Primary Location
Torrance Personal Injury Lawyers
2916 W 164th St Second Floor, Torrance, CA 90504
Phone: (424) 622-0812
Call us at (855) 855-8910
Call us at (855) 855-8910
Injured by a contractor on a military base? Workers' comp is rarely your only claim. Our attorneys pursue the negligent contractor for the full cost of your injuries. Free case review. No fees or costs unless we win.
A member of our intake team will reach out shortly. To speak with someone now, call (424) 622-0812.
Third-party negligence on military installations can leave workers and service members with catastrophic, life-altering injuries, even when the government itself isn’t at fault.
Not every serious injury on a military base happens in combat or during training exercises. Sometimes it happens because a contractor skipped a safety step that takes an afternoon to complete. That is what happened to our client, a construction worker who fell headfirst into an 80-foot missile silo at Vandenberg Space Force Base. A subsequent internal review revealed the incident was entirely preventable.
Often yes, but usually not against the military itself. On most base projects the work is done by private contractors, and a contractor whose negligence hurt you can be sued like any other company. The question is not whether you can sue the base. It is which contractor made the decision that hurt you.
Claims against the government work differently. A claim involving a federal agency does not proceed the way a claim against a private landowner does. It runs through a separate federal process with its own requirements, its own bars, and its own deadlines. That doesn’t mean no one is accountable. On most base projects the practical path runs through the private contractors, and identifying the correct contractor defendants early is critical. For a claim against a private contractor in California, the deadline is generally two years from the date of injury [4].
That distinction is where most of these cases are won or lost. The government owns the land and the mission, but the day-to-day safety work is pushed down a chain of private companies. Those companies carry their own insurance, their own safety obligations, and their own paper trail.
Our client was employed by a contracting firm assisting with retrofitting work on a decommissioned missile silo, an 80-foot-deep shaft that needed to be temporarily covered while work continued. A metal cover manufactured specifically for that purpose was sitting idle a short distance away, according to internal accounts, with a crane available to move it. Instead, our client and a coworker were directed to lay wood planks across the opening and cover them with plastic sheeting.
While placing a board, our client caught his foot on a metal railing, lost his balance, and fell headfirst into the open silo. A fall-protection harness kept him from falling the full 80 feet, but he struck the interior wall of the shaft with tremendous force.
In the aftermath, the general contractor reportedly acknowledged that no Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) had ever been completed for the site. A JHA is a basic safety document meant to identify and eliminate exactly the kind of risk that led to this fall. A subcontractor representative also acknowledged that the purpose-built silo cover should have been used instead of improvised wood and plastic sheeting.
This is the structural problem on almost every base project: the government owns the land and the mission, but the day-to-day safety work is handed to a private contractor, and from there to the subcontractors it hires. When any link in that chain cuts a corner, the people doing the physical labor absorb the risk, not the agency overseeing the project.
The fall caused a serious spine injury that required surgical treatment. Our client underwent multiple procedures and a long course of rehabilitation, and continues to receive treatment years after the incident.
Usually the contractor that controlled the specific safety decision, and often more than one company shares the blame. Several businesses work a base project at once, each carrying its own safety duties. Every one that should have caught the hazard is another party to pursue, and another insurance policy behind your claim.
Injuries to workers and service members on military bases raise legal issues that don’t come up in a typical workplace accident case. Large-scale government construction and infrastructure projects typically involve a prime contractor, one or more subcontractors, and specialty labor contractors. Determining which entity controlled the specific safety decision that caused the injury, and which entities had a duty to intervene, requires unpacking the entire contractual chain.
These are the questions that decide who pays:
That last question comes up more often than people expect. A subcontractor is frequently the first to see a hazard. Whether it had the contractual power to halt the job can decide the entire case.
Federal rules set the floor for this work. OSHA’s construction standard requires fall protection at height [1], and Cal/OSHA enforces its own rules on California job sites [2]. A violation is not automatic proof of liability. It does establish what the standard was, and a jury hears it the same way.
