Construction Site Electrocution and Electrical Injuries in Michigan

Electrocution is one of construction’s Focus Four, the four hazard categories that together cause most deaths in the industry. The electrical numbers tell a specific story: per ESFI’s analysis of 2011 through 2024 federal data, contact with overhead power lines accounts for 42.8 percent of workplace electrical fatalities, the leading cause, and about 70 percent of the workers killed were not in electrical trades, on a job site that means the crane and boom operators, roofers, framers, painters, and laborers working under and around lines, and the trades sharing temporary power that was strung in a hurry. A worker does not even have to touch the line: electricity arcs, and it travels through equipment and the ground itself.

Whether anyone beyond workers’ comp answers for a construction electrocution depends on the facts, but the candidates are many: the utility that owns the lines, the general contractor that planned the work beneath them, the electrical sub that built the temporary system, the makers and suppliers of the equipment involved. Finding out is our job, and sometimes the honest answer is that comp is the whole case. Vahdat Weisman Law work injury attorneys investigate construction electrocutions throughout Michigan at no cost to you. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free consultation. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover compensation.

How Job Site Electrocutions Happen

The overhead line cases come first in the fatality data. Booms, cranes, ladders, scaffolds, and dump beds contacting energized distribution lines kill workers in seconds, and the rules anticipate exactly this: work near power lines requires planning, equipment-specific clearance distances, and de-energization or other defined protections before the work begins, and site layout decisions, where materials are staged, where trucks raise their beds, where ladders go up, are supposed to account for the lines everyone can see. The Michigan Supreme Court’s 2024 El-Jamaly decision arose from an overhead line contact on a construction project, a worker whose long tool reached a line over the work area, and the Court held that his claims against both the general contractor and the utility deserved a jury. The record there is a roadmap for these cases: a prior line incident on the same project, warnings that blew down and were not replaced, disputes over the line’s height and sag, and what the utility had been told.

Below grade, the danger is buried lines. Michigan’s MISS DIG law requires notice before digging through the 811 system so buried electric and gas lines are located and marked, and the ticket records it generates document who called and what was marked, a starting point the rest of the excavation evidence builds on. Excavation contact cases are covered in more depth on our trench and excavation page.

Then the site’s own wiring: temporary power without ground-fault protection, damaged cords running through water and traffic, panels left open, circuits energized before the electrical sub finished, tools with broken grounds. MIOSHA’s construction electrical standards address exactly these conditions, requiring ground fault protection or an assured grounding program for the temporary systems that fail in ways permanent buildings do not. Arc flash, backfeed from generators, and circuits energized during commissioning round out the picture, injuring workers who never touched a conductor.

Who Can Be Sued, and On What Theories

Your employer, almost never; however, the site was run: Michigan comp is the exclusive remedy against your employer, with an intentional-tort exception requiring actual knowledge that injury was certain and willful disregard, which courts rarely find satisfied. Comp pays medical care and wage-loss benefits, generally 80 percent of after-tax wages up to $1,201 per week for 2026 injuries. The claims beyond comp depend on what the investigation shows about everyone else.

The utility. Line owners have duties concerning clearance and maintenance of their lines and how they respond to what they are told, from de-energization and insulation requests for planned work to prior contact reports at the same location. Utilities defend these cases hard, and the claims are fact-intensive, but El-Jamaly shows a Michigan jury can hear them. What the utility knew about the project, and when, is often the pivotal fact, which is why utility records get demanded immediately.

The general contractor. Under Michigan’s common work area doctrine, a GC can be liable where it failed to take reasonable steps, within its supervisory authority, against a readily observable, avoidable danger that posed a high degree of risk to a significant number of workers in an area shared by multiple trades. Energized hazards over shared areas, lines above a laydown zone several trades used, and ungrounded temporary power feeding multiple crews are the kind of dangers the doctrine addresses, though each element must actually be proven. A separate theory can reach an owner that retained genuine control over how the work was done, a demanding standard in Michigan. The elements and their defenses are detailed on our general contractor and subcontractor liability page.

The electrical subcontractor. Michigan law holds that a contractor’s contracts do not erase its common-law duty of care to the people its work can foreseeably harm. A painter shocked by a circuit the electrical sub energized without notice has a direct negligence claim against that sub, and comp does not bar it, though the comp carrier’s lien will still apply to any recovery.

