your damages are reduced proportionally by your fault percentage. Defense attorneys and insurance adjusters frequently argue that the injured worker assumed the risk or violated a safety rule in order to push the fault percentage above 50%. Establishing the fault shares of each party, including the general contractor, subcontractors, equipment owners, and the site owner, requires early evidence gathering and expert testimony from safety engineers and accident reconstructionists.

Last updated October 17, 2026