Home » Top-Rated Oilfield Accident Attorneys in Tyler and Longview » The 4 Key Issues in Oilfield Injury Cases

The 4 Key Issues in Oilfield Injury Cases

Over our nearly 40 years in business, we have achieved tremendous results for injured people. We’ve also become subject-matter specialists in certain cases over the years. One notable area of success has been in helping injured oilfield workers and their families after tragic job-site accidents.

In working on these cases, our oilfield accident lawyers have observed four signature issues that arise in many of these cases. This article will briefly describe these four issues so that you can be fully informed about potential issues that may arise in your oilfield injury case.

1. The Liability Puzzle. As you know, a drilling rig often has many contractors and subcontractors working the rig. That means that when tragedy strikes, your law firm will need to be able to sort through the complicated web of relationships and responsibility for your worksite. Very often, some of the entities at your job site have signed agreements to compensate other entities in the event of a personal injury settlement. In our cases, we go through the painstaking effort to pin down the relationships between all the necessary and relevant parties in your case. By doing so, we are helping you ensure that you are being fully compensated by the pertinent stakeholders, as well as ensuring that your settlement is not suddenly held up by a failure to properly read these inter-party contracts.
2. Worker’s Compensation Bar. A major issue in oilfield accident cases is whether Worker’s Compensation benefits will bar or otherwise reduce your settlement. For example, your direct employer may have Worker’s Compensation coverage. This means that you cannot sue this employer in most circumstances. Nevertheless, an accident is often caused by someone other than your employer. In that case, the benefits that you collect under your employer’s Worker’s Compensation plan may be paid back to the insurance company out of your personal injury settlement. In our cases, we pay careful attention to the Worker’s Compensation benefits at play to make sure that the injured workers (or their family) is going to be fully and fairly compensated.
3. Heavy Financial Expense. Many lawyers take on oilfield accident cases, only to realize that they lack the resources or subject-matter familiarity to handle the case. For one, these cases require significant financial investment by the lawyer, and we’ve made a point to set our firm up to handle the expense associated with oilfield accident cases. Moreover, we hire some of the leading oilfield experts to review and analyze what happened in your specific case. We also inspect the scene of the accident to make sure we preserve all the evidence in your favor. This helps our lawyers develop a full and complete understanding of what happened in your case, making sure that we’re not outworked or outgunned by the lawyers on the other side of the case.
4. Tragic Circumstances. As a final matter, oilfield accident cases often involve tragic circumstances. Workers are often dealing with heavy equipment or hazardous conditions, and we’ve seen needless tragedies happen to workers and their families over the years. Given the level of injuries that we see in these cases, we know that it takes a competent lawyer to adequately pursue full compensation for the injured worker or his family in these types of cases. We know that the oilfield provides a good living, and we see it as our job to hold employers and other entities accountable for safe working conditions out in the field.

If you or a loved one has been in an oilfield accident, we encourage you to call our lawyers today to discuss your case. The consultation is free and confidential. If all that you get out of the phone call is an understanding of your options, then you’re at least one step closer to being able to move forward with your life.