Texas Oilfield Accident Claims: What the Law Says and What It Means for You

Who Can Be Responsible When You Are Hurt on a Texas Oilfield

Texas does not require most private employers to carry workers' compensation. Under section 406.002 of the Texas Labor Code, "Except for public employers and as otherwise provided by law, an employer may elect to obtain workers' compensation insurance coverage." That one choice by the employer shapes almost everything that follows for an injured worker.

If the employer has coverage, the worker's path against that employer generally runs through the benefits system. If it does not, the worker may bring a negligence claim against the employer directly. Either way, claims against other companies on the location are a separate question, and they can be where much of a recovery comes from.

A single site often has an operator, a drilling contractor, service companies and subcontractors working side by side, and Texas law treats each differently: a property owner under one chapter of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, an equipment maker or seller under another, and everyone's share of fault under a third. For an injured worker, that means the answer to "who pays" may involve more than one company. Our overview of the oilfield accident lawyer topic describes these site types and roles in general terms.

Filing Deadlines Under Texas Law: The Two-Year Rule and When It Starts

A statute of limitations is the deadline for filing a lawsuit. Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provides that, except as provided by sections 16.010, 16.0031 and 16.0045, a person must bring suit for personal injury "not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues." A cause of action "accrues" when the law treats the claim as having arisen.

For a death, the same section provides: "A person must bring suit not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues in an action for injury resulting in death. The cause of action accrues on the death of the injured person." When a worker dies days or weeks after an accident, the two years run from the death itself. A suit brought after the period has run can generally be barred, no matter what happened at the site, which is why timing is often the first question an injured worker or family raises.

Section 16.001 lists a person "younger than 18 years of age, regardless of whether the person is married," and provides that if a person entitled to bring a personal action is under a legal disability when the cause of action accrues, "the time of the disability is not included in a limitations period." For a family, that can matter when a child of a deceased worker has a claim.

When a governmental unit is involved, section 101.101 of the Texas Tort Claims Act, part of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, provides that a governmental unit "is entitled to receive notice of a claim against it under this chapter not later than six months after the day that the incident giving rise to the claim occurred," and the notice must reasonably describe matters including the incident. In practice, a claim touching a government entity can face a much shorter window than the two-year rule. How these periods apply to a particular injury depends on the facts.

If You Were Partly at Fault: How Texas Shares Blame

Texas uses proportionate responsibility, a form of comparative fault in which a jury assigns each party a percentage of blame. Section 33.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code states: "In an action to which this chapter applies, a claimant may not recover damages if his percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent."

If the injured person is not barred, section 33.012 provides that "the court shall reduce the amount of damages to be recovered by the claimant with respect to a cause of action by a percentage equal to the claimant's percentage of responsibility." In plain terms, a worker found partly at fault, but not more than half, keeps the claim; the damages shrink by that share. A worker's own mistake does not by itself end the matter.

A "percentage of responsibility" is attributed by the trier of fact "to each claimant, each defendant, each settling person, or each responsible third party," whether the harm came from a negligent act or omission, "any defective or unreasonably dangerous product," other conduct violating the applicable standard, or a combination. On a crowded location, blame can be spread across several companies and the worker, and each share is decided on the evidence about who controlled the work and the equipment at that moment.

Hurt While Working for a Contractor: When the Operator or Property Owner May Be Liable

Many oilfield workers are employed by a contractor, not by the company that owns the lease or facility. For those workers, whether the operator can be held responsible depends on chapter 95 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. It defines a "property owner" as "a person or entity that owns real property primarily used for commercial or business purposes," and reaches claims arising "from the condition or use of an improvement to real property where the contractor or subcontractor constructs, repairs, renovates, or modifies the improvement."

Section 95.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code states that a property owner "is not liable for personal injury, death, or property damage to a contractor, subcontractor, or an employee of a contractor or subcontractor who constructs, repairs, renovates, or modifies an improvement to real property, including personal injury, death, or property damage arising from the failure to provide a safe workplace unless:

(1) the property owner exercises or retains some control over the manner in which the work is performed, other than the right to order the work to start or stop or to inspect progress or receive reports; and

(2) the property owner had actual knowledge of the danger or condition resulting in the personal injury, death, or property damage and failed to adequately warn."

Both parts are required. For a contractor's employee hurt on an operator's lease, the claim against the owner turns on what the owner directed and what it actually knew, so evidence of who gave instructions on the day of the accident carries real weight. Section 95.004 adds that in such a trial the judge deducts workers' compensation benefits paid from the damages awarded, but the deduction "does not apply unless the workers' compensation carrier's subrogation rights have been waived." Whether chapter 95 applies depends on the worksite and the work.

