Infrastructure Bill Eliminates Strict Liability for Fall Injuries on Federal Projects Starting in 2026

The Infrastructure Expansion Act of 2025 is setting up a major shift in who pays when a construction worker gets hurt on a federally supported project. This bill changes the game for injury lawsuits on infrastructure sites—think highways, bridges, airports—that receive any form of federal cash, loans, or even tax credits.

The Fine Print: Goodbye, Absolute Liability

Right now, in some states, if you get hurt in a gravity or elevation-related accident—like falling off scaffolding or being struck by a hoisted beam—the property owner or contractor can be held to an "absolute liability" standard. That means they are responsible for the injury regardless of whether they were negligent, specifically because of the high risk involved in working at height. This bill effectively eliminates that standard for any project that touches federal money, which is a huge chunk of all major infrastructure work.

Instead of absolute liability, the bill mandates a "comparative negligence" standard for these specific types of injuries. What does that mean for the worker? If you’re injured, your compensation can be reduced by the percentage you are found to be at fault. Say you slipped on a ladder because the contractor didn't secure it properly, but you weren’t wearing the safety harness provided. Under absolute liability, you might get full compensation. Under this new comparative negligence rule, if a court decides you were 30% responsible for your injury, your payout gets cut by 30%. The bill is very clear that this new federal rule overrides any conflicting state laws and requires these cases to be heard in federal court.

Who This Hits Hardest

This change primarily affects “Covered Persons,” which the bill defines broadly as anyone supervising or performing work on the project. If you’re a union electrician, a foreman, or an independent contractor working on a federally funded highway interchange, this is your new reality starting January 1, 2026. The goal, supporters might argue, is to reduce massive, unpredictable liability costs for contractors and encourage more infrastructure investment. It certainly gives property owners and contractors a significant shield against lawsuits.

But for the worker, this is a major reduction in protection. It means that when accidents happen in high-risk environments—where even minor carelessness can lead to life-altering injury—the burden of proof and the financial risk shifts more heavily onto the injured party. Contractors now have a powerful tool to argue that the injured worker's "carelessness" (like not following a specific safety rule, or even being impaired) was a main cause of the accident, allowing them to dodge full responsibility. While the bill thankfully doesn't touch existing state workers' compensation laws, those benefits are often minimal compared to the costs of a catastrophic construction injury.

The Scope Creep of “Federal Financial Assistance”

One detail that makes this bill’s impact massive is the definition of a "Project" and "Federal Financial Assistance." A project includes building, repairing, or demolishing major infrastructure. Federal financial assistance is defined very broadly—it includes direct grants, loans, and tax credits or tax-exempt bonds. Because tax breaks are so common in large-scale development, this new liability rule could end up applying to a huge number of construction sites that you wouldn't typically think of as purely "federal" projects. This means the federal government is using its funding power to preempt state tort law, centralizing these specific injury cases in federal courts and ensuring the comparative negligence standard is applied across the board for high-risk work.