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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
Three thousand pounds. That's what one cubic yard of dirt weighs. Picture a small car sitting on your chest. Now picture it dropping on you with zero warning because a trench wall just let go.
Workers caught in a cave-in don't get time to react. The soil pins them flat. Ribs crack. Pelvises shatter. If the dirt covers their face, they suffocate before anyone can dig them out. Crush syndrome can show up hours after a rescue where the worker walked away looking fine, then ended up in the ICU with kidney failure from toxins released when pressure came off a pinned limb.
Some workers get hit with a double threat out here in Phoenix. Garfield, Woodland, parts of older central Phoenix have utility lines buried in spots nobody mapped properly. So you've got a trench that's already unstable, and now the crew is digging next to a live power line they didn't know was there. Electrocution on top of a potential cave-in.
Fatal collapses leave families scrambling. No paycheck coming in. Funeral bills stacking up. The wrongful death claim against the contractor who skipped safety steps might be the only way that family sees any accountability at all. Those claims cover funeral costs, the income that family depended on, and something the law calls loss of companionship, which is really just a way of saying the person is gone and nobody can fix that.
OSHA data shows trench collapses kill roughly 25 workers nationwide every year, and the families left behind turn to us for on-the-job fatal accident claims that go beyond the workers’ comp death benefit.
You can drive across Phoenix and find soil that changes character every hundred yards. Over near Ahwatukee you get that rock-hard caliche. A mile north, loose sandy fill that moves if you look at it wrong. Contractors who treat all Phoenix soil the same way are asking for trouble.
Then monsoon season rolls around. July, August, those storms dump water fast. A trench that was holding fine at 7 a.m. can turn into a death trap by 2 p.m. once rain saturates the walls. The number one mistake on Phoenix job sites is contractors who dig trenches before monsoon season and leave them open through the storms. The walls weaken every single day.
OSHA spells it out pretty clearly, and it's not complicated [1]:
The numbers tell the story. Trench work kills at a rate 112 percent higher than other types of construction. Arizona alone has had at least seven trench fatalities since 2015. ADOSH ran 393 trench inspections during that stretch. But inspections only help if contractors actually follow the rules between visits, and plenty of them don't.
Trench collapses are among the most fatal categories inside our Phoenix construction injury files, and the OSHA excavation standards we rely on here also drive liability across scaffolding, crane, and ladder falls.
Most people assume one company screwed up and that's who you sue. It is rarely that simple with trench accidents.
The general contractor runs the show. They pick the schedule, set the budget, and decide how much money goes toward safety equipment. When the GC decides that renting a trench box costs too much and tells the crew to just dig fast, that's on them.
Property owners catch liability too. Say a developer hires some excavation outfit they found online, cheapest quote wins. That crew shows up without proper shoring? The developer who hired them shares the blame under Arizona premises law.
Equipment gets people hurt too. A trench box rated for Type B soil that gets used in Type C conditions because somebody read the spec wrong? Now the manufacturer, the supplier, and the crew that installed it are all potentially on the hook.
Your damages in a trench accident case can include:
All that construction happening along the I-10 and Loop 202 corridor means more excavation, more trenches dug in a hurry, and more chances for something to go wrong.
The same general-contractor control test that drives scaffold collapse liability in Phoenix applies here — if the GC directed the means and methods, they share the exposure.
Listen, the workers' comp adjuster is going to tell you one thing: this is all you get. Medical bills covered, partial wages replaced, end of story.
That is not the whole picture. Not even close.
Arizona workers' comp puts a ceiling on your recovery [3]. No pain and suffering. No full wage replacement. And absolutely no punitive damages against the company that put you in harm's way by ignoring basic safety rules.
But here's the thing. A third-party claim is a completely separate legal action. It goes after the parties who caused the collapse but weren't your direct employer.
Think about who else was on that job site. The general contractor who set an impossible timeline. The engineering firm that never tested the soil. The rental company whose trench shields were the wrong size. Those are all third parties, and each one can be sued in civil court even while your workers' comp claim moves forward on its own track.
What does a third-party claim get you that comp does not?
One thing you need to know. Arizona gives you two years from the date of the injury to file suit. Wrongful death claims get the same two-year window from the date of death. In Maricopa County, courts enforce that deadline strictly.
Contractors love this move. Their insurance adjuster calls you up and says something like, well, you did enter the trench voluntarily. Or, you should have spoken up about the missing shoring.
Arizona has a comparative fault law, ARS 12-2505 [2]. What that means in plain terms: even if you bear some responsibility for what happened, you don't lose your right to compensation. A jury assigns percentages. If they say you were 20 percent at fault and the contractor was 80 percent at fault, you still collect 80 percent of the total.
Think about that for a second though. What construction worker has the power to tell the foreman, nope, I'm not getting in that trench until you bring shoring? You'd be off the job by lunch. The contractor controls whether safety equipment shows up on site. The contractor makes the call. Blaming the worker who followed instructions is a tactic, not a fact.
When insurance companies try this, we pull OSHA inspection records, site photos, and statements from other workers on the crew. Usually the evidence shows exactly who made the decision to skip safety measures.