Texas Workers' Compensation: Coverage, Exclusive Remedy, and What Changes Without It

When the employer is covered, section 408.001 of the Texas Labor Code provides that "Recovery of workers' compensation benefits is the exclusive remedy of an employee covered by workers' compensation insurance coverage or a legal beneficiary against the employer or an agent or employee of the employer for the death of or a work-related injury sustained by the employee." An exclusive remedy means benefits generally take the place of a lawsuit against that employer. By its words, the rule does not cover an operator, another contractor or an equipment maker, so a covered worker may still have claims against those companies.

When the employer is not covered, section 406.033 provides that in an action by or for an uncovered employee for injuries or death in the course and scope of employment, "it is not a defense that: (1) the employee was guilty of contributory negligence; (2) the employee assumed the risk of injury or death; or (3) the injury or death was caused by the negligence of a fellow employee." The plaintiff must still "prove negligence of the employer or of an agent or servant of the employer acting within the general scope of the agent's or servant's employment." For a worker at an uncovered company, the employer loses arguments it could otherwise raise, though the worker still carries the burden of proving negligence.

Section 406.005 requires an employer to notify each employee "whether or not the employer has workers' compensation insurance coverage," so that notice is often where the coverage answer starts.

Injured by Defective or Aging Equipment: Claims Against Makers and Sellers

Chapter 82 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code defines a "products liability action" as any action against a manufacturer or seller for damages from personal injury, death or property damage "allegedly caused by a defective product," whether based on strict liability, negligence, misrepresentation, breach of warranty or another theory. On an oilfield, that can mean a claim over drilling tools, pressure vessels, valves or lifting equipment, separate from any claim against the employer.

A design-defect claim, in everyday terms, says the problem lies in how the product was designed, not in a one-off flaw in a single unit. Under section 82.005, "the burden" is on the claimant "to prove by a preponderance of the evidence" the elements it lists. A failure or rupture on its own does not establish a defect. Under section 82.003, "A seller that did not manufacture a product is not liable for harm caused to the claimant by that product unless the claimant proves" one of the conditions that section lists. Which company made the part, and which only sold it, can decide who answers for it.

Texas also has a statute of repose, an outer limit that runs from a fixed event rather than from the injury. Section 16.012 provides that "Except as provided by Subsections (c), (d), and (d-1), a claimant must commence a products liability action against a manufacturer or seller of a product before the end of 15 years after the date of the sale of the product by the defendant." For a worker hurt by an old rig component, the clock may have started long before the accident, when that defendant sold the part; what the exceptions cover depends on the current text of the section.

Building the Record: Documents That Often Shape an Oilfield Injury Claim

Each record tends to answer one of the legal questions above. Incident and investigation reports often name who was directing the work, which bears on fault under chapter 33 and on control under section 95.003. Maintenance and inspection logs can show a tool's age, sale history and condition, tying to the fifteen-year rule and any defect question. Scene photographs and video show the layout and conditions.

Medical records document the injury, which matters to damages and causation. Witness names matter on a multi-company site. Documentation of the employer's coverage status, including the notice section 406.005 requires, answers whether section 408.001 or section 406.033 applies. Families often also gather the death certificate and records showing who the surviving spouse, children and parents are, which ties to who may bring a wrongful death claim.

Our page on pipeline site accidents describes the records pipeline work tends to create. For anyone sorting out which documents bear on their own situation, a case evaluation request is one way to begin that conversation.

Wrongful Death After a Texas Oilfield Fatality: Who May Bring a Claim and for Whose Benefit

Wrongful death is the claim the law allows certain family members when a death is caused by another's wrongful act. Section 71.004 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code states that the action "is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased." Those family members "may bring the action or one or more of those individuals may bring the action for the benefit of all." If none has begun the action "within three calendar months after the death of the injured individual, his executor or administrator shall bring and prosecute the action unless requested not to by all those individuals." Section 71.021 provides that a claim for the worker's own personal injury "does not abate because of the death of the injured person." For a grieving family, this means both the family's own claim and the worker's claim can continue, and the two-year period in section 16.003 for a death runs from the death.

Where the employer had workers' compensation, section 408.001 "does not prohibit the recovery of exemplary damages by the surviving spouse or heirs of the body of a deceased employee whose death was caused by an intentional act or omission of the employer or by the employer's gross negligence," with gross negligence defined by section 41.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. So a covered employer is not always fully shielded after a death. Exemplary damages, sometimes called punitive damages, are limited by section 41.008, discussed in the questions below. Our page on oilfield and energy accident services explains in general terms how these cases are structured.