Before you call.

Texas work injuries run on two very different tracks, and which track you are on decides almost everything. Here is what I would tell you about the calls I get most.

I was hurt at work and my employer has workers’ compensation.

Then your claim against the employer itself runs through the comp system, which pays medical care and part of your wages but nothing for pain or a changed life. The question I ask next is who else was on the site.

Workers’ compensation is usually the exclusive remedy against a subscribing employer. It does not protect a contractor, an equipment maker, or a property owner whose negligence caused the injury; that is a third-party claim, and it recovers what comp does not.

A case if a third party caused it. If it was only your employer, the comp claim is the remedy, and I will say so.

Read Third-Party Claims. Benefit disputes go to the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation. If the claim is against the owner of the plant or site, read Chapter 95.

My employer does not carry workers’ compensation.

Then it is a non-subscriber, and Texas lets you sue it directly for your full damages when its negligence hurt you.

Labor Code Section 406.033 takes away the defenses that blame the worker: contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, and the fellow-servant rule. You still have to prove the employer was negligent.

Often a case, and often a strong one.

Read Non-Subscriber Work Injury and Inspection. Employers must post whether they carry comp; ask, and photograph the notice.

I reported the injury and got fired, or my hours were cut.

That is its own claim, separate from the injury.

Labor Code Section 451.001 makes it unlawful to discharge or discriminate against an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim in good faith, hiring a lawyer, or testifying in a comp proceeding.

Sometimes a case; it depends on the timing and what the employer said. It is an employment claim, and I may refer it.

Keep every text and email. The Texas Workforce Commission handles wage and unemployment questions; the State Bar of Texas Lawyer Referral and Information Service can match you with an employment lawyer if I am not the right fit.

The site is dangerous and nobody was hurt yet, or the injury was minor.

A lawsuit needs an injury. A hazard without one is a complaint, and complaints are how the next injury gets prevented.

Federal OSHA standards set the safety baseline. A worker can file a confidential complaint, and retaliation for doing so is itself prohibited.

Not a case. A complaint, and a worthwhile one.

File with OSHA, file a safety complaint. If the injury was minor and you lost no time, keep the medical record anyway; pain that grows over weeks is common in crush and fall injuries.

A family member was killed at a plant, a refinery, or a job site.

The company’s investigation starts the same day, and so does its lawyers’ work. The family’s claims belong to the spouse, children, and parents, and a separate claim belongs to the estate.

Wrongful death and survival claims are governed by Chapter 71 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, with a two-year limitations period. Where a third party or a non-subscriber is responsible, the case is outside the comp system.

A case, and the first weeks matter for preserving what the company would rather not keep.

Read Wrongful Death and Refinery and Plant Explosions. Then tell me about it.

I was hurt on the job and my employer says workers’ compensation is all I can get.

The line is common and it is often wrong. A worker gets hurt on a crowded site, calls the number on the wall or the supervisor, and is told the case begins and ends at the comp desk. Comp does one honest thing well and stops. It pays medical, and it pays a fraction of wages while the worker is off, and against a subscribing employer it forecloses the lawsuit for full damages that ordinary tort law would allow. On a job site with more than one company on it, that bar does not reach the other people who owed you a safe place to work.

Two rules run under this. Where the employer opted out of comp entirely, it becomes a non-subscriber, and Labor Code Section 406.033 takes away the old defenses that used to blame the worker (contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, the fellow-servant rule), and the worker sues the employer directly for the full damages. Where the employer does carry comp, the bar under Labor Code Section 408.001 closes the door on that one defendant only, and Section 417.001 expressly leaves open a claim against the third party whose fault caused the injury, the equipment maker, the property owner, another contractor’s crew. That is the case the phone call was trying to make you forget. The industrial hub, Third-Party Claims and Non-Subscriber cover how it is worked, and On the Job anchors the state’s own 2024 numbers to the same principle.

Usually a case when someone other than your subscribing employer had a hand in the injury (a piece of equipment, a chemical, a scaffold, a different company’s crew, the property owner) or when the employer opted out of comp entirely, because comp is a floor and not a ceiling. The two-year statute of limitations on a third-party claim runs under CPRC Section 16.003, so the letter to preserve evidence goes early.

Read On the Job and The Crush on why the minutes a worker spends pinned decide as much as the weight, then tell me about it. If a family member died on the job, the wrongful-death and survival rules are separate and the notice clocks are short; the industrial hub covers what has to happen in the first days.