Explosion Accident Lawyer Baytown, TX
At Greenberg Streich Injury Lawyers, we’ve handled catastrophic industrial explosion cases across Texas for more than a decade, including a $7.37 million chemical plant explosion settlement in Houston and a $3.57 million oilfield explosion case. We represent injured workers and grieving families, not operators, contractors, or their insurance carriers. Every case is on contingency. No retainer, no hourly billing, no fee unless we recover.
If you need a Baytown, TX explosion accident lawyer workers and families can trust with a high-stakes case, we are ready to listen and move quickly.
Why Choose Greenberg Streich Injury Lawyers for Explosion Accidents in Baytown, TX?
Trial Experience in Industrial Explosion Cases
Co-founder Matt Greenberg has practiced personal injury law in Baytown, TX for 12 years and has served as lead trial counsel in cases that produced record-setting verdicts and settlements in catastrophic injury and death matters across Texas. He earned his J.D. at Baylor Law School and has been recognized by Super Lawyers, Lawdragon, and the National Trial Lawyers. Matt is also a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.
Mike Streich has represented injured workers and families in catastrophic explosion and burn cases for 13 years. He graduated cum laude from the Houston Law Center and has been named a Texas Rising Star by Super Lawyers every year from 2017 through 2021 and again from 2023 through 2025. Before moving to the plaintiff side, Mike spent nearly a decade defending corporations and insurance syndicates, including members of Lloyd’s of London, in catastrophic injury and death claims arising from refinery, oilfield, chemical plant, and offshore work. That background guides how he prepares explosion cases today, because the defense playbook on process safety, root cause, and contractor indemnity is one he helped write for years.
Results That Hold Operators Accountable
Our attorneys have recovered over $375 million for clients across Texas. Those outcomes include a $7.37 million chemical plant explosion settlement in Houston, a $6.75 million Florida chemical plant burn recovery, a $3.57 million oilfield explosion case, a $20 million settlement for an oilfield worker severely burned on the job, and multiple additional eight-figure and seven-figure outcomes in catastrophic industrial matters.
Contingency Fee Representation
Families dealing with a catastrophic burn or the loss of a loved one should not be writing retainer checks. Our firm advances investigation costs, metallurgical work, process safety analysis, fire and explosion reconstruction, and document preservation, and our attorney fees come out of the recovery only if we win.
Client Feedback
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Matt Greenberg is proactive in communication and an effective and conscientious lawyer. I felt blessed to have him in my corner when I needed him most. Much respect for Matt.”
B. Williams
Read more reviews on our Google Business Profile.
Types of Explosion Accident Cases We Handle in Baytown
Baytown and the surrounding Houston Ship Channel corridor host one of the largest concentrations of petrochemical infrastructure in the world. That density, combined with aging equipment, turnaround pressure, and contractor-heavy work crews, produces more serious explosion events than any other part of Texas. Our firm handles the full range of industrial explosion files.
- Refinery accidents. Fires and explosions during hydrocracker, FCC, and distillation unit operations are among the most severe industrial events.
- Chemical plant releases and explosions. Reactor runaways, vapor cloud explosions, and furnace detonations at chemical plants produce catastrophic burns, blunt trauma, and toxic exposure.
- Oilfield accidents. Blowouts, flash fires during hot oil operations, and flowback incidents at oilfield sites cause severe harm to rig hands, truck drivers, and service company workers.
- Tank farm and pipeline explosions. Storage tank fires, vapor releases during transfer operations, and pipeline ruptures can send shrapnel and heat hundreds of feet from the point of ignition.
- Turnaround and maintenance explosions. Many refinery and plant explosions occur during turnarounds, when multiple contractors are working on hot equipment under schedule pressure. These matters frequently involve construction accident and workplace injury claims.
- Tanker truck and transport explosions. Fuel and chemical tanker truck explosions on I-10 and Loop 201 expose both drivers and nearby motorists to blast and burn injuries.
- Vessel and dock explosions. Explosions aboard marine vessels and at loading docks can trigger maritime injury claims alongside shoreside liability litigation.
- Residential and commercial explosions. Natural gas leaks, propane incidents, and electrical faults sometimes rise to a premises liability claim against a property owner or utility.
- Catastrophic burn and blast injuries. Explosions frequently produce serious burn injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and amputations from the blast wave and debris.
