By Marcell Owens, Owner, McCray Law Firm, PLLC · Houston, Texas
Who is liable in a Texas refinery accident is rarely a question with one answer, and that is the most important thing to understand about these cases. During a turnaround there can be a dozen companies operating inside the same unit. Several of them may have contributed to what happened. Each carries its own insurance. And your legal position against each one is different.
Liability in a refinery accident means legal responsibility for the conditions or conduct that caused the injury — and in a plant, responsibility is distributed by contract as much as by conduct. The plant owner controls the premises and often the process. The general contractor runs the work. A subcontractor employs the injured worker. Manufacturers built the equipment. Specialty firms performed the inspections.
The single most consequential fact in a plant case is not who was careless. It is which careless party is your employer and which is a third party.
At McCray Law Firm we build the party map before we build anything else, because a claim aimed at the wrong company is a claim that goes nowhere no matter how strong the facts are.
The threshold: employer or third party
Texas workers’ compensation is a trade. Where an employer carries coverage, statutory benefits are provided without proof of fault, and Chapter 408 of the Texas Labor Code addresses the effect of that coverage on other remedies. How far that reaches in a specific case is a question for a lawyer with the records, not a rule this article can state.
The practical consequence is what drives strategy. A company that is not your employer is a third party, and a third party can be sued in negligence. So the value of a plant case usually depends on how many genuinely responsible third parties exist.
Two Texas Labor Code provisions decide that boundary, and both turn on documents.
Coverage is elective. Under Section 406.002, workers’ compensation coverage is elective for private employers in Texas. If your employer does not subscribe, Section 406.033(a) provides that it cannot use the defenses of contributory negligence, assumed risk of injury, or negligence of a fellow employee — while Section 406.033(d) still requires the plaintiff to prove the employer’s negligence.
A written agreement can create an employer. Under Section 406.123, when a general contractor and a subcontractor agree in writing that the general contractor will provide workers’ compensation coverage, the general contractor becomes the employer of the subcontractor and the subcontractor’s employees for purposes of Texas workers’ compensation law.
That second provision is the one that reshapes plant cases. A general contractor who looks like a well-insured third party may, by operation of a contract signed before you arrived on site, stand as your statutory employer instead. The full analysis is in our guide to contractor or employee status in a Texas plant injury claim.
Which is why the first documents we request are contracts, not medical records.
Who is liable in a Texas refinery accident: the parties, one at a time
The plant owner
Often the most significant potential defendant, and frequently not the injured worker’s employer.
Two theories usually matter. Premises liability, where the owner controlled a dangerous condition on the property. And control of the work or the process, where the owner retained authority over how the job was performed, over the process conditions that made the work hazardous, or over the safety systems that failed.
What builds it: the contracts defining who controlled what, site safety programs and who administered them, the owner’s own process safety records, prior incidents in the same unit, and the daily records showing who was directing the work.
The general contractor
Runs the work, coordinates the crews, and often controls site-wide safety. A general contractor can be a third party — or, under Section 406.123, can be your statutory employer for workers’ compensation purposes. Which one it is depends on the written agreement, and there is no way to know without reading it.
Other contractors on the unit
The company whose crew opened the wrong valve, dropped the load, welded near a leak, or failed to isolate a line had no employment relationship with you at all. That makes them a third party in the ordinary sense, and in a turnaround with many crews working simultaneously this is frequently where the strongest claim sits.
Nobody produces a complete roster voluntarily. It comes from badge and access records, safety meeting sign-in sheets, permits, and daily reports.
Equipment manufacturers and suppliers
A vessel, valve, gasket, relief device, hose, or monitoring instrument that failed can support a product liability claim against a manufacturer entirely outside the workers’ compensation framework.
This is one of the most time-sensitive parts of a plant case, because the failed component is the evidence — and it gets sent to a lab, replaced, or scrapped. A preservation demand for the specific component, by part number and serial number where available, is among the first things that should go out.
