On-The-Job Wrongful Deaths

San Antonio Wrongful Death Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses Fatal Workplace Accidents

Losing someone you love in a fatal work accident is a devastating experience, and many families of such victims wish to seek justice by filing a wrongful death lawsuit. However, many people do not know whether or not they need the help of a wrongful death attorney.

The truth is that work accident law is extremely complex. Employers have many strategies they can use to get off the hook and avoid compensation you and your family for your loved one’s death. Someone without extensive legal experience has virtually no chance of success filing this lawsuit alone. But experienced San Antonio fatal work accident attorney Michael Grossman from Grossman Law Offices is here to help you. He has over twenty years of experienced investigating fatal work accidents and helping families seek justice. He can answer any questions you might have about a wrongful death lawsuit, and he can help you bring those responsible for your family member’s death to justice.

Different Kinds of Fatal Work Accidents

Fatal work accidents can result from almost any sort of work-related accident, including:

• Construction accidents
• Industrial accidents
• Pipeline and oilfield explosions
• Motor vehicle accidents (either caused by other workers or passing motorists)
• Slip and fall accidents
• On the job shootings or assaults

In virtually every type of work accident, the injured employee or the family of a deceased employee can seek compensation through a lawsuit or workers’ compensation insurance. However, this is almost never an easy process. A number of different factors can affect how you file your claim and even the level of compensation to which you are entitled. You must determine whether or not your family member’s employer is protected by workers’ compensation insurance, whether your loved one was a general employee or a contractor from a legal standpoint, and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not the employer was grossly negligent. Your options depend on these and many more variables, and a specific legal strategy must be developed that suits your needs. As you can see, these lawsuits are complex, and they should be handled only by experienced work accident attorneys.

What Makes Fatal Work Accident Lawsuits so Complex and Technical?

One of the biggest challenges you will face when filing a work-related wrongful death lawsuit is workers’ compensation. Essentially, workers’ compensation is a form of insurance that guarantees a minimum amount of compensation to an injured worker or a deceased worker’s family; however, workers’ compensation insurance also makes an employer immune to almost all lawsuits filed by injured workers or their families. Workers’ compensation insurance resulted from a massive amount of pro-business lobbying in the state legislature. However, an experienced Texas fatal work accident attorney can help you overcome these difficulties and seek the justice you deserve.

What is the Difference Between Standard Negligence and Gross Negligence, and How Does This Affect my Lawsuit?

There are generally two types of negligence that we consider when we look at a fatal work accident case: standard negligence and gross negligence. In cases where your loved one’s former employer does not subscribe to a Texas workers’ compensation insurance policy, then you need to only prove negligence in order to receive compensation. However, if the defendant does subscribe to workers’ compensation insurance, then you will be held to a higher standard of proof: you must prove gross negligence. In order to prove gross negligence, you essentially need a bulletproof case. Even attorneys without extensive experience often make a small mistake that lets a defendant off the hook and leaves their clients with nothing. However, the legal professionals at Grossman Law Offices have twenty years of experience with fatal work accident lawsuits, and we know how to build a completely comprehensive case that can prove gross negligence and bring those responsible to justice.

The difference between these two forms of negligence is this: standard negligence constitutes a temporary lapse in judgment or a mistake, whereas gross negligence constitutes a reckless and wanton disregard for a worker’s safety and well-being. As an example, if a worker using a nail gun accident slips and a nail ricochets, hitting another worker, the worker using the nail gun is likely guilty of standard negligence. But if the worker using the nail gun has had three similar incidents in the past and the worker chooses to keep using a nail gun, the worker would probably be guilty of standard negligence. In this case, gross negligence would be dependent on the fact that the worker knew that he or she could not safely operate a nail gun, and yet the worker decided to use one anyway. The accident was foreseeable and likely, and yet the worker did not take steps to prevent it. This is gross negligence.

For another example, consider traffic accidents. Let us say that a driver takes his eyes off the road to adjust the radio, and while not paying attention, crashes into another car. The inattentive driver committed an act of negligence. He had a momentary lapse in judgment that caused an accident. However, if a drunk driver is street racing another car and crashes into a pedestrian, that driver would be guilty of gross negligence. The driver knew that driving drunk and street racing could easily cause an accident, and yet the driver chose to drive drunk and street race anyway.

One more example: if an oil pipeline explodes due to some sort of freak incident that was not predicted beforehand, and everyone at the oil rig was operating using standard safety protocol, then the employers would likely only be guilty of standard negligence. However, if workers at the rig had warned employers numerous times about the safety risks associated with the operating procedures at the oil rig and the employers chose to ignore those warnings, then the employers would likely be guilty of gross negligence.

Let Attorney Michael Grossman Help You

Proving that an employer was grossly negligent is not a simple task. These cases typically require extensive investigations of the accident scene and numerous witness testimonies from other workers, other people at the scene, or experts in the relevant industry. While your attorney is investigating the accident, the employer will have a team of defense attorneys and insurance adjusters building a case against your loved one. Their tactics will be unique in that they do not have to prove that the employer was not negligent. On the contrary, they can admit wholeheartedly to negligence, so long as they can prove that the employer was not grossly negligent. If you do not have an aggressive attorney who can prove gross negligence, you will not receive the compensation you deserve.

The legal professionals at Grossman Law Offices want to make sure that this does not happen to you. Every time we accept a fatal work accident case, we conduct a thorough investigation of the accident scene, and we secure all the witnesses relevant to the accident. We know how to secure the evidence necessary to validate your claim. We also file claims against any responsible third parties. We will do everything we can to bring every party responsible for your loss to justice.

Our attorneys have been helping families seek justice for over twenty years. We have experience negotiating with insurance adjusters and convincing juries of the validity of our clients’ claims. We have successfully investigated and litigated hundreds of high-profile cases against every major insurance carrier in the country. Their adjusters know who we are, and they often offer our clients large settlements once they realize that we are on your case, simply because they do not want to face our attorneys in court. So if you have lost someone you love in a fatal work accident, do not let those responsible go unpunished. Contact San Antonio wrongful death attorney Michael Grossman from Grossman Law Offices today for a free consultation. Let us help you bring those responsible for your family member’s death to justice.