Options Besides a Lawsuit After an Oilfield Injury

What 'Alternatives' Means After an Oilfield Injury

On this page, alternatives means the routes that exist alongside a civil lawsuit, or in place of one. If you were hurt, a civil lawsuit would be your claim in court for the injury (a personal-injury claim); if a family lost someone, it would be a wrongful death claim, brought by the family or estate. Either claim usually names a company other than the worker's own employer, such as another contractor on the site or the maker of a piece of equipment. The broader picture of those claims appears in our guide for an oilfield accident lawyer.

Four other routes come up again and again after oilfield and refinery accidents:

• Workers' compensation, the state insurance system for injured employees.
• An OSHA safety and health complaint, which asks the federal workplace safety agency to look at a hazard.
• An OSHA whistleblower complaint, for a worker punished for raising safety concerns or using a right under federal safety law.
• An investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, known as the CSB, which looks into serious chemical releases.

Workers' compensation replaces part of a worker's income and pays medical costs. The OSHA safety complaint addresses a hazard that may still be there. The whistleblower complaint protects a worker's job and standing. The CSB investigation studies why an accident happened so others can prevent the next one.

Choosing one route, or missing one, can affect both a worker's protection on the job and a later injury claim, because the deadlines, agencies and results all differ. A conversation with an attorney can map which of these routes are open after a particular accident and how they fit together.

If Workers' Compensation Benefits Are Arriving Now

For many injured oilfield workers, workers' compensation is the first source of support that arrives. Workers' compensation is a state-run, no-fault insurance system. No-fault means the injured employee generally does not have to prove the employer was careless to receive benefits. In general, it pays for medical treatment and replaces part of the wages lost while the worker cannot work.

What it typically does not pay for matters just as much. Workers' compensation does not cover pain and suffering, and it does not reach the full range of losses a civil lawsuit might address. A worker facing a long recovery may find that the benefits cover only part of what the injury has changed in their life.

Federal workplace safety law leaves these systems in place. Section 653(b)(4) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 29 U.S.C. § 653(b)(4), states that nothing in the Act "shall be construed to supersede or in any manner affect any workmen's compensation law or to enlarge or diminish or affect in any other manner the common law or statutory rights, duties, or liabilities of employers and employees under any law with respect to injuries, diseases, or death of employees arising out of, or in the course of, employment." In plain terms, OSHA's rules do not decide a workers' compensation claim or an injury lawsuit. State law does.

For a worker, that means the answers to the practical questions depend on the state where the claim is made: whether the worker counts as covered, how the benefits are figured, and the deadline to report the injury and file a claim. A rule a coworker heard about in another state may not apply.

The oilfield adds a layer. A worker on a lease may be employed by a drilling contractor, a service company, a subcontractor or the well operator itself. Which company's workers' compensation applies depends on the employment relationship under that state's law. In many situations, a workers' compensation claim against the employer does not bar a separate civil claim against a different company, though how the two routes interact varies by state. What is at stake is whether the benefits a worker relies on now line up with everything the injury has cost. A worker who accepts benefits without asking whether another company played a part may leave that second question unexamined, and a conversation with an attorney can help sort out which companies were on the site and what each did.

If the Hazard Is Still on the Site

If you were hurt and the condition that injured you is still out on the site, an unguarded line, a failing piece of equipment, a known gas exposure, OSHA's complaint process is built for exactly that. Under 29 U.S.C. § 654(a), each employer must furnish a workplace "free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees" and must comply with OSHA's standards.

A safety and health complaint is a request for OSHA to look at a workplace hazard. According to OSHA's File a Complaint page, a worker or the worker's representative has the right to file a confidential complaint and request an inspection if they believe there is a serious hazard or the employer is not following OSHA standards. The page states that a complaint can be filed online, by phone or by letter, in any language, anonymously, and that someone else can file it for the worker. It also states that "the complaint should be filed as soon as possible after noticing the hazard" and that "a signed complaint is more likely to result in an onsite inspection."

An inspection can lead OSHA to cite an employer for violations it finds. That process is about the workplace, not about the injured worker's own claim. A safety complaint does not decide who was at fault for an injury, it does not pay for the injury, and it does not stop the time for filing an injury claim.

For a worker still on the job, or with coworkers still on that site, the stakes are physical safety. For a worker focused on medical bills and lost pay, the complaint may matter for other reasons, but it will not address those bills on its own.

