A 47-Year-Old Construction Worker Is Dead. The Arizona Wrongful Death Case Most Families Don’t Know They Have.
The call comes at 2 a.m. or 1 p.m. — whenever the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office finishes the call nobody in your family will ever be ready for. A 47-year-old man. A construction site near State Farm Stadium. A fight with a coworker that turned into a fatal shooting. The shooter called 911 and stayed on scene. The police are still sorting motive and charges.
If you are reading this because that 47-year-old is someone you love, we are sorry. We are not going to soft-pedal what the next weeks and months will look like. We are going to walk you through what Arizona law actually says about a death on a commercial construction site, who can be held responsible when a worker is killed by another worker, and what the family can do in the hours and days that follow — not months from now, hours.
Our firm, Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — has been representing injured workers and grieving families across Arizona and the country for more than two decades. The two attorneys who will be in the room with you are Ralph P. Manginello, our managing partner, who has spent 27+ years in courtrooms including federal court and is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Houston Bar Association, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, who is a former insurance-defense attorney trained inside the rooms where claims like yours are priced, denied, and devalued — and who now fights on the other side of that table for injured people and their families. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Hablamos Español.
This page is not a news article. The news has already been written. This page is the legal framework the news didn’t tell you, written for the people who need to know what happens next in Arizona when a construction worker is shot and killed on the job.
Who Can Be Sued in an Arizona Construction Site Shooting Wrongful Death Case
The defendant list in a case like this is rarely a single company. It is a stack — the same kind of stack we see in wrongful death cases against refineries, against trucking companies, and against any commercial operation where the work site is shared by multiple legal entities.
The Individual Shooter (the Coworker)
The shooter is the direct cause of the death. The criminal case will proceed separately in the Maricopa County Superior Court or the Glendale City Court (depending on charge), and the criminal process is entirely separate from the civil wrongful death case. A guilty plea or a verdict in the criminal case is not required to win the civil case, and the civil standard of proof is lower (preponderance, not beyond a reasonable doubt). The shooter’s personal assets, the homeowner’s policy on his residence (if any), and any personal umbrella coverage are all real targets, although they are usually thin.
The Direct Employer (the Subcontractor)
The default rule: immune under A.R.S. § 23-1022 unless the conduct rises to willful misconduct. We evaluate this from day one. If the employer knew the shooter was dangerous — prior fights, prior threats, prior discipline, prior complaints — and kept him on the site anyway, that is the fight we are willing to have against the bar.
The General Contractor (the VAI Resort Project)
The general contractor on a commercial construction project of this scale — the VAI Resort near State Farm Stadium is a multi-billion-dollar development in the heart of the Westgate Entertainment District — controls the entire site. The general contractor sets the safety culture, sets the rules about who can be on the site and under what conditions, hires and supervises the security contractor, and is responsible for coordinating the work of all the subcontractors. Under Arizona law and OSHA’s Multi-Employer Citation Policy (CPL 02-00-124), a general contractor that exercises operational control over a worksite can be held liable for hazards it knew about, hazards it created, and hazards it failed to correct even when the injury befalls a worker employed by a different subcontractor.
A worker being shot by a coworker is not a “freak accident” the law leaves to chance. It is a predictable outcome in any environment where (a) workers are under high-pressure deadlines in extreme desert heat, (b) a culture of unsafe conflict has been allowed to develop, (c) weapons are not screened at the gate, and (d) security is inadequate to detect and de-escalate. The general contractor’s job is to prevent exactly this.
The Property Owner / Developer
The VAI Resort project is being built on land owned or controlled by a developer. The property owner / developer has independent duties under Arizona premises-liability law to people lawfully on the property, and the duty is heightened for a high-risk commercial construction site in a high-traffic area. The developer cannot hire a general contractor and then claim blindness to what happens on the site it owns.
The Security Company (If Any)
Most large commercial construction sites in the Westgate / Sports and Entertainment District use a contracted security vendor — gate access, badge checks, perimeter patrol, incident response. If the security vendor failed to screen weapons, failed to patrol, failed to respond to prior fights, or failed to call law enforcement when prior violence occurred, the security company is its own direct defendant.
