If you were hurt in a scaffold fall or collapse at work in Maryland, you generally have a workers’ compensation claim against your employer and, often, a separate injury claim against whoever built, supplied, inspected or controlled the scaffold. The first claim is automatic but limited. The second is where pain and suffering and full lost earnings are recovered.
Scaffolds are rarely one company’s responsibility. One firm erects it, another rents out the frames and planks, several trades work on it, and the general contractor controls the site. So the first question in a scaffold case is who touched this scaffold, not who signs your paycheck. For other kinds of site injury, see our page on construction accidents.
How scaffold accidents happen
- Missing guardrails, often taken down to pass material through and never put back
- Planks that break, shift or were never secured, including damaged or undersized boards
- Bad erection: missing braces, base plates set on mud or loose fill, ties to the building left out
- Overloading with block, equipment or too many workers
- Alterations made mid-job by a trade that did not build the scaffold
- Suspended scaffold failures on facade and window work: rigging, anchorage and hoist problems
- Falling tools and materials striking people below
- Power line contact when a metal frame is erected or a rolling scaffold is moved, which causes electrocution injuries
A scaffold fall is rarely a simple slip. It is usually a missing rail, a missing tie or a plank that should not have been there, and each of those belongs to someone.
The safety rules scaffolds must meet
Scaffolds are covered by a detailed federal construction safety standard, which Maryland enforces through its own program, Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH). Among its requirements:
- Fall protection, by guardrails or a personal fall arrest system, for anyone on a scaffold more than 10 feet above a lower level
- A design able to support its own weight and at least four times its maximum intended load
- Erection, moving, alteration and dismantling under the supervision of a competent person
- Inspection by a competent person before each work shift and after anything that could affect its structural integrity
- Training for the workers who use it
A violation is not automatically legal liability, but it is strong evidence of what a careful contractor should have done. The scaffold’s inspection tags, the competent person’s records and any MOSH findings after the incident are some of the most useful documents in these cases.
Maryland has no special scaffold statute like New York’s, which makes owners and contractors strictly responsible for height falls. Here a scaffold case is proven the ordinary way, by showing that someone was careless.
Workers’ compensation and the claim against someone else
Workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against your employer, and in exchange it pays without you having to prove fault. It covers treatment and part of your wages, and nothing for pain and suffering. The bar protects your employer only. On a scaffold job, the others who may be responsible include:
- The scaffold erector, where the structure was built or altered wrongly
- The rental or supply company, where components were damaged, mismatched or missing
- The general contractor, for site control, coordination and inspection
- Another trade that removed a guardrail, overloaded a platform or dropped material
- The building owner or manager, particularly on facade work using its own rigging or anchor points
- A manufacturer, where a hoist, coupler or frame failed, which is a product liability claim
One wrinkle is worth knowing. When a subcontractor has no compensation coverage, Maryland can treat the contractor above it as a statutory employer responsible for benefits, and that status can also shield the contractor from an ordinary lawsuit. Which company counts as your employer is a question to answer early, not assume. If no one in the chain carried coverage, Maryland’s Uninsured Employers’ Fund exists for that situation.
Where there is a third-party recovery, the compensation insurer generally has a right to be repaid out of it for what it has already paid, so the two claims belong together.
Hurt by a scaffold without working on it
Pedestrians, tenants and delivery drivers are hurt by scaffolds too: struck by debris on a sidewalk under a facade job, tripping over a base plate or brace left in a walkway, or hit when a rolling scaffold tips. None of them is limited by workers’ compensation. Their claim is an ordinary injury claim against the contractors and the property owner, and it follows ordinary Maryland rules, including contributory negligence.
Where the scaffold stood on a public sidewalk or against a public building, a government body may be involved, and claims against a government body can require written notice much sooner than any lawsuit deadline.
The injuries scaffold falls cause
Falls from even moderate heights cause brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, pelvic and heel fractures, and crush injuries. Collapses add entrapment and amputation. These are the cases where comp’s partial wage benefit falls furthest short, because the worker may never go back to the trade.
What to do after a scaffold accident
- Report the injury to your employer promptly and in writing. The compensation claim depends on it.
- Photograph the scaffold as it stood: guardrails, planks, base, ties and any inspection tag. Scaffolds are repaired, altered or taken down within days.
- Write down who built the scaffold and whose name is on the rented frames and planks, along with every other company on site.
- Get the names of coworkers who saw it, and of the person responsible for inspecting the scaffold.
- Do not give a recorded statement to another company’s insurer before getting advice.
- Ask us to send preservation letters for the components, the inspection records and any site camera footage.
The deadlines run on two tracks. The compensation claim needs prompt written notice to your employer and a separate filing with the Workers’ Compensation Commission. The third-party claim generally follows the three-year injury timeline, shorter where a government body owns the project, and a death follows the wrongful death rules.