A jury came back with a $20.5 million verdict after a construction worker suffered high-voltage burns and lost a hand because the equipment on site was defective. The defense tried everything to avoid responsibility. The verdict said otherwise.
We settled a scaffolding fall case for $3.6 million. The company argued our client was not actually their employee. But the evidence showed they controlled every aspect of the work, which made them responsible.
Another client fell while trimming trees, fractured his spine, and ended up paralyzed. We recovered $500,000 to cover his long-term care and the wages he would never earn again.
Every case is different. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
When someone calls us after a trench collapse, here is what actually happens.
We bring in experts right away. A soil engineer looks at the conditions, the type of fill, how deep the trench went, whether the walls were sloped correctly. An OSHA compliance specialist reviews the contractor's safety record and compares it to what the regs require. Sometimes we hire a construction safety reconstructionist who physically models how the collapse happened.
Evidence collection is urgent because trench sites get cleaned up fast. We go after OSHA inspection reports, site photos, weather records for the day of the collapse, and maintenance logs for any trench boxes or shields that were on site. If the contractor tries to destroy or alter evidence, we file preservation demands.
Then we map out who is liable. General contractor, subcontractors, equipment rental companies, property owners, engineers. Every party that contributed to the unsafe conditions gets included in the claim.
Insurance companies lowball trench cases because they know workers are hurting and desperate. We don't accept that. If the offer is unfair, we prep for trial. Our Phoenix office is near Encanto, and we handle every trench case on contingency. You owe us nothing until we recover money for you. Call us at (602) 905-7766.
Trench cave-in investigations demand the same urgency the Phoenix injury practice we run brings to every serious case — engineering experts on site within 48 hours, preservation letters the same day.
The first few minutes after a trench collapse are chaos. But what you do next can make or break your case. Here is the sequence.
1. Get 911 on the phone immediately. Phoenix Fire has specialized trench rescue teams with heavy equipment designed for exactly this. Whatever you do, do not jump back into that trench to dig someone out by hand. Secondary collapses kill rescuers.
2. Go to the ER even if you feel okay. Crush syndrome doesn't announce itself. A worker gets pulled out, walks around, feels sore but functional. Six hours later he's in kidney failure because the crushed muscle tissue released a flood of toxins once the pressure came off. The ER can catch that before it turns deadly.
3. File a report with your employer, then call ADOSH separately. That's Arizona's Division of Occupational Safety and Health. You want two separate records of this incident. Ask your employer for a written copy of their accident report.
4. Grab your phone and start taking pictures. The trench depth, the soil, the fact that there's no shoring in sight, the spoil pile sitting right on the edge. Get photos of any OSHA safety placards posted on site. Write down every co-worker's name who saw what happened.
5. Don't give the contractor's insurance company a recorded statement. Don't sign anything. And if they wave a check at you within the first week, that is a red flag, not a gift. Early offers are calculated to close the file cheap.
6. Get a trench accident lawyer involved fast. Contractors have been known to backfill a collapsed trench within days, and once that happens, the physical evidence is gone. A preservation letter from an attorney forces the company to leave the site untouched.
Our attorneys have handled personal injury cases across Arizona and California. We know how Phoenix insurance companies operate, and we know how to push back.
That number reflects real results for real families — medical bills paid, lost wages recovered, and futures protected.
You pay nothing upfront. Our fee comes out of your settlement or verdict. If we do not win your case, you owe us nothing.
Accidents do not follow business hours. Neither do we. Call (602) 905-7766 any time — nights, weekends, and holidays.
Our Phoenix team works out of 2700 N Central Ave, Suite 320. We know the roads, the courts, and the insurance adjusters you are up against.
“After a crash, you need a team that answers the phone, explains your options, and fights for every dollar you are owed. That is what we do at The Simon Law Group.”
Over 250 years of combined attorney experience
Phoenix office at 2700 N Central Ave, Suite 320 |
Licensed in Arizona and California
A cave-in where trench walls give way, burying workers under soil that can weigh thousands of pounds per cubic yard. One cubic yard of soil weighs about 3,000 pounds, enough to pin and suffocate a worker in seconds.
Two years from the date of injury under Arizona law. Wrongful death claims from trench collapses also carry a two-year window from the date of death. Courts in Maricopa County enforce this deadline strictly.
Yes. A third-party liability claim against a negligent contractor, property owner, or equipment supplier is separate from workers' comp. You can pursue both at the same time. The third-party claim can recover damages that workers' comp does not cover, including pain and suffering and full lost earnings.
Protective systems like shoring, shielding, or sloping for any trench 5 feet or deeper. A competent person must inspect the trench daily before workers enter. Workers need a safe exit point every 25 feet, and spoil piles must sit at least 2 feet back from the trench edge.
Value depends on injury severity, lost income, and which parties are liable. Trench cases involving permanent disability, spinal injuries, or wrongful death can reach six figures to several million dollars. Our firm has recovered over $600 million for clients across all personal injury case types.
Yes. Our Phoenix office at 2700 N Central Ave, Suite 320 handles trench and construction accident cases on contingency. That means no fees unless we win. Call (602) 905-7766 for a free consultation.
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