Every figure below is the researched rule for Rhode Island, with its citation and a direct link to the official source so you can confirm it yourself. Covers statutory interest and when it starts accruing, how Actual Cash Value is determined and whether labor can be depreciated, whether a “no damages for delay” clause is enforceable and how long you have to file, the state-specific inputs behind a fully burdened labor rate and who can be held liable for a construction-site injury.
The rate itself and the date interest starts running, which differs by claim type in most states.
12% / year, fixed (compounds on prior prejudgment interest at judgment)
A flat 12% per year applies to civil actions where a verdict or decision awards pecuniary damages, running from when the cause of action accrued (unless the contract sets its own rate). Once judgment is entered, postjudgment interest at the same 12% accrues on both the original judgment principal AND the prejudgment interest already added to it, effectively compounding at that one point.
From when the cause of action accrued, unless the contract already provides for its own interest
R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-21-10 adds interest at 12% per year from the date the cause of action accrued, but the statute expressly doesn't apply where the contract itself already has its own interest provision, in which case the contract's own terms control instead. Absent a contract interest clause, this is effectively the breach date.
Same rule as contract claims: from when the cause of action accrued, essentially the date of loss
The same statute governs property-damage and other tort verdicts, adding 12% interest from the date the cause of action accrued, which for a property-damage claim is generally the date of loss.
How ACV is determined, whether labor cost can be depreciated and the rules on releasing withheld recoverable depreciation.
Replacement cost minus depreciation (by binding insurance regulation)
A binding Rhode Island insurance regulation defines ACV as the replacement cost of property at the time of loss less depreciation and requires insurers to disclose depreciation worksheets on request.
A practitioner survey cites an unpublished 1999 Superior Court decision, Vogt v. Rhode Island Joint Reinsurance Association, for the broad evidence rule instead. An unpublished trial court decision does not bind anyone, while the regulation is current, binding and directly on point, so the regulation governs here.
Rhode Island regulation 230-RICR-20-40-2.9(B) statutorily defines how ACV must be calculated on replacement-cost fire and extended coverage property policies and requires disclosure of depreciation deductions on request, but it does not restrict labor depreciation specifically.
230-RICR-20-40-2.9, titled Standards for Prompt, Fair and Equitable Settlements Applicable to Fire and Extended Coverage Type Policies with Replacement Cost Coverage, requires insurers to determine actual cash value as the replacement cost of the property at the time of loss less depreciation, if any and provides that upon the claimant's request the insurer must provide a copy of the claim file worksheet(s) detailing all deductions for depreciation. The regulation also allows insurers to limit recovery on property of nominal or disproportionate economic value, provided they give the claimant a written explanation of the basis and amount payable. The text reviewed does not contain language singling out labor cost as exempt from depreciation, so it addresses a statutory definition and disclosure requirement, but not a labor-depreciation ban.
Rhode Island's regulation sets how ACV is calculated but no deadline for releasing withheld depreciation, so the policy terms control that step.
Section 230-RICR-20-40-2.9 covers how ACV is calculated and requires the insurer to disclose the depreciation worksheet on request. It does not set a deadline for releasing withheld recoverable depreciation once the insured completes repairs and submits proof and it does not require notice of the right to recover that depreciation.
Whether a no-damages-for-delay clause will be enforced against you and the deadline for bringing a construction contract claim.
Generally enforceable absent bad faith or tortious intent, with strict construction against the party invoking it
Rhode Island recognizes no-damages-for-delay clauses as generally enforceable, dating to a mid-20th-century state Supreme Court decision, but courts construe them strictly and refuse enforcement where the owner acted with bad faith or other tortious intent. A later Superior Court decision illustrates the clause's modern bite: it vacated an arbitration award because the arbitrator had disregarded a contractual no-damages-for-delay provision.
10 years for a general civil action, including an ordinary contract claim
Rhode Island's general limitations period for a civil action, including an ordinary contract claim, is 10 years from accrual, among the longest in the country. A separate 20 year period applies to a contract or liability under seal. Two deadlines sit in front of that one on most construction claims. A mechanic's lien and a payment bond claim each run on their own, far shorter clock, counted from last furnishing rather than from breach and missing either one removes the security while leaving the contract claim alive but unsecured. Check those dates first. Accrual is the other half of the question: the period runs from breach, which on a payment dispute is usually the date payment came due rather than the date the work was done.
Confirm whether the specific contract at issue was executed under seal; if so, the longer 20-year period under § 9-1-17 may instead apply.
The state-specific rates and requirements that sit underneath a fully burdened hourly labor cost.
New employer base rate 1.21% (including the 0.21% Job Development Assessment). Experienced employers range from 0.9% to 9.4% under Tax Schedule F for 2026. Taxable wage base is $30,800 for most employers, $32,300 for employers at the highest tax rate.
The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT) set the 2026 unemployment insurance base rate for new employers at 1.21%, which includes the mandatory 0.21% Job Development Assessment layered on top of the base contribution rate. Tax Schedule F governs 2026 experience-rated employers, with rates ranging from 0.9% to 9.4% after the Job Development Assessment adjustment. The standard taxable wage base rises to $30,800 for 2026, a $1,000 increase from 2025, while employers assigned the highest tax rate face an elevated wage base of $32,300.
NCCI advisory state. Rhode Island uses NCCI-filed loss costs and class codes; employers purchase coverage from licensed private carriers, which are regulated through the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation.
Rhode Island is an NCCI state; workers' compensation classifications and advisory loss costs are filed with and approved through the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation (DBR). Rhode Island is a competitive state, not monopolistic, with coverage available from any authorized private insurer.
Rhode Island's threshold is $1,000 of public funds, one of the lowest in the country. Rates come from the federal Davis-Bacon determinations.
