The Alfred Firm has secured a life-changing, but confidential, settlement on behalf of a scaffold-builder who suffered career-ending injuries at a refinery located in Orange, Texas.

Our client suffered severe lumbar spinal injuries, including a fractured vertebrae, when he tripped over a protruding foot plate that was part of the structure of a refinery unit while supervising a crew of eight scaffolding contractors. The spinal injuries were so severe that our client underwent a spinal fusion surgery, which ended all hope that he would be able to do the physically challenging work required of scaffold-builders in the future.

The Alfred Firm Defeats Refinery’s Immediate Attempt to Dismiss Our Client’s Claims

The Alfred Firm filed its lawsuit in the Eastern District United States District Court in Beaumont, Texas. In Federal Court, a Defendant is allowed to seek dismissal of the case at the onset of a lawsuit. In this case, the refinery defendant sought to dismiss our client’s claim based on Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Chapter 95. After The Alfred Firm's lawyers filed extensive briefing indicating that dismissal would be premature at this stage, the Federal judge promptly denied the defendant’s motion and allowed full discovery to proceed.

The Alfred Firm’s Expert Team Inspects Southeast Texas Refinery

After defeating the refinery’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, The Alfred Firm and its team of experts toured the refinery where the incident occurred. Although the refinery had already provided photographs of the immediate incident scene, it was important that The Alfred Firm's experts understood and documented the entire layout of the unit where the incident occurred. The Alfred Firm’s experts needed to understand the size of the involved foot plate and also the measurements of the subject walkway to be able to testify about the refinery’s compliance with OSHA safety standards and internal safety policies.

The Alfred Firm Takes Multiple Depositions to Win Liability Case

As a result of the refinery’s Chapter 95 defense, the amount of control the refinery exerted over our client’s work became a major issue in this case. The Alfred Firm took eleven depositions of various witnesses. The witnesses included the Vice President of Safety, multiple unit supervisors, the scaffolding company’s employees, and others. The testimony obtained in these depositions confirmed that the refinery exercised sufficient control to satisfy the requirements of Chapter 95.

Namely, the refinery exercised control over the scaffold building crew’s work in the following ways:

1. The Refinery retained contractual control over our client’s work.The Refinery’s agreement with the scaffolding company required our client’s work crew to follow the refinery’s instructions in the event the refinery was involved in other ongoing projects with contractors so as to not interfere with the refinery’s ongoing work. At the time of this incident, the Refinery was engaged in a crane lift that required the Refinery to coordinate work between the scaffold-building crew and the crane contractor. Due to the impending crane lift, our client’s crew was instructed to stage scaffolding material in a different location than the location that was contemplated during the “job walk”. The “different location” contained the tripping hazard; and
   
   
2. The Refinery exercised actual control over our client’s work. The Refinery’s employee, who was responsible for “walking the job” with the scaffolding crew prior to issuing a work permit, failed to notify the scaffolding crew of the trip hazard created by the protruding foot plate even though he was aware of the tripping hazard throughout the entirety of his ten year career working for the same refinery.

The Alfred Firm Enforces Our Client’s Right to Choose his Own Doctor

In Texas, if an employee is injured while on the job, oftentimes the employee’s medical treatment will be paid for by workers compensation insurance. Our client sustained a serious back injury that required him to be lowered from the top level of a refinery unit by crane. When our client was first examined by a medical professional, his employer sent him to a company doctor. And even though initial imaging confirmed that our client had a cracked spine, the company doctor would not recommend that the workers compensation carrier pay for our client to receive the surgery he needed.

The Alfred Firm’s work injury clients know from their first meeting that, under the Texas Workers Compensation Act, employees are allowed to choose their own medical providers. Immediately upon being hired in this case, The Alfred Firm filed the necessary paperwork to have our client’s doctor switched from a “company doctor” to a true “patient advocate”. As soon as the switch was made, our client was able to secure the spinal fusion surgery he needed.

The Alfred Firm Obtains a Full Waiver of the Workers Compensation Lien

Following the settlement of our client’s claim for a life-changing, but confidential amount, the workers compensation insurance carrier attempted to enforce a lien for over $100,000. In other words, although the workers compensation statute requires employers that subscribe to workers compensation coverage to pay for the employee’s medical treatment, in most cases, the workers compensation insurance carrier is allowed to be reimbursed in the event of a third party settlement. 

However, The Alfred Firm’s experienced refinery lawyers were able to secure a full waiver of the workers compensation lien by highlighting that the lien was invalid due to controlling case law. The Master Service Agreement between the Refinery and our client’s employer contained “subrogation waiver” language that precluded the workers compensation carrier from seeking reimbursement from our client’s settlement. After several weeks of negotiations, the workers compensation insurance carrier finally conceded that they were, in fact, entitled to no money from our client’s settlement. The result of this was a much larger amount in our client’s pocket after the settlement.

The Alfred Firm has received national recognition for successfully obtaining record-breaking results for refinery workers in Jefferson County and surrounding counties. This case was handled by Founder Byron C. Alfred, Trial Lawyers Johnny Alfred III and Kai Henderson, and Chief of Staff Amanda Zubire.

About Attorney Byron C. Alfred

Byron C. Alfred is a Board Certified Personal Injury Trial Lawyer that has received national recognition for his record-setting verdicts and settlements. Attorney Byron’s cases have generated over $100 Million in verdicts and settlements over the last 5 years. In 2019, after obtaining the second largest work injury verdict in the country, Attorney Byron became the youngest lead counsel and the first African American lawyer ever inducted to the prestigious Texas Verdicts Hall of Fame.