Pure Comparative Fault: A.R.S. § 12-2505
Arizona is a pure comparative fault state. Under A.R.S. § 12-2505, a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by the percentage of fault attributable to the plaintiff — but it is not barred by any percentage of plaintiff fault, no matter how high.
“The defense of contributory fault … does not bar recovery in an action by any party or the party’s legal representative to recover damages for fault resulting in death, personal injury, or property damage, if the contributory fault of the party … was not greater than the fault of the person against whom recovery is sought, but the damages allowed shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of contributory fault.”
— A.R.S. § 12-2505 (Arizona’s pure comparative fault statute)
In a case like this, the defense will try to argue that the decedent was partly at fault for the fight. We expect that. Under Arizona law, even if Mr. McFarlin is found 30% or 50% at fault for the altercation, his family still recovers 70% or 50% of the damages. That is the Arizona rule, and it is the rule we fight under.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Disappears
The case will be won or lost in the first seventy-two hours. Every record listed below has a destruction clock. The preservation letter we send the same day you call us is the move that makes the case.
The Personnel File of the Shooter
What it is: Hiring application, background check, MVR (motor vehicle record) review, prior employment verification, drug test results, performance reviews, disciplinary history, prior complaints against him, prior threats or violent incidents he was involved in, any “do not rehire” notations from previous employers.
Who holds it: The direct employer (the subcontractor that employed the shooter). Possibly the general contractor, if the shooter was badged onto the site through the GC’s system. Possibly prior employers. The staffing agency, if one was used.
How fast it disappears: Personnel records are typically kept for the duration of employment plus three years (per the FMCSA DQ-file retention rule if the employer is a motor carrier, and similar industry-specific rules apply elsewhere). A shooter who quits or is fired the day after the incident is the most likely to have his file “lost.” Demand preservation immediately. Spoliation letter before the file walks out the door.
The On-Site Surveillance Footage
What it is: Gate cameras, perimeter cameras, the inside of trailers, the badge-in system, possibly body cameras worn by security, the dashcams of any vehicles on the site.
Who holds it: The general contractor’s site security office, the property owner’s central security office, any contracted security vendor. The Glendale Police Department has its own body-cam footage, and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office will have the crime scene photos.
How fast it disappears: Most construction-site DVRs overwrite on a seven-to-fourteen-day cycle. Some are shorter. The Glendale Police will hold the crime scene footage they collected for the duration of the criminal case, but the site’s own footage is the most fragile. The preservation letter must go out the day you call us. The text of the demand must name the exact system and the date range.
The Site Security Logs and Gate Records
What it is: The log of who badged in, the log of vehicle entries, the log of any prior fights, the prior incident reports, the call-out records for the security vendor’s response time. In a high-profile Glendale site like the VAI Resort, there is a paper trail and a digital trail, and the digital trail is the one that will vanish.
Who holds it: The general contractor and the security vendor.
How fast it disappears: Some security companies overwrite gate records on a thirty-day cycle. Incident reports are kept on a rolling basis. Demand preservation now.
The Shooter’s 911 Call
What it is: The audio recording of the call to 911, the dispatch log, the Glendale Police Department Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) record.
Who holds it: The Glendale Police Department. The audio is generally retained for a fixed retention period, but the transcript of the call can be requested through the criminal discovery process once charges are filed.
How fast it disappears: Police CAD records are typically retained for the criminal case cycle plus a fixed period. The recording is the most stable of the four records. It is the most important single record of the shooter’s state of mind and the spontaneity (or not) of the violence.
The Personnel File of the Decedent
What it is: Mr. McFarlin’s own hiring file, his training records, his safety certifications, his prior incident reports, his time sheets, his paycheck records (which are also the proof of his earnings for the wrongful death damages calculation).
Who holds it: The direct employer. The general contractor’s site office for badge-in records.
How fast it disappears: Payroll records are typically retained for four years under federal law. Personnel records for the duration of employment plus three years. Demand preservation now to lock in the wage-loss calculation.
The Case Value: What an Arizona Wrongful Death of This Kind Is Worth
We are asked, often in the first call, “what is this case worth.” The honest answer is that the value of any wrongful death case depends entirely on the facts, and the facts of this case are still developing. We can give you the framework.
