Falling Object and Struck-By Accidents on Michigan Job Sites

Struck-by incidents are one of construction’s Focus Four killers. NIOSH counted about 150 construction struck-by deaths and roughly 14,000 serious injuries in 2020, with falling objects causing about 27 percent of the deaths. The category covers tools and materials dropped from floors above, loads that slip from cranes and hoists, walls and trusses that collapse during erection, vehicles and heavy equipment moving through crowded ground, and objects thrown by saws, grinders, and compressed air.

A hard hat is the last thing between a worker and what falls, and the law puts several protections in front of it. Struck-by cases ask which of those protections were required, which were missing, and whose responsibility they were. The work injury attorneys at Vahdat Weisman Law investigate struck-by and falling object injuries on job sites throughout Michigan at no cost to you. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free consultation. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover compensation.

The Protections That Were Supposed to Exist

Construction standards treat overhead and moving hazards as engineering problems, not luck. Scaffolds over walkways call for protection against falling objects, through toeboards, screens, debris nets, catch platforms, canopies, or barricading the area below, with the method matched to the hazard. Material staged at height must be secured against sliding and falling, with setback rules near edges. Hoisting is supposed to run over routes that minimize workers’ exposure, with swing radii barricaded and rigging inspected and rated for the lift. Vehicles with obstructed rear views need reverse alarms or a spotter. Tools have guards precisely because wood and metal leave blades at speed.

When those layers exist and are enforced, most dropped objects hurt no one. Struck-by injuries concentrate where a layer was skipped: the barricade nobody set, the net nobody hung, the laydown area placed over a route every trade used. Some cases are about site management. Others are about the specific crew whose load, wall, or material came down, and the distinction shapes who the defendants are.

Who Can Be Sued When Something, or Someone, Strikes You

Your employer, almost never. Michigan workers’ comp is the exclusive remedy against your employer, outside an intentional-tort exception requiring actual knowledge that injury was certain to occur and willful disregard, and coworkers in the same employ are immune too, apart from their own intentional torts. Comp pays medical care and wage-loss benefits, generally 80 percent of after-tax wages up to $1,201 per week for 2026 injuries, regardless of fault. What a third-party case adds is what comp never pays: noneconomic damages, and economic losses beyond comp’s caps.

The other trade. The most natural struck-by case: the crew above you was not yours. A different subcontractor’s worker dropped the tool, their materials slid from the edge they loaded, their wall came down during their erection sequence. The Michigan Supreme Court’s Loweke decision involved almost exactly this, a worker injured by cement boards another subcontractor had positioned, and it holds that a contractor’s contractual arrangements do not erase its common-law duty of care to the workers around its work. A subcontractor that created the hazard can be sued in ordinary negligence, with no need to satisfy the more demanding doctrine that governs general contractors.

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 and coordinating authority, against a readily observable, avoidable danger posing a high degree of risk to a significant number of workers in an area multiple trades shared. Overhead work above an access route everyone used, hoisting over an active work area, a missing debris net where three trades passed daily can present exactly those questions, and the Michigan Supreme Court’s 2024 El-Jamaly decision confirmed the exposed workers need not all be present at once, though the elements still have to be proven one by one. Our general contractor and subcontractor liability page covers the doctrine and how defendants attack it.

The crane, hoist, and rigging parties. Dropped loads bring in the crane contractor, the riggers, and, where hardware failed, the makers and suppliers of slings, shackles, and hoists. Crane cases have their own rulebook and their own page: crane accidents.

The equipment chain. Guards that failed on saws and nailers, retention systems that did not hold, alarms that did not sound: product claims against manufacturers where a defect existed when the unit left their control, and negligence claims against rental companies for their own failures of care. Struck by a vehicle or machine moving through the site, our heavy equipment accidents page covers those cases in depth; struck by public traffic in a road work zone, see road construction and work zone accidents.

The hard case deserves saying plainly: a worker struck by an object dropped by his own coworker, on a single-employer site, with barricades and nets where they belonged, may have comp and nothing more. Multi-employer sites are the norm in commercial construction, though, and on them the question of who else was involved has a real answer worth finding.

Injuries That Outlast the Impact

Struck-by injuries concentrate on the head, neck, and spine: traumatic brain injuries that surface as headaches, memory gaps, and personality change; crushed vertebrae; shoulders and hands shattered blocking what fell. Two practical points. Get evaluated even if the hard hat took the hit and you finished the shift, because brain injury and cervical damage can declare themselves over days, and the medical record connecting them to the impact is built now or fought over later. And preservation of the object, the rigging, and the damaged hard hat is lawyer’s work: preservation letters and inspection demands to the parties who possess them, sent in the first days, because a worker usually cannot take custody of company property himself.

Fatal struck-by accidents move families onto two tracks at once: comp death benefits, generally 80 percent of after-tax wages for up to 500 weeks to qualifying dependents plus a burial benefit capped at $6,000, and a wrongful death case, brought through the estate by a personal representative, against the responsible third parties. Our workplace wrongful death page explains both.

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

Struck-by cases turn on a reconstruction: what fell or moved, from where, under whose control, and past which missing safeguard. We work to preserve the physical evidence before the site resets, identify every contractor working above or beside the impact, pull the daily logs, delivery tickets, and site video that show who was where, obtain the MIOSHA file when the state investigates, and coordinate the lawsuit with your comp benefits, including the carrier’s lien. 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 advance case costs, we are available 24/7, and we serve clients in English and Spanish from our Livonia office. Related page: third-party work injury claims.

Frequently Asked Questions

• A tool dropped from a floor above, and I never saw who dropped it. Is there still a case? Sometimes, yes. The case asks who controlled the work above, what protection toeboards, nets, barricaded zones) was required and missing, and whether the GC allowed overhead work above an active route. Daily logs, manpower reports, and witness accounts can identify the trades above you even when no one saw the drop, though when no responsible party can be identified at all, that gap can be the case’s limit. It is exactly what the early records work is for.
• I was wearing my hard hat and still got a brain injury. Does the hat hurt my case? No. Wearing required protection takes away the most obvious blame argument and shows you did your part. Hard hats are built for limited impacts, not structural steel or a rigging failure, and the injury despite compliance is what the site’s other protections existed to prevent. Comparative fault can still be argued on other grounds, which is why the reconstruction matters.
• The load fell because a strap broke. Who is responsible? Potentially several parties: the rigging crew that selected and inspected the strap, their employer, the strap’s manufacturer if a defect existed when it left their control, and a supplier whose own carelessness furnished worn hardware. A strap can fail below its rating from wear, edge loading, or prior damage rather than defect, which is why the strap itself must be preserved and examined; lab analysis of the failure is how these cases are proven.
• My own coworker dropped the material. Am I stuck with comp? Against your coworker and employer, generally yes. But check the layers before concluding that is the whole story: whether the GC’s site rules required protection that was absent, whether staging or netting decisions belonged to another party, whether equipment failed. The full answer comes from the site’s contracts and safety plans, not from who was standing where.
• What should happen in the first two weeks? Report the injury in writing, get a full medical evaluation including head and neck, photograph the location from above and below if it can be done safely, collect witness names from every trade nearby, and get counsel moving on preservation demands for the object, the rigging, daily logs, and site video. Camera systems overwrite, and job sites reset quickly, so the earlier the demands go out, the more survives.

Talk to a Michigan Struck-By Accident Lawyer Today

The law required layers of protection between you and what fell. Whether they were in place, and whose job they were, is worth investigating. 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.