Am I liable if a misclassified contractor gets injured on the job after I take over?

Potentially, yes, and this connects two separate risks that compound each other. If someone genuinely functioning as an employee has been misclassified as an independent contractor, and they're injured on the job after you've taken over, the fact that they weren't properly classified — and therefore may not have been properly covered under your workplace safety and insurance arrangements the way an employee would be — doesn't necessarily protect you from liability; it can instead expose you more directly, since the protections the system normally provides in exchange for employer coverage may not apply cleanly to someone whose true status was employee all along.

This is a genuinely serious risk if you continue engaging the same "contractors" the seller used without reviewing whether the classification actually holds up, since you'd be carrying forward a practice that was already legally questionable, now under your own ownership and with a fresh injury on your own watch.

Review all contractor relationships for genuine independence versus real employee status before continuing them, and make sure anyone functioning as an employee is properly classified and covered going forward. A Treadstone business lawyer can help you review this before it becomes a live claim.