Pursuant to the "exclusive remedy rule," as a general rule that is subject to only a few, very narrow exceptions, an employee of an Oregon business may not assert a claim/file suit against their own employer for injuries the worker sustains due to the employer's negligence; the employee's only relief is through a workers' compensation claim. However, if the employee sustains injury due to the negligence of a different company, i.e. a different subcontractor working on the same construction project, then the injured worker can assert a claim/file suit against that other company.
Several years ago our firm handled a case that provides a fairly classic example of claims of this sort. In that case, while doing some carpentry work on the second story of a building, our client fell through a hole in the roof that another company had failed to block­off, and sustained very, very serious injuries. Ultimately, our client was required to file suit against the company whose employees created, and failed to block­off, the hole. Shortly before the case was to go to trial, the cased settled for seven figures.
NOTE: These principles are not strictly limited to construction site injuries; an injured employee can assert a personal injury claim against another business if one or more employees of that other business cause the employee to suffer injury. One specific example that comes to mind is a case wherein a warehouse worker sustained significant injuries while operating a forklift, because an outside vendor that serviced the forklift did so negligently (performed faulty service on a lock­out safety switch) with the result that the forklift controls stopped working and the forklift crashed into metal shelving, crushing the worker. We have also represented many, many individuals who were injured in auto and truck accidents while they were on­-the-job.
Given this data that confirms the nature and extent of injury and losses that flow from being involved in a construction or workplace accident caused by the negligence of someone other that your own employer, you'll want to retain a firm with the experience required to: competently and timely investigate the accident facts; preserve all available evidence: handle all of the insurance­related aspects of the claim: and obtain fair compensation for you once your medical care is complete. At Phillip C. Gilbert & Associates our attorneys have decades of experience doing just that.