Houston Oilfield Injury Attorney

Work Accident Lawyer Michael Grossman Discusses Oilfield Worker Injury and Wrongful Death in Houston

The oil industry is a dangerous profession, and injuries or even deaths can occur in oilfield accidents, oilrig drilling accidents, offshore drilling accidents, or gas well drilling accidents.

Employees in the oil industry use heavy machinery and are in a near constant state of risk. Few oil workers last long in the profession without sustaining injuries, and fatalities are commonplace. With heavy machinery used in oilfields and on oil rigs and platforms, injuries from oilfield accidents can be severe, including burns, brain trauma, paralysis, crushed bones, amputations and even death. Drillers, roustabouts, roughnecks and wildcatters are particularly susceptible to injuries. In many cases, the injuries could have been avoided had safety guidelines been followed, eliminating accidents like valve failure, rig collapse, equipment malfunction, explosions, fires and others.

After an injury or fatality has occurred, then you must first address whether or not the employer purchased workers’ compensation coverage. In the dangerous oil industry, most employers have the forethought to purchase insurance as provided for by the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act of 1992. However, that doesn’t mean every employer has workers comp insurance.

How Do You Know for Sure if Your Employer is Covered by Workers’ Comp Insurance?

Unlike most states, Texas does not require employers to subscribe to workers’ comp insurance. How to handle an oilfield injury claim depends upon whether or not the employer subscribed to workers’ compensation or not, and the method for seeking compensation differs completely. Often times, it can be challenging to determine whether or not an employer really has workers’ compensation insurance. Some employers will feign having workers’ compensation insurance in order to avoid lawsuits from injured employees or the loved ones of wrongfully killed workers. Other times, companies will act like they don’t have workers’ compensation insurance when they really do in order to avoid increasing their premiums. In the 20 years we have been practicing personal injury and wrongful death law, the lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have seen countless examples of these sorts of deception. Despite whatever the employer has been telling you, we know how to find out for sure what their workers’ compensation insurance status is. Whether the employer was a subscriber or not, we know how to help you.

Workers’ Compensation Benefits

The employer benefits from workers’ compensation insurance by receiving protection against lawsuits by injured employees. If your employer was legitimately covered by workers’ compensation insurance when you were injured on the job, then you cannot sue. You must pursue compensation by filing an insurance claim through the proper channels with your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier.

However, often times, the insurance provider’s notion of what you deserve for your injuries, medical bills, pain and suffering and lost wages does not adequately compensate you for the actual costs you’ve incurred. Our attorneys understand that there are often other liable parties for oilfield injuries other than the employer – the person who owns the property where the oil is being extracted, someone who owns the platform or oilrig, various vendors that provided machinery that may have been faulty, and other contractors who provided services for the operation of the oil machinery, such as inserting steel lingers in earthen tunnels that have been drilled. Any one or combination of these parties may have negligently contributed to or outright caused an oilfield injury. It’s extremely common for multiple parties to be responsible for an oilfield industry, and our attorneys have years of experience investigating accidents to determine all of the liable parties.

Even if you are completely certain that your employer carried workers’ compensation insurance, it is still often worth your while to contact us for a free consultation at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free) to ascertain whether your needs are being met by the workers’ comp policy and whether or not there may be some other party from whom to seek restitution.

Exception to Workers’ Comp Claims

There’s one lone exception that allows a subscribing employer to be sued – when the gross negligence of the employer causes the wrongful death of an oil worker, then a wrongful death lawsuit is permitted. However, proving gross negligence is much more difficult than proving standard negligence. The attorneys at Grossman Law Offices are experienced with building airtight cases against grossly negligent employers, so the family of the deceased loved ones of an oilfield worker can recover the compensation they deserve.

Non-Ssubscribing Employers

In order to recover compensation from a non-subscribing employer after an oilfield injury, the victim, or plaintiff is likely going to have to file a lawsuit. First, you must file a claim with the employer, detailing the injury and the extent of the financial damages you expect in compensation. The employer has the option of paying you what you expect or negotiate a lesser settlement, but most nonsubscribers will refuse to do either. In that case, you will have to sue in order to receive the just restitution you deserve.