Maintenance, inspection, and specialty service companies
Plants contract out inspection, testing, turnaround services, scaffolding, and specialty maintenance. Under 29 CFR 1910.119(j), the PSM standard requires written procedures to maintain equipment integrity, training for maintenance personnel, inspections and tests performed in accordance with manufacturers’ recommendations, correction of deficiencies before further use of the equipment, and quality assurance for fabrication and installation.
Each of those obligations is performed by someone, documented by someone, and signed by someone. A company that inspected a vessel and certified it fit for service is a company with a record and a potential exposure.
Staffing and labor supply companies
Where a worker is supplied by one company and directed by another, status questions get genuinely complicated. This is fact-specific and document-driven, and it is a reason not to accept anyone’s characterization of the arrangement at face value.
The negligence theories a plant case actually runs on
Beyond identifying parties, a case needs a theory, and the PSM standard supplies concrete measures against which conduct can be examined.
What was known about the hazard. Under 29 CFR 1910.119(d), the employer must maintain a written compilation of process safety information — the hazards of the chemicals involved, the technology of the process, and information about the equipment. This is the record of what was understood before the incident.
Whether the equipment was maintained. The mechanical integrity requirements at 1910.119(j) include the obligation to correct deficiencies before further use. A documented deficiency followed by continued operation is a specific and examinable decision.
Whether a change was reviewed. Under 1910.119(l), written procedures must manage modifications to process chemicals, technology, equipment, and procedures — other than replacements in kind — with the safety and health impact reviewed and authorized before implementation. This is one of the least exploited angles in the vertical. When a plant modified a process and something failed afterward, there is either a documented review of that change or a documented absence of one, and both are informative.
What the operator’s own investigation found. Under 1910.119(m), an incident that resulted in, or could reasonably have resulted in, a catastrophic release must be investigated with the investigation initiated no later than 48 hours after the incident, and reports retained for five years.
The standard applies to processes involving highly hazardous chemicals at or above the threshold quantities in its Appendix A, and to Category 1 flammable gases and flammable liquids with a flashpoint below 100°F in quantities of 10,000 pounds or more. Whether it applied to the specific process at issue is a technical question requiring the records. And whether any particular investigative document or agency finding is admissible in a civil case is a separate legal question this article does not answer. Our guide to what an OSHA refinery investigation produces inventories what exists.
Why finding every party matters more than any single fact
Two reasons, and both are about outcomes rather than principle.
Insurance. A strong claim against a thinly insured company can produce a judgment that is difficult to collect. Each additional responsible party brings its own coverage, and in a plant setting that stack can be the difference between a recovery and a piece of paper.
Comparative fault. Texas applies a proportionate responsibility framework in Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, under which responsibility is allocated among the parties and a claimant’s own share can reduce or, past a threshold, bar recovery. The specific operation of that framework should be confirmed against the current statute for any particular case. What it means practically is that leaving a responsible company out of the case does not make its share disappear — it makes it someone else’s argument.
Identify everyone. Then decide.
What we do
- We request the contracts first — owner to general contractor, general contractor to your employer, certificates of insurance, and any owner-controlled or contractor-controlled insurance program documents.
- We confirm coverage status from records, not from what anyone says.
- We build a complete roster of every company on the unit, from badge and access records, permits, safety meeting sign-ins, and daily reports.
- We preserve the failed component specifically, by part and serial number where available, before it is sent out or scrapped.
- We demand the PSM record set — process safety information, mechanical integrity and inspection files, management of change documentation, and the incident investigation file.
- We retain process safety, metallurgy, and origin-and-cause experts to turn technical failure into an explainable breach.
- We handle communication with every insurer and administrator involved.
We do not assume a case will resolve on fair terms just because the injury is severe.
When the accident is fatal
A plant fatality activates Texas wrongful death and survival claims alongside any workers’ compensation question.
Under Section 71.004 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a wrongful death claim is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents — a closed class that does not include siblings or grandparents. The estate separately holds a survival action under Section 71.021 for what the worker suffered before dying, which in blast, burn, and exposure cases is a substantial part of the record.
Because a third-party claim is not governed by the workers’ compensation framework, identifying responsible third parties matters even more in a fatality. Our guides to who can file a wrongful death claim in Texas and wrongful death damages in Texas cover the structure and the categories.
