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Compensation for Refinery Turnaround and Shutdown Injuries
Houston Turnaround Accident Lawyers
A turnaround is the most dangerous stretch of work a refinery ever runs.
Units come offline, equipment is opened up, and hundreds of contractors pour onto the site to do months of maintenance on a compressed schedule.
When that pressure leads to an injury, Texas law lets the hurt worker recover the full cost from the companies that set the pace and controlled the site.
Lawsuit Legal works from our Houston office and represents turnaround and shutdown contractors injured across the Ship Channel refineries and plants.
Our Texas cases are led by personal injury attorney Don Worley, licensed by the State Bar of Texas, with more than 40,000 cases handled and over $100 million recovered for injury victims.
Most turnaround workers are contractors, which usually means more than one company shares responsibility for what happened.
When the companies and their insurers will not pay what a claim is worth, our trial-ready attorneys are prepared to take it to a Harris County jury.
Call (888) 713-6653 for a free, confidential review of your turnaround or shutdown injury claim. You Win or It's Free.
At-a-Glance: Why Turnaround and Shutdown Injuries Spike
- A compressed schedule that rewards speed over safety
- Hundreds of contractors from different companies working at once
- Equipment opened, drained, and de-energized for maintenance
- Simultaneous operations stacked in the same space, often overhead and below
- Long shifts, night work, and fatigue across weeks of around-the-clock work
- Workers unfamiliar with a plant they did not build and do not run
The Highest-Risk Turnaround Tasks
- Confined space entry into vessels, tanks, and columns
- Line breaking and opening equipment that may still hold pressure or product
- Hot work near flammable vapor
- Work at height on temporary scaffolding
- Heavy lifts and rigging over crews working below
Why Turnarounds Are the Most Dangerous Time at a Plant
A turnaround, sometimes called a shutdown or an outage, is a planned period when a unit is taken offline so it can be inspected, repaired, and overhauled. It is necessary work. It is also when a plant packs more risk into a few weeks than it sees in a normal year of running.
The danger comes from the conditions, not bad luck. The headcount multiplies as contractors arrive from dozens of companies, many of whom have never worked this plant before. Equipment that is normally sealed and running is now opened, drained, and entered. And the work stacks up in the same congested space, with crews welding above others breaking lines below.
What makes a turnaround dangerous is not the work, it is the clock. Every day the unit is down costs the operator a fortune, and that pressure runs straight down the chain until someone skips the step that would have taken twenty minutes and prevented a worker from being maimed.
None of that has to cause an injury. When the planning, the permits, and the supervision keep pace with the work, a turnaround runs safely. When they do not, the same conditions that make a turnaround efficient make it deadly.
Common Turnaround and Shutdown Accidents
The injuries we see during turnarounds track the highest-risk tasks, and most are governed by federal safety rules that the work is supposed to follow.
- Confined space incidents. Entering a vessel, tank, or column exposes workers to toxic and oxygen-deficient atmospheres, and permit-required confined space rules exist precisely because these entries kill people when the steps are skipped.[1]
- Stored-energy and line-breaking releases. Opening equipment that still holds pressure, product, or stored energy causes chemical burns, sprays, and explosions, which is why lockout and energy-isolation rules apply before a line is broken.[2]
- Hot work flash fires. Welding and cutting near flammable vapor can ignite a flash fire, one of the most common serious turnaround injuries.
- Falls from scaffolding and height. Temporary scaffolding goes up fast and comes down fast, and a missing plank, tie, or guardrail turns routine access into a fatal fall.
- Dropped objects and overhead loads. Tools, materials, and rigged loads moving overhead strike the crews working below in the stacked turnaround footprint.
- Heat stress. Houston heat, fire-resistant clothing, and confined work combine to cause heat exhaustion and collapse during long summer outages.
The same explosion and blast risks that drive our Houston refinery explosion cases concentrate during turnarounds, because so much of the hazardous work happens at once.
Who Is Liable for a Turnaround Injury
Turnarounds are built on layers of contractors, which means an injured worker usually has claims against more than one company. The key question is which company is your direct employer and which are third parties you can pursue in full.
On a worksite this crowded, the operator and the prime contractor carry a duty to coordinate safety across every employer present. When that coordination breaks down, when permits are not managed, or when crews are stacked into the same space without controlling the overlap, the company responsible for the site can be liable even though a different company signed your checks.
The plant owner or operator. The owner controls the site, sets the turnaround schedule, and runs the permit and isolation systems. When it pushes an unsafe pace or fails to control a hazard, it can be liable to an injured contractor.
The turnaround or maintenance contractor. The prime contractor managing the outage, and the specialty crews working under it, each owe a duty to plan and supervise the work safely.
Your own employer. Many turnaround staffing and contract employers are non-subscribers that opted out of workers' compensation. A non-subscriber can be sued directly for negligence with no damage cap, and it loses the defenses a normal employer would have.[3]
Because nearly every turnaround worker is a contractor on someone else's plant, sorting out who employed you and who else was responsible is the heart of the case. A dedicated Houston page on the refinery contractor-versus-employer question is in progress.
Recoverable Damages in a Turnaround Injury Claim
Texas does not cap damages in an ordinary injury case, so a turnaround claim is valued by the evidence rather than a statutory ceiling. The injuries are often catastrophic, and the lost earnings reflect the skilled, well-paid trades that staff a turnaround.
A turnaround or shutdown injury claim may recover:
- Past and future medical care, including surgery, burn treatment, and long-term rehabilitation.
- Lost wages and lost future earning capacity, measured against skilled turnaround pay.
- Pain, suffering, and mental anguish.
- Disfigurement and permanent scarring from burns and crush injuries.
- Physical impairment and loss of enjoyment of life for lasting limitations.
- Life-care costs for a catastrophic injury requiring ongoing care.
- Wrongful death damages for a family that lost a worker.
- Exemplary damages where the conduct was grossly negligent.
A claim that settles before treatment is finished tends to settle short. A free review is the fastest way to learn what your claim realistically involves.
What to Do After a Turnaround or Shutdown Accident
Turnaround evidence is scattered across the contractors on site and the operator's permit system, and the crews scatter to the next job as soon as the unit comes back up.
- Get medical care and document the cause. Accept transport, and make sure the records reflect the turnaround task you were doing when you were hurt.
- Report the injury in writing and keep a copy of any incident report.
- Note the permits and the crews. The confined space or hot work permit, the lockout records, and the names of every company on the job are central to the case.
- Do not sign a release or give a recorded statement before you understand your rights.
- Call a Houston turnaround injury lawyer quickly. The deadline to file is generally two years under Section 16.003, but the permits and crew records need a preservation demand long before then.[4]