The damages recoverable under A.R.S. § 12-611 in an Arizona wrongful death case are:
- Economic damages. The lost financial support, services, and assistance the family would have received from Mr. McFarlin had he lived a normal life expectancy. For a 47-year-old construction worker, this is calculated from his actual earnings, his employer’s payroll records, his expected work-life expectancy, his fringe benefits, his household services, the value of the things he did at home that the family will now have to pay someone else to do, and the present-value calculation of every one of those numbers reduced to a lump sum today.
- Non-economic damages. The loss of love, affection, companionship, solace, society, comfort, protection, care, assistance, and guidance — the human losses no receipt measures. Arizona does not impose a hard cap on wrongful-death non-economic damages in the same way some other states do, but every case is a jury case, and jury values vary.
- Survival damages. The conscious pain and suffering Mr. McFarlin endured between the moment he was shot and the moment he died, plus the medical expenses incurred in that window and the funeral expenses. Survival damages are brought by the personal representative of the estate.
- Punitive damages. Where the defendant’s conduct shows a conscious disregard of a substantial risk — hiring a known-dangerous worker, ignoring prior fights, leaving a site unsecured, screening no one at the gate — Arizona law permits a jury to add punitive damages designed to punish and deter. Punitive damages are not automatic. They are reserved for the cases where the conduct is bad enough to deserve them. A construction site shooting at a high-profile public project, with prior warnings, may be that case.
For an Arizona construction worker wrongful death case with a 47-year-old decedent, the realistic case value range based on the framework above is $1.5 million to $6 million, with higher numbers possible when the facts show a corporate failure that is serious enough to support punitive damages. That is a framework, not a guarantee, and it will move as the evidence develops.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Why a Construction Site Case Is Not a “Personal Injury Case” — It Is a Workplace Case
If you have been searching for a lawyer after a death like this, you have probably typed some version of “construction accident lawyer near me” into a search bar. We want to flag a distinction that matters. A construction accident case — a fall from a scaffold, a trench collapse, a struck-by incident — is a workplace safety case with a different body of law than a car crash case. A construction site shooting case is a workplace violence case with its own OSHA framework, its own corporate-responsibility framework, and its own defendant stack that usually includes a general contractor and a developer on top of the direct employer.
If you also have a car accident case, or a truck accident case, or a refinery accident case, or a brain injury case, the team at Attorney911 has handled all of them. Ralph Manginello’s practice covers car accidents, 18-wheeler accidents, motorcycle accidents, brain injuries, and workplace accidents in the same firm. The full list of practice areas is here. For this case, the wrongful death and construction accident practices are the ones doing the work.
The Defendants’ Real Defense — And Why It Fails
We will close this section with the defense theory, because the family should hear it from us before they hear it from the other side.
The defense theory will be: this was a personal dispute between two employees, and the general contractor and the property owner had nothing to do with it.
The reason it fails: a commercial construction site of this scale in the Westgate Entertainment District, building a multi-billion-dollar resort next to State Farm Stadium, is not a back-alley confrontation. It is a controlled-access site with badge-in systems, a security vendor, a general contractor coordinating dozens of subcontractors, a developer with a multi-year capital investment at stake, and a duty under Arizona law and federal OSHA to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards. A worker being shot and killed by a coworker on that site is the foreseeable result of failures by every entity in the chain. The defense theory that the family is left to bear the loss of a 47-year-old breadwinner because the fight was “personal” is the theory Arizona’s comparative-fault statute and the workers’ comp third-party exception are designed to reject.
We do not file cases on theories. We file cases on evidence. The evidence in this case starts with the records we are preserving on day one.
The Phone Call
We know what you are feeling. We know the weight of the call you have not made yet. We know the question in your head — is there even a case, or is this just a tragedy the law leaves alone? The answer is no, the law does not leave this alone, and yes, there is a case. The law is on your side if the facts are on your side, and the facts are the records we are about to go find.
The call is free. The consultation is free. We work on contingency — no fee unless we win. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have a Spanish-speaking attorney on the team. We have been doing this for more than two decades.
1-888-ATTY-911.
Hablamos Español.
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Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.