- Fatal explosion incidents. When an explosion kills a worker or a bystander, surviving spouses, children, and parents may pursue wrongful death claims against operators, contractors, and equipment manufacturers.
Texas Legal Requirements for Explosion Accident Claims
Explosion cases in Texas sit at the intersection of state tort law, federal process safety regulation, and sometimes OSHA and EPA enforcement. These rules govern cases like yours.
Statute of limitations. Under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, most explosion-related personal injury and wrongful death claims must be filed within two years of the date of the incident or death. Evidence at an explosion scene also moves quickly, because in many cases, the company’s investigators control the site, witnesses are reassigned, and physical evidence is often collected, moved, or destroyed under the guise of cleanup and restart. The steps taken after a serious accident can shape the entire case.
Modified comparative negligence. Texas uses a 51 percent bar rule under CPRC Chapter 33. If a jury finds an injured worker more than 50 percent at fault, the worker recovers nothing. Defense counsel may try to pin fault on a dead worker or an injured contractor, which is why physical evidence and independent witness accounts must be gathered early.
OSHA Process Safety Management. Federal Process Safety Management standards at 29 CFR § 1910.119 govern facilities that handle highly hazardous chemicals, including most refineries and chemical plants. PSM failures, including missing mechanical integrity programs, skipped management of change reviews, and ignored process hazard analyses, are powerful evidence of negligence in Texas courts.
EPA Risk Management Program. The EPA’s Risk Management Program under the Clean Air Act section 112(r) imposes parallel obligations on facilities that handle regulated substances. Chemical release reporting, offsite consequence analysis, and facility response plans often produce a paper record that matters in litigation.
Chemical Safety Board investigations. The independent U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigates major industrial chemical incidents and publishes findings that can inform civil cases. Although CSB findings themselves are not admissible as proof of negligence under federal law, the underlying documents and witness accounts typically become available through civil discovery.
Texas Wrongful Death Act. Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, codified at CPRC Chapter 71, only surviving spouses, children, and parents may bring a wrongful death action when an explosion kills a worker.
What Damages Are Recoverable in a Baytown Explosion Accident Case?
Texas law allows explosion victims and their families to pursue three broad categories of damages. The appropriate amount for your claim depends on the severity of the injury, the strength of the evidence, whether the defendant’s conduct rose to gross negligence, and the available insurance coverage.
Economic damages. These cover the measurable financial losses tied to the blast and burn. They include past and future medical bills, burn unit care, reconstructive surgery, physical and occupational therapy, rehabilitation, prescription costs, assistive devices, home modifications, lost wages, lost earning capacity, and, in fatal cases, funeral and burial costs. Serious burn and blast cases frequently require a life care planner, a burn care consultant, and a vocational economist to accurately project future costs.
Non-economic damages. Texas law permits recovery for physical pain, mental anguish, disfigurement, physical impairment, and loss of enjoyment of life. In fatal explosion cases, surviving spouses, children, and parents may recover for loss of companionship, consortium, and household services under Texas’s wrongful death and survival statutes. Non-economic damages are frequently the largest component of a catastrophic burn case, particularly when the worker survives with permanent scarring, chronic pain, respiratory damage, or life-altering disability.
Exemplary (punitive) damages. Under CPRC Chapter 41, a jury may award exemplary damages when the evidence shows gross negligence, fraud, or malice by clear and convincing evidence. In industrial explosion cases, gross negligence often looks like knowing violations of process safety rules, deferred mechanical integrity work on aging equipment, skipped management of change reviews, or a supervisor’s decision to run a unit out of specification. When the at-fault employer is a workers’ compensation non-subscriber, the full exemplary-damages framework applies in fatal cases.
If the injury involves a third-party contractor, an equipment manufacturer, or a premises owner separate from the employer, additional coverage sources often apply.
Contact Greenberg Streich Injury Lawyers
An industrial explosion can end a career, a household, and a family’s long-term security in a matter of seconds. You deserve a firm that takes the case as seriously as you do. Our Baytown explosion accident lawyer will listen carefully, review the evidence, and give you an honest assessment of your options, including whether a lawsuit is the right next step.
Consultations at Greenberg Streich Injury Lawyers are free. You pay nothing unless we recover money for you. We respond to calls and form submissions promptly, and we can meet in person, by phone, or by video, whichever works best for you.
Contact us today to speak with an explosion accident lawyer about what happened and what comes next.