Prevailing wage applies to any public work involving grading, cleaning, demolishing, improving, completing, repairing, altering or constructing a public road or bridge, any heavy construction or any public works project of any kind that uses $1,000 or more of public funds. Two or more applicable services on the same project are added together against that figure. A subcontractor must pay prevailing wages where the overall project uses $1,000 or more of public funds, even if its own subcontract is worth less. Rates come from the applicable Davis-Bacon wage determination, fixed as of the date the general contract is awarded, with hourly rates adjusted each July 1 for updated determinations. Base rate and fringe rate are added together, then bona fide fringe benefit credits may be deducted from the total. Workers must be paid weekly, with overtime after 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, calculated on the base rate before the fringe is added back.
Three other thresholds ride along with the wage rules: OSHA 10 certification for every on-site worker at $100,000 or more, a performance and payment bond above $50,000, plus a daily certified log and mandatory apprentice employment at $1,000,000 or more. The log requirement does not apply to road, highway or bridge work.
OSHA enforcement structure, how much weight an OSHA violation carries in a negligence case and whether an injured worker's own employer can be pulled back in.
Pure comparative fault, no bar; recovery reduced by the worker's share of fault
Recovery is reduced in proportion to the worker's share of fault, with no threshold that cuts it off. A worker 90% at fault still recovers 10% of the damages.
Rhode Island is a pure comparative state by statute. The worker's share reduces the award and never defeats it.
The reduction is made by the finder of fact, not by a court applying a percentage to a gross award. Vermont uses the same construction in a modified state and Maine goes further by forbidding percentage-based reduction outright. Where the statute names who applies the proportion, the figure a calculator produces is a prediction of what a jury will do rather than a mechanical result.
No general cap on non-economic damages
Most states cap non-economic damages only in medical malpractice actions, which does not reach a third-party construction claim. Economic losses, medical bills, lost wages, future earning capacity, are not capped by these statutes.
Federal OSHA (no state plan)
Rhode Island has no OSHA-approved state plan; both public and private employers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction. Under federal jurisdiction the citation is issued by an OSHA area office and contested before the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Federal OSHA does not cover state and local government employees, so a public employee injured on a public job falls outside it. Reporting deadlines are a work-related fatality within 8 hours, an inpatient hospitalisation, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. For a construction claim the inspection file matters more than the citation: photographs, measurements, witness statements and the inspector's narrative are usually obtainable and are often the best contemporaneous record of the site.
Rhode Island's high court has not yet directly addressed whether OSHA violations constitute negligence per se or merely evidence of negligence.
No Rhode Island decision decides whether an OSHA violation is negligence per se or evidence of negligence. A national survey places Rhode Island among about a dozen states whose highest court has not reached the question. Evidence rather than negligence per se means the violation goes to the jury as one fact among several. The worker still proves duty, breach, causation and damages in the ordinary way and the defendant can argue the standard did not apply to it, that the cited condition did not cause this injury, or that the citation was contested or withdrawn. The reverse is also true: compliance with OSHA is not a defence, since the standards are a floor rather than a definition of reasonable care.
Statutory employer status is worth checking in Rhode Island, though the qualifying test is not spelled out in the sources behind this entry.
Third-party claims otherwise run through ordinary negligence, premises liability, retained control, negligent undertaking, product liability and motor vehicle law. DiQuinzio v. Panciera Lease Co. applies the exclusivity provision to bar a suit against a fellow employee.
Unusually broad immunity: Rhode Island has NOT adopted a general intentional-injury exception. Even willful, reckless, or intentional employer misconduct does not defeat exclusivity.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-29-20 makes compensation the exclusive remedy in place of all other rights against the employer, its directors, officers, agents or employees. Rhode Island has not carved out an exception for deliberate employer misconduct, so a civil suit is barred even where the employer or a co-employee acted willfully, recklessly or intentionally. The one narrow path is the written reservation of rights at hire under § 28-29-27. In practice exclusivity takes the direct employer off the tort table entirely, whatever the OSHA file shows. The claim runs against the other parties on the site: the general contractor, the owner, another subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer. The employer or its carrier then asserts a lien against whatever the worker recovers from those parties, so the figure the worker actually keeps is the recovery less the lien, the fee and the costs. Whether the lien is reduced for the cost of obtaining the recovery is a separate state question worth asking early, because it moves the net more than most people expect.
A written reservation of rights at the time of hire is the only way to keep common law claims and co-employee immunity is broad
An employee of an employer covered by Rhode Island's workers' compensation statute waives the right to common law recovery for personal injury unless the employee notifies the employer in writing, at the time of hire, that those rights are reserved, with a copy to the Director of Labor within ten days. Most states apply exclusivity automatically with narrow after-the-fact exceptions rather than offering a reservation at hire and an employee cannot opt out after an injury. Rhode Island extends exclusivity broadly to co-employees and courts have refused to treat a co-worker as an unprotected third party merely because the co-worker was playing a prank or acting outside precise job duties. Accepting benefits has been treated as an admission that the injury arose in the course of employment. Even gross negligence by the employer does not restore common law rights and the Rhode Island Supreme Court has held there is no intentional tort exception in the statutes. Every Rhode Island employer, including one with a single employee, must carry coverage.
ClaimDuke's calculators compute delay and extended overhead (Eichleay), fully burdened labor rates, ACV/RCV property loss, claim interest and construction-injury settlement ranges. Every calculation is free and live; a documented, citation-backed report is $19.
This page is reference information for your own verification. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for confirming the current rule with the official source linked above or with counsel. Several states' interest rates float and reset on a schedule (monthly, quarterly or annually), so always check the live source for the figure as of today rather than relying on what is shown here. Which rule actually applies to your specific claim is itself a legal question this page cannot answer for you.