The equipment chain. Aerial lifts and cranes with failed insulation or missing proximity warning systems, generators and cords defective from manufacture, tools that energized their housings: product claims against manufacturers, judged by the product’s condition when it left their control, and negligence claims against rental companies that supplied damaged equipment through their own lack of reasonable care. Preserve the equipment before it is repaired or returned; its condition is the proof, and alteration questions decide product cases.

The Injuries and the Fatal Cases

Survivors of job site electrical contact face more than entry and exit burns: cardiac injury, nerve damage, chronic pain, cognitive and psychological changes, and, in falls triggered by shock, orthopedic and brain trauma on top. Document every symptom, including the ones that surface weeks later, because late-appearing symptoms are the ones insurers dispute, and a contemporaneous record is the answer.

Electrical contact is also among the likeliest construction accidents to be fatal. Families face comp death benefits, generally 80 percent of after-tax wages for up to 500 weeks to dependents plus a capped burial benefit, and a wrongful death case, brought through the estate by a personal representative, against responsible third parties for what comp does not measure. Defendants in these cases routinely ask juries to assign fault to the immune employer to shrink their own share, which is why the third-party case has to be built on who controlled the planning, not just who signed the paycheck. MIOSHA investigates fatal electrocutions and its file matters, though a citation is not itself a civil case; the utility’s records, the GC’s planning documents, and the physical evidence are obtained by demand, and early. Our workplace wrongful death page covers how the claims run together.

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

Construction electrocution cases combine utility law, the common work area doctrine, product liability, and comp coordination, and they depend on early evidence: the equipment, the site photos, the utility correspondence, the MISS DIG tickets, the temporary power layout, the pre-task planning records. We move on all of it in the first weeks and carry the case costs while you focus on recovery. Founding partners Kara E. Weisman and Jordan S. Vahdat have each been honored as Super Lawyers Rising Stars, and our attorneys are members of the State Bar of Michigan and active in the Michigan Association for Justice. We are available 24/7, and we serve clients in English and Spanish from our Livonia office. Related pages: workplace electrocution and electrical injuries for non-construction settings, crane accidents, and third-party work injury claims.

Frequently Asked Questions

The lines were right there, and everyone could see them. Doesn’t that make it the crew’s fault? Visible lines are why the law requires planning, clearances, and utility coordination before work starts near them, and under the common work area doctrine, a readily observable danger is part of the claim against a GC, not a defense to it. Michigan compares fault rather than barring the case outright, though fault above 50 percent would cut off noneconomic damages, so the deeper questions matter: who planned the work there, who called the utility, who staged the materials under the lines. Those decisions usually sit above the crew.

My husband was killed when his boom touched a line. The company says it was instant and no one could have done anything. Is that true? The moment may have been instant. The weeks before it were not. Crane and lift work near energized lines is supposed to be planned so the moment never arrives: clearances, spotters, de-energization requests, route and staging decisions. The investigation asks who made those decisions and who skipped them, and it needs to start before the site changes. Opening an estate so a personal representative can act is an early step we handle with you.

I was shocked by temporary power another contractor installed. Can I sue them? Yes, potentially. A subcontractor owes ordinary care to the workers around its work, and comp immunity protects only your own employer and coworkers. The temporary system’s layout, its ground-fault protection, and who energized what, and when, are documentable facts, and they decide the claim.

The tool I was using had a broken ground prong for weeks. Who answers for that? Possibly a rental company that supplied it that way, the manufacturer if the defect traces to design or manufacture, and the parties responsible for any assured grounding program the site was supposed to run. Your own employer’s tool management stays behind comp’s bar, which is exactly why the tool’s origin and service history matter. Preserve the tool and let us trace where it came from.

What is the deadline? Negligence and product claims generally run three years, and wrongful death claims follow the underlying claim’s period with a possible savings window tied to the estate’s opening. The practical clocks are shorter: utility records, site conditions, and equipment leave fast, and if a third-party case sits unfiled for a year, the comp carrier can gain the right to pursue it. Call before the site finishes changing.

Talk to a Michigan Construction Electrocution Lawyer Today

Work near electricity is supposed to be planned before anyone leaves the ground. When it was not, the records will show it. Call Vahdat Weisman Law at (734) 469-4994 or contact us online for a free consultation. Available 24/7, serving all of Michigan, with Spanish-speaking staff.

Dedicated to Justice. Devoted to You. Winning for Your Future.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and prior results do not guarantee future success.