Construction and Workplace Accident Claims in Cyprus

A fall from height, a trench, a load that moved

Construction is the part of this work the firm comes to from the other direction. We act on building contracts, permits and project set-up, and in disputes over defects, delay and unpaid certificates, which means we already read site records, programmes and sub-contracts for a living. When somebody is injured on a site, those are the documents that decide who is answerable.

The same is true of workplaces that are not building sites. A warehouse, a kitchen, a workshop or a delivery round produces the same question: who was in control of the thing that caused the injury, and what did they know about it beforehand.

What to send us in a first enquiry

The date of the accident and where the site is. The name of your employer and, if it is different, the name of the main contractor and of the owner or developer. Any accident report or entry made at the time, the photographs anyone took, and the first medical record. If you were not directly employed but engaged as a subcontractor or through an agency, say so at the start, because it changes who the claim is against.

Who is answerable

More than one person usually is

A construction site is the one workplace where the people present are almost never all employed by the same company. That is the reason the first question in a site accident is not what happened but who was in control of the part of the site where it happened.

The employer of the injured person, whether that is the main contractor, a subcontractor or a labour agency
The main contractor, where the condition that caused the injury was part of the site as a whole rather than of one trade's work
Another subcontractor, where the work of one trade created the danger to another
The owner or developer, depending on what was retained rather than passed on
The supplier, hirer or maintainer of plant, scaffolding or equipment that failed

How responsibility is divided between those parties is usually written down before anybody is hurt, in the building contract and the sub-contracts. Those are agreements governed by the Contract Law, Cap. 149, and they are frequently the first documents we ask to see. What one company promised another about supervision, access, plant and site safety is evidence, whatever else it is.

The firm's guide to the key parties to a construction contract sets out who those parties usually are and what each of them is engaged to do.

The permit tells you who was supposed to be watching

Under the Streets and Buildings Regulation Law, Cap. 96, and in particular section 9A, no building permit is implemented unless a supervising engineer has been duly appointed, and the owner must notify the start of the works, and any suspension of them, in writing.

For an injured person that provision is useful for a reason that has nothing to do with the building. It means a lawfully permitted site has a named supervising engineer and a documented date on which work began or was suspended. Those are records that exist independently of the contractor, and they can be sought at a point when the contractor's own account of the site is the only other thing available.

Whether the supervising engineer bears any responsibility towards a person injured on the site is a separate question, and not one this page answers. Establishing who that engineer was, and whether the permit position was in order at all, comes first.

Where works were carried out without the permit that Cap. 96 requires, or otherwise than in accordance with it, that is a fact about the site worth knowing early. The firm's guide to building defects in Cyprus deals with the permit position in the context of the building itself.

Evidence

A site changes within hours

This is the category where the scene is most likely to be altered before anyone photographs it, and often for perfectly legitimate reasons.

Work resumes. The excavation is backfilled, the scaffold is struck and re-erected, the broken guard rail is replaced the same afternoon by a person acting entirely in good faith. None of that is concealment, and all of it destroys the thing that would have shown what the site looked like at the moment of the accident.

Photographs of the exact location, taken before anything is moved, including what was underfoot and what was overhead
The entry made in whatever accident record the site keeps, and any report sent to the employer, the main contractor or an authority
The identity of the supervising engineer and the permit position, as above
Recorded footage, where the site or the neighbouring property has cameras. This is the item most often lost, because systems commonly record over themselves within days, and a written request to preserve it changes what exists later
The names, telephone numbers and nationalities of everyone who was present. Construction workforces move between sites and between countries, and a witness who is easy to find in week one can be impossible to find in month six
Inspection, hire and maintenance records for any plant, lifting equipment or scaffolding involved
The first medical record made after the injury, and every one after it

If you are still working on the site, ask for a copy of what was written down at the time rather than relying on being able to get it later.

What the claim covers, and the time you have

A claim is directed at the injury and at its documented consequences: the medical treatment, the effect on the work you can do, and the effect on the rest of your life. The heads of loss usually examined are set out in the firm's guide, Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus. What any individual claim is worth depends on the medical evidence and on documented loss, and cannot be estimated from the type of accident.

A claim for damages for personal injury must generally be brought within three years under the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012, and time usually runs from the date of the injury. Contract claims have six years, so if the site accident sits alongside a contractual dispute between companies, two different periods may be running at once on the same set of facts.

Where the injury has left you unable to return to the same work, keep the record of what you earned before it, because that is the part of the claim that is proved on documents rather than on recollection.

Questions we are asked

I was not employed by anyone on the site. I invoice for my work.

Tell us that at the start. Whether a person on a site is an employee, a subcontractor or engaged through an agency changes who the claim may be brought against and on what basis. It does not follow that there is no claim. It does follow that the documents we need are different ones.

Nobody wrote anything down at the time.

That is common and it is not the end of it. Write your own account now, with the date, the time, the exact place on the site and the names of everyone you remember being there, and keep it. A contemporaneous note made by you is worth more than a recollection given a year later, and it costs nothing to make.

I am worried about my job.

It is a reasonable concern and you are entitled to raise it before you do anything. The employment consequences of bringing a claim are a separate subject from the claim itself, and we would rather discuss them with you at the outset than have you decide the question alone.

The building itself was defective. Is that the same claim?

No, though the same facts may support both. A claim about the building is a contract claim about what was promised and what was delivered, and it is dealt with under Construction. A claim about an injury is about the duty owed to the person who was hurt. The limitation periods are different, which is the practical reason for keeping them apart.

Written on this subject

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A few sentences is enough: what happened, where the site is, and the date. We reply within one business day. Please do not send confidential documents until we confirm we can act.

Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia. Telephone +357 22 680 330, office@kleanthousplatis.com, or klitos@kleanthousplatis.com.

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Or write to us directly at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or call +357 22 680 330.

Construction and Workplace Accidents

A fall from height, a trench, a load that moved

More than one person usually is

The permit tells you who was supposed to be watching

A site changes within hours

What the claim covers, and the time you have

Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus: Liability, Evidence and Damages

Building Defects in Cyprus: Legal Remedies

The Key Parties to a Construction Contract

Before You Sign a Building Contract in Cyprus: Ten Clauses That Protect You

Tell us briefly how we may assist