Yes. Workers’ comp is your remedy against your own employer, but it does not stop you from suing a different company whose negligence caused the injury. The two run side by side and pay for different things. Comp covers medical care and part of your lost wages. A third-party case can cover the rest.
Workers injured on the job typically have a workers’ compensation claim against their direct employer running in parallel with any third-party civil claim against other negligent contractors on the site. Coordinating these two tracks, and making sure a workers’ comp lien doesn’t quietly erode a third-party recovery, takes deliberate strategy.
California Labor Code section 3852 is what allows the third-party case [3]. Your employer or its insurer can also place a lien on what you recover, under Labor Code section 3856 [3]. That lien is where injured workers lose money quietly. Handled badly, the comp carrier takes a large share of a settlement you waited years for. Handled well, it gets negotiated down.
Expect a fight about your employment status, too. Defendants sometimes argue an injured worker was really their employee, which would push the whole claim back into workers’ comp and end the civil case. On a base project where crews are layered across several companies, that argument comes up often.
Get medical care, report the injury in writing, and get a lawyer moving on evidence preservation right away. Safety forms, incident reports, and root-cause findings sit on the contractors’ own servers. They are not required to hold them for you. Once equipment is moved and files age out, the proof of what went wrong is gone.
Safety observation forms, incident reports, and root-cause investigation materials are often controlled entirely by the contractors being investigated. Getting preservation letters out immediately, before equipment is moved or documents are “lost,” is essential.
In the first days, this is what protects your claim:
Base access makes this harder than an ordinary job site. Once you are off the installation, going back to photograph anything is not simple. That is one more reason speed matters here.
This case resolved on confidential terms following litigation in both California state and federal court. While the settlement terms are confidential, our client’s case shows what is at stake on military installations and defense-related job sites. When a prime contractor treats basic safety analysis as optional, workers pay the price in ways that follow them for years.
If you or someone you love has been seriously injured on a military installation or defense-related project, whether as a civilian contractor, base support worker, or service member, and a contractor failed to follow basic safety protocols, it’s worth having the facts reviewed by an attorney experienced in this specific intersection of government contracting and personal injury law. These cases can carry more than one deadline depending on who is responsible, and some are short enough to bar a claim entirely if missed, so early legal guidance matters.
The Simon Law Group’s Justice Team represents injured workers, contractors, and their families throughout California and Arizona in cases involving third-party negligence, defective safety equipment, and unsafe conditions on both private and government job sites. There is no cost to talk to us, and no fees or costs unless we win.
This post describes matters of public record. Specific settlement terms are confidential and are not disclosed here.
We also handle job site injuries by location. See our Torrance construction accident lawyer page, our Seal Beach construction accident lawyer page, and our Phoenix construction accident lawyer page. You can also request a free case review.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Sources:
[1] 29 CFR 1926.501, Duty to Have Fall Protection (OSHA)
[2] Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA)
Usually not directly. But on most base projects the work is done by private contractors, and a private contractor whose negligence caused the injury can still be sued. Identifying the right contractor defendant is the heart of these cases.
Yes. Workers’ comp is your remedy against your own employer. Labor Code section 3852 also lets you pursue a third-party claim against other negligent contractors on the site. The two run in parallel and pay for different things.
It’s a written safety document that breaks a task into steps, names the hazards, and sets the controls. If one was never completed for the work that hurt you, that gap is evidence. It shows the risk was never evaluated before anyone was sent in.
It matters a great deal, and defendants often fight about it. If they can show you were their employee, your claim gets pushed into workers’ comp. If you were not, the third-party case stands.
It depends on who you are suing. A claim against a private contractor in California is generally two years from the date of injury. A claim that involves a federal agency runs on a separate track with its own administrative deadlines, which can be considerably shorter. Because the answer turns on who is responsible, call early rather than waiting.
A claim against a negligent contractor is a separate question from any claim against the government. If a private company’s equipment, maintenance, or safety failure caused your injury, that claim is worth having reviewed.
Call (424) 622-0812 or fill out our form. No fees or costs unless we win.
Our Location