Key takeaways
- Liability is usually shared. In a turnaround, several companies can contribute to one incident, and each carries its own insurance.
- Employer or third party is the threshold question. A third party can be sued in negligence; a covered employer is a different analysis.
- Coverage is elective in Texas under Section 406.002, and a non-subscriber loses three defenses under Section 406.033(a).
- Section 406.123 can create an employer by contract. A written agreement making the general contractor the provider of coverage makes it the employer of the subcontractor’s employees for workers’ compensation purposes.
- The equipment manufacturer is a separate path outside the workers’ compensation framework — and the failed component is the evidence.
- Management of change is underused. Under 1910.119(l), a modification requires a documented pre-implementation safety review.
- Find every party before valuing anything. Chapter 33 allocates responsibility, so an absent defendant’s share becomes someone’s argument.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue the refinery if I work for a contractor?
Often that is where the strongest claim lives, because a plant owner that is not your employer is a third party and can be pursued for premises conditions or for control it retained over the work or the process. But Section 406.123 of the Texas Labor Code and the specific written agreements on the site can change the analysis, so this has to be evaluated against the contracts rather than assumed either way.
How many companies can be responsible for one refinery accident?
There is no fixed number. In a turnaround it is common for the plant owner, the general contractor, several other contractors, an equipment manufacturer, and one or more inspection or maintenance firms all to have had some role. Identifying all of them is usually more consequential to the result than any individual piece of evidence, because each brings separate insurance and because Chapter 33 allocates responsibility among the parties in the case.
What if the equipment failed rather than a person making a mistake?
That points toward a product liability claim against the manufacturer or supplier, which sits outside the workers’ compensation framework entirely. It also makes preservation urgent, because the failed component is the proof and it is typically sent to a lab, replaced, or discarded within weeks. A demand identifying the specific part and serial number should go out immediately.
The plant blames my employer. Does that end my case?
No, though it is a predictable position. Multiple parties can share responsibility, and Texas allocates it proportionately under Chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. A plant owner pointing at your employer is making an argument, not stating the outcome, and it does not resolve whether the owner controlled a dangerous condition or the process that caused the incident.
Does OSHA citing the plant mean the plant is liable?
Not automatically, and the two questions are separate. An OSHA citation is a regulatory enforcement action; civil liability is decided under state negligence law. Whether a citation or investigative finding is admissible in a civil case is itself a legal question that depends on the circumstances. What matters practically is that the underlying records — inspection files, integrity records, change documentation — exist and can be reached.
Is the CSB the same as OSHA?
No, and confusing them is common. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is an independent federal agency that investigates accidental chemical releases involving fatalities, serious injuries, or substantial property damage. It is explicitly nonregulatory and does not issue fines or citations. OSHA is the enforcement agency. Our guide to what an OSHA refinery investigation produces explains what each one generates.
What should I do first if I do not know who is responsible?
That is the normal starting position, and it is not a problem you are expected to solve yourself. Get medical care, report the injury accurately, give no recorded statement, sign nothing, and get legal advice quickly so preservation demands reach the equipment, the contracts, and the records while they still exist. Our guide to what to do after a refinery explosion in Texas covers the first 72 hours.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case, and questions of employment status, coverage, and the application of federal standards require review of the actual contracts and records. McCray Law Firm, PLLC is licensed to practice in Texas and is admitted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. If you believe you may have a claim, speak with a licensed attorney about your situation before any deadline passes.
About the author. Marcell Owens is the owner of McCray Law Firm, PLLC in Houston, Texas. He earned his J.D. cum laude from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law and has been licensed to practice in Texas since 2015. He is admitted in Texas and in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and was included in the Top 40 Under 40 National Black Trial Lawyers. He works with a team of attorneys handling personal injury and wrongful death matters across Texas.
Contact us today
McCray Law Firm is committed to answering your questions about Personal Injury and Premises Liability law issues in Texas. We offer a free consultation and we will gladly discuss your case with you at your convenience. Contact us today to schedule an appointment, or read more about how we handle refinery accident cases and construction accident cases.
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