If You Were Fired or Demoted After Reporting a Problem

Some workers who raise a safety problem find that their job changes afterward. Federal law treats that as its own wrong, separate from any injury. Section 660(c) of Title 29 of the United States Code, 29 U.S.C. § 660(c), states that no person "shall discharge or in any manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to this chapter or has testified or is about to testify in any such proceeding or because of the exercise by such employee on behalf of himself or others of any right afforded by this chapter."

The deadline is short. The statute provides that "any employee who believes that he has been discharged or otherwise discriminated against by any person in violation of this subsection may, within thirty days after such violation occurs, file a complaint with the Secretary alleging such discrimination." The thirty days run from the retaliation itself, the firing or other act, not from the date of the injury. After a complaint, the statute directs the Secretary to investigate as appropriate. If a violation is found, the Secretary brings an action in federal district court, where relief can include rehiring or reinstatement with back pay. The Secretary is to notify the worker of the determination within 90 days of receiving the complaint.

OSHA's Worker Rights and Protections page describes retaliation as when an employer may "fire, demote, transfer, or otherwise retaliate against a worker for complaining to OSHA," and states that a worker can file a whistleblower complaint "within 30 days of the retaliation." OSHA's File a Complaint page adds that whistleblower filing deadlines run 30 to 180 days and "vary with each statute," because OSHA enforces several whistleblower laws.

A whistleblower complaint reports retaliation against a person; a safety complaint reports a hazard in a workplace. OSHA's page notes a worker may file both where appropriate. What is at stake is a worker's job and income, on a timeline much shorter than an injury claim. If a firing or demotion followed a safety report, a conversation with our attorney can go over the dates and the sequence of events that the thirty-day rule turns on.

If a Family Sees the Chemical Safety Board Arrive

Families who have lost someone in a refinery fire or an explosion sometimes see the Chemical Safety Board arrive and wonder what its work will mean for them. According to the CSB's own description, it is "an independent nonregulatory federal agency" charged with investigating "the facts, conditions, and circumstances and the cause or probable cause of any accidental chemical release that results in a fatality, serious injury or substantial property damage." An oilfield or refinery accident involving that kind of release may fall within its mandate.

A family does not need to file anything to start a CSB investigation, and cannot request one the way a worker files an OSHA complaint; the CSB decides on its own to deploy. If it does, a family may hear that investigators are interviewing witnesses, gathering documents, sending chemical samples and equipment to independent laboratories, and examining company safety records, inventories and operating procedures. Investigators draft findings, conclusions, root causes and recommendations, and the Board adopts final reports by written vote or in a public meeting.

In its own words, "the CSB does not issue fines or citations, but makes safety recommendations" to companies, industry groups, standards bodies, regulators and others. Its root-cause work examines what would have prevented the accident, including deficiencies in safety management systems, equipment failures and human errors. Those are safety conclusions and recommendations. They are not a legal finding that any company is liable, and the CSB does not pay compensation to anyone.

For a grieving family, this sets expectations. A CSB report can describe what happened at a facility in detail, and it becomes part of the public record. It cannot answer the legal questions about responsibility that state law decides. A family that waits for a CSB report as if it will settle those questions may be waiting on something the report is not designed to provide. Our page on fatal energy accidents covers how a wrongful death claim sits beside these agency processes.

How These Routes Interact With a Civil Injury Claim

Pursuing one route does not automatically close another. The harder questions come where the routes meet.

Workers' compensation and a civil claim against a third party, meaning a company other than the worker's direct employer, can often both be pursued. How they fit together depends on state law, including whether the workers' compensation insurer has a lien, a legal right to be repaid from a later civil recovery.

An OSHA safety complaint or a whistleblower complaint does not start or stop the clock on a civil injury claim. That clock is a statute of limitations, the deadline set by law for filing a lawsuit, and it is set by each state's law, not by OSHA. The same is true of fault rules, which decide how a worker's own share of blame affects a claim, and of damages rules, which decide what losses the law may allow. Readers looking at one state's rules can see how they work on our Texas oilfield claims page.

A CSB report, because it is public, may be relevant background in a civil case. It remains a set of safety findings and recommendations, not a court's decision about who is responsible.

For an injured worker, the risk lies in focusing on one route without seeing the others: filing the OSHA complaint and assuming the injury is now handled, or accepting workers' compensation without knowing whether another company on the site played a part. Who may bring a claim, and against whom, is covered in our guide on eligibility after an accident. If it would help to lay out which of these routes are available in a particular state and how they connect, you can request a case evaluation to talk it through with our attorney.