The good news is that the compensation a plaintiff can receive through a lawsuit often provides more adequate compensation than that which can be obtained through a workers’ comp claim. Moreover, the plaintiff must only prove standard negligence – a solitary error in judgment or the duty to provide safety – and that can be done fairly easily. With large sums of money on the line, however, employers will use a wide variety of both legal and illegal tactics to avoid payment. By finding a way to deny your claim, then they can save themselves a sizable about of money. After 20 years of handling workers’ compensation claims, our lawyers are familiar with the tricks of nonsubscribing employers. Our experience can protect you and your right to pursue compensation.

As stated, the injured employee carries the burden of proof in a personal injury case and must be able to convince the jury that the employer’s negligence caused the injury. Thus, the employer should be held accountable for medical expenses, lost salary, pain and suffering and lost earning potential due to possible lifelong debilities. Even though the standard for negligence is low, it can still be very challenging for inexperienced lawyers or people without any legal experience at all. Our extensive experience allows us to prove negligence with comparative ease.

Obstacles Presented by Non-Subscribers

Since the purpose of workers’ comp laws is to encourage employers to purchase workers’ comp insurance, nonsubscribers are afforded only one defense against personal injury lawsuits: the sole proximate cause defense which states that employers are not liable for injuries to their employees if the employee was the 100 percent cause of his or her own injuries. In order to prove this, the employer will often launch a defaming attack on the character of the injured employee, trying to show that the victim was a careless and incompetent employee whose own negligence caused his or her own injuries. With no other defensive options, defense attorneys will conduct a witch-hunt to show that you caused your own injuries.

While nonsubscribers may not have subscribed to workers’ compensation insurance within the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act, they may still have high-dollar insurance policies. With millions of dollars on the line, shrewd insurance adjusters will do anything they can to deny your claim or reduce the amount of compensation they owe you. They have no interest in helping you like your neighborhood insurance agent. Quite the contrary, these adjusters often have financial incentives and bonuses established for denying claims. They will barrage you with questions, hoping you will admit liability so they can deny your claim or at least lessen the amount of compensation owed if you are partially liable. These insurance policies will be backed in court by career legal defense specialists who will not back down from someone representing him or herself. They only thing they respect is an attorney with a long track record of success against them. Grossman Law Offices has won cases against every major insurance company in the country, and defense lawyers are familiar with our history. In order to receive the compensation you deserve, you need a lawyer with extensive experience like ours.

Establishing the Employer-Employee Relationship

Nonsubscribing employees owe no duty of providing safety to contractors or temporary workers, so injured workers who are not legally classified, as employees cannot sue them for compensation. As a result, many employers will attempt to claim that their workers are contractors in order to avoid having to compensate them for injuries suffered. This is quite common in oilfields where many workers are referred to as contractors. Although, just because your employer has called you a contractor doesn’t mean that is what the law considers you to be. After our many years of experience litigating these cases, we know the questions to ask in order to establish an employer-employee relationship that permits an injured worker to sue for compensation. If you meet any of the following standards, the law considers you to be an employer:

• The employer withholds social security or taxes from your paycheck.
• The employer supplied the essential equipment for the job.
• You were expected to maintain a specific work schedule for the job established by the employer.
• Your work was regularly managed, oversaw or inspected by the employer or a manager or foreman under his or her employ.
• You limited your rights while working for the employer by performing a task or signing a document, for example: taking a drug test or signing a document that states compliance with an employee handbook.
• You have been employed for an undetermined amount of time and not just for a solitary job.
• You are paid by an hourly wage or salary and not on a job-by-job basis.

Our lawyers will use a thorough investigation to prove your employer-employee relationship by demonstrating the existence of one of these standards. We will locate pay stubs, depose co-workers, and review contracts to prove that you were an employee when you were injured on the job.

We Can Help

No matter how your injury or your loved one’s wrongful death occurred in an oilfield accident, the attorneys at Grossman Law Offices are dedicated to helping you receive the maximum compensation possible, whether your injuries were caused by an employer who had workers’ compensation insurance, a nonsubscriber, or some other third party. Call us today for a free consultation at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free), and we will discuss the specific facts of your case and tell you how we can be of service.