How Lawyers Handle Complex Fire Injury Cases
Ardmore, Oklahoma, is a historic city of over 25,000 residents in Carter County. It serves as a regional hub for South Central Oklahoma and is known for its energy industry and manufacturing sector. The city also houses one of the key refineries owned by Valero Energy Corporation, one of the largest independent refiners in the world.
While refineries are essential for producing transportation fuels and petrochemical products, they also carry significant safety risks. Valero refineries have experienced major fire explosions and accidents in recent years, resulting in serious worker injuries and disputes over accountability and compensation.
If you or your loved one was involved in a Valero Ardmore fire, hiring a lawyer is crucial. A lawyer can identify multiple liable parties through an independent investigation, gather evidence such as expert testimony to prove negligence, protect victims from corporate investigators and insurers, and calculate the full extent of damages.
Why Are Industrial Fire Injury Cases Different?
Industrial fire explosion-involved injury claims are complex, and they are handled differently because:
- Multiple liable parties are involved
- The case is driven by state and federal laws and regulatory bodies like OSHA and EPA
- Catastrophic burns and inhalation injuries to deal with
- Huge corporations’ defense team of experts to destroy evidence and shut down the victims
Lawyer Investigates the Accident
When you or someone close to you is involved in a huge corporate refinery explosion, it’s better to consult a lawyer as soon as possible.
The company will try to get rid of the evidence as quickly as possible.
Your lawyer will begin the investigation process with the assistance of fire and cause experts, safety engineers, and OSHA experts to determine the cause of the explosion and what led to your injuries.
Secure the Evidence
Before the company tries to clean up the evidence, your lawyer will gather the crucial evidence that points to their negligence. The important evidence here includes:
- Photos and videos of the explosion scene and the equipment.
- Control room data and maintenance logs.
- Potential witness statements if anyone is willing to testify in your favor.
- Preserving your work clothes and PPE at the time of the explosion.
Identify All the Liable Parties
The lawyer looks beyond the negligence of the company and sees if third-party contractors, equipment manufacturers, maintenance companies, and safety consultants are liable too.
If there is a pattern of explosive accidents occurring in the company, the lawyer documents it to prove that there is a systemic failure.
Prove Corporate Negligence and Safety Violations
If a systemic failure is present, the lawyer will bring up the other explosions in different locations, and emphasize how the company failed to eliminate the risks or the hazards on its properties.
The lawyer uses the evidence, especially expert testimonies that connect the company’s safety violations to the fire explosions, which led to your injuries.
Protect Victims from the Company’s Private and Insurance Investigators
Your lawyer prepares you for the company’s clandestine tactics to downplay your injuries or blame you.
The company’s private investigators will monitor both your social media and real life.
They will continuously capture images of you, searching for anything, even seemingly innocent ones, that they can use against you.
The lawyer’s job is to:
- Handle the company’s insurance attorneys and adjusters; they will go to great lengths to reduce your compensation.
- Advise you to note down everything while memories are still fresh and stay off social media.
- Build strong evidence that proves the severity of your injuries so there are fewer loopholes for insurer adjusters to reduce compensation.
Work with Experts and Calculate Your Compensation
The victim’s fire injuries are devastating, given the dangerous nature of refinery or other chemical factory-related explosions.
You just don’t have medical bills and lost wages to deal with. There will be non-economic damages.
In addition to physical constraints that prevent you from working, victims lose authority over their own bodies because of the psychological damage caused by the fire incident.
Victims often experience:
- Recurrent flashbacks of the same events (PTSD)
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Depression and severe anxiety
- Loss of consortium
The lawyer ensures the victim’s compensation includes these factors and calculates a fair settlement.
Key Takeaways
- A corporation’s involvement makes these fire injuries inherently complex, along with life-altering injuries.
- Your lawyer will start their investigation before the company tries to clean up the mess.
- Collect all the necessary evidence that points to the negligence of the company.
- A lawyer can identify if multiple parties have contributed to the fire accident.
- The lawyer will point out how the past fire accidents occurred, indicating there’s a systemic failure.
- Protect the victim from shady private investigators of the company who might frame the victim as the negligent one.
- Take the victim’s psychological distress into account and ensure it’s included in the final compensation.
