Pecos County Oilfield Rig Collapse: What Happened at the Petro-Hunt Wellsite — and What Your Rights Are When the Rig Floor Gives Way
If you are reading this from a hospital room in Fort Stockton, Odessa, or Midland — watching someone you love recover from surgery after a rig floor collapsed underneath them — you are in a moment that most people cannot imagine and the oilfield never warns you about. The man on that bed was doing his job. The structure beneath him was supposed to hold. It did not. Now the medical bills are climbing, the company’s insurance adjuster has already started calling, and nobody from the operator has told you the truth about what failed or why.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle catastrophic oilfield injury and wrongful death cases in Texas. We are writing this for you and for every family in the Permian Basin who has been or could be in this position. This page is legal information, not legal advice. But it is the information we wish every family had before they signed anything, said anything to an adjuster, or let another week pass while the evidence at the wellsite disappears.
The Incident: What the Public Record Shows
On October 24, 2025, an oilfield worker was performing his duties at a Petro-Hunt Permian wellsite in Pecos County, Texas, when the rig floor suddenly collapsed beneath him. He was trapped and crushed underneath the collapsed structure. The injuries were severe enough to require major surgery, and he remained hospitalized as of the date a lawsuit was filed four days later, on October 28, in Dallas County.
The lawsuit names Petro-Hunt, L.L.C. and Petro-Hunt Permian, LLC as defendants. It alleges that the companies failed to operate safely, did not follow or enforce proper safety procedures, policies, or equipment standards, and showed “conscious indifference” to worker safety — the Texas legal phrase that unlocks exemplary (punitive) damages. The injured worker’s wife joined the suit, seeking compensation for loss of consortium and household services. The plaintiffs asked the court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the destruction or alteration of evidence at the wellsite — including equipment, digital records, and operational data.
The petition seeks more than $1 million in damages, with the final amount to be determined by a jury.
What That $1 Million Number Really Means
The $1 million figure in the petition is almost certainly a jurisdictional pleading minimum — a procedural floor that gets the case into a certain court — not a real valuation of what this case is worth. A worker who was crushed under a collapsed rig floor, required major surgery, and remained hospitalized has a case whose value is driven by the severity of the crush injuries, the permanence of functional impairment, whether gross negligence can be proven, and how many defendants with separate insurance coverage are ultimately identified.
Based on what we know from handling cases in this space, the realistic range for a case like this — with crush injuries, major surgery, and ongoing hospitalization — runs from approximately $1.5 million on the low end to $8 million to $15 million on the high end. The low end assumes liability is contested, gross negligence is not proven, and the injured worker achieves meaningful functional recovery. The high end assumes provable gross negligence unlocking exemplary damages, permanent or long-term disability, non-subscriber status eliminating comparative-fault defenses, and a jury receptive to a conscious-indifference narrative against a sophisticated energy-company operator. The actual outcome depends heavily on what discovery reveals about the cause of the rig floor collapse, prior inspection records, and whether additional defendants with separate insurance coverage are identified.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We are describing the landscape, not promising a number.
The Permian Basin Is the Most Active Oilfield in the World — and Its Equipment Is Aging Under 24-Hour Pressure
Pecos County sits in the heart of the Permian Basin of West Texas — a producing region that spans more than 75,000 square miles across West Texas and southeastern New Mexico and is one of the most prolific oil and gas plays on the planet. The county is bisected by Interstate 10, and U.S. Highway 285 runs through it as a major north-south corridor for oilfield truck traffic connecting the Delaware Basin play. Fort Stockton is the county seat. This is oil country. The rigs run around the clock.
That 24-hour operating tempo is not a background fact. It is the condition that produces equipment fatigue. Accelerated drilling schedules, inadequate maintenance intervals on aging rig infrastructure, and the pressure to keep the bit turning to the right — all of these are the structural pressures that make rig-floor structural failures a foreseeable event, not a freak accident. When a rig floor collapses under a worker, the first question is never “how did this happen?” The first question is “how long was this equipment running without the inspection and maintenance that the industry’s own standards require?”
The decision to file this lawsuit in Dallas County rather than Pecos County is a strategic venue selection. Dallas County offers a larger, more diverse jury pool with historically stronger verdict trends for workplace-injury plaintiffs than rural West Texas venues. Under Texas civil practice rules, this venue is permissible if a defendant maintains its principal place of business in Dallas County. The venue choice is not a technicality — it is one of the most consequential early decisions in any oilfield injury case, because the twelve people who sit in the jury box will decide what a crushed worker’s life is worth.
The Two Roads: Workers’ Compensation vs. Non-Subscriber Negligence — and Why This Fork Changes Everything
Here is something most oilfield families do not learn until it is too late: Texas is the only state in the country that permits employers to opt out of the workers’ compensation system entirely. An employer that chooses not to subscribe to workers’ compensation is called a “non-subscriber,” and that status fundamentally changes what an injured worker can recover.
If Petro-Hunt is a workers’ compensation subscriber, the exclusive-remedy provision generally bars ordinary negligence claims against the employer. The injured worker would receive comp benefits — medical care and a portion of lost wages — but could not sue the employer for full tort damages. However, Texas law preserves a critical exception: even for subscribers, the gross-negligence exception allows the employee to pursue exemplary damages for conscious indifference to safety. That exception is what the lawsuit’s gross-negligence allegation is reaching for.
If Petro-Hunt is a non-subscriber — meaning it chose not to carry workers’ compensation coverage — the landscape transforms entirely. A non-subscriber forfeits the traditional common-law defenses that employers normally hide behind: contributory negligence (the worker was partly at fault), assumption of risk (the worker knew the job was dangerous), and the fellow-servant rule (a coworker caused the injury, not the company). Without those defenses, the injured worker can pursue full negligence damages — medical expenses, lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement — without the company being able to point the finger back at the worker or his crew.
“Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.”
— Occupational Safety and Health Act, Section 5(a)(1) — the General Duty Clause
That federal duty does not disappear because an employer opts out of workers’ comp. It is the floor every employer must meet, and when a rig floor collapses under a worker, the question of whether the employer met that duty is the heart of the case.
Determining whether a defendant is a subscriber or a non-subscriber is one of the first things we establish when evaluating an oilfield injury case. It dictates the entire strategy. You can learn more about the workers’ compensation framework on our workers’ compensation practice page.
Gross Negligence and “Conscious Indifference”: The Key That Unlocks Exemplary Damages
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants showed “conscious indifference” to worker safety. This is not just strong language. It is the specific Texas legal standard for gross negligence — and proving it unlocks exemplary damages (also called punitive damages) on top of compensatory recovery.
Under Texas law, gross negligence requires more than ordinary carelessness. The standard demands proof that the defendant had actual, subjective awareness of an extreme degree of risk and proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. This is a high bar — but it is not impossible, and in the oilfield context, the evidence that establishes it is often sitting in the company’s own files.
How do you prove conscious indifference in a rig-floor collapse case? The evidence ladder looks like this:
- Prior inspections that identified the deteriorating condition. If the company inspected the rig floor and noted corrosion, weld degradation, metal fatigue, or structural weakness — and then did nothing — that is not negligence. That is a choice to keep running equipment the company knew was failing.
- Near-miss reports from the same rig or same site. If the rig floor had shown warning signs before — unusual vibrations, visible cracking, weight-bearing complaints from the crew — and those reports were filed, circulated, or discussed internally, the company had actual knowledge of the risk.
- Maintenance records showing skipped or delayed inspections. The American Petroleum Institute publishes industry standards for drilling and well-servicing equipment design, inspection, and maintenance. Departure from those standards is evidence a fact-finder may treat as negligence. A pattern of skipping required inspections is evidence of conscious indifference.
- Accelerated drilling schedules that bypassed safety protocols. When the pressure to finish the well on time overrides the duty to shut down and inspect, the scheduling decision itself becomes the proof of indifference.
- Internal communications. Emails, text messages, or dispatch records showing that someone inside the company raised the hazard and was ignored, overruled, or silenced.
Texas’s statute governing exemplary damages imposes statutory caps that limit the punitive recovery relative to the economic and non-economic damages awarded by the jury. But even within those caps, exemplary damages can materially increase the value of a case — and the threat of exemplary damages changes the entire settlement dynamic. A company facing a jury verdict that includes punitive damages has a fundamentally different incentive to resolve a case than one facing only compensatory exposure.
The Defendant Stack: Who Is Really Responsible When the Rig Floor Collapses
The lawsuit names Petro-Hunt, L.L.C. and Petro-Hunt Permian, LLC. But in oilfield cases, the named defendants at the time of filing are frequently not the only entities with liability exposure — and identifying the full defendant stack is one of the most important early tasks in the case. The difference between a maintenance-failure case against the well operator and a products-liability case against a rig manufacturer fundamentally changes the insurance coverage available and the value of the claim.
Here is the defendant map that discovery must build:
Petro-Hunt, L.L.C. — the corporate parent and wellsite operator. As the entity alleged to have controlled site safety procedures, equipment standards, and operational decisions, Petro-Hunt bears responsibility for the overall safety of the wellsite. If the company controlled the rig floor’s condition, directed the crew’s activities, and set the operational tempo, its negligence is the spine of the case.
Petro-Hunt Permian, LLC — the operating entity for this specific wellsite. This entity is directly responsible for site-level safety enforcement, equipment maintenance, and operational oversight at the Pecos County location. The distinction between the parent and the operating subsidiary matters for insurance coverage, indemnity clauses, and which entity’s policies are triggered.
The drilling contractor — identity to be confirmed through discovery. This is the critical third-party target. In the oilfield, the well operator and the drilling contractor are frequently different companies. Petro-Hunt may be the well operator — the company that owns the lease and directs the drilling program — while a separate drilling contractor owns, maintains, and operates the rig itself, including the rig floor. If a separate drilling contractor owned and maintained the rig whose floor collapsed, that contractor bears direct liability for equipment integrity and structural safety. Its insurance coverage is a separate tower from the operator’s, and naming it opens a second path to recovery. Identifying the drilling contractor is one of the first discovery targets.
The rig manufacturer or fabricator — identity to be confirmed through discovery. If the rig floor collapsed due to a design or manufacturing defect — inadequate metallurgy, insufficient structural support, a weld specification that failed under normal loading — the entity that designed, fabricated, or supplied the rig floor components may face strict products liability claims under Texas products law. Products liability is a different theory from negligence, and it does not require proof that the manufacturer was careless — only that the product was defective and the defect caused the injury.
The maintenance or inspection contractor — identity to be confirmed through discovery. If a third-party company was retained to inspect, maintain, or certify the rig structure, and it failed to identify and remediate the condition that caused the collapse, that company’s negligence creates direct exposure. Its records — inspection reports, certification documents, maintenance logs — are the proof of what it found, what it missed, or what it chose not to report.
This is why mediating or settling a rig-collapse case prematurely — before the full defendant stack is identified — can leave significant insurance coverage uncollected. A case that looks like a single-defendant claim against the well operator may actually involve three or four separate defendants, each with its own insurance tower, each bearing a share of the responsibility. If you would like to understand how we approach workplace structural failures more broadly, visit our workplace accident practice page.
The Evidence Clock: Why the Temporary Restraining Order Is the Most Urgent Filing in the Case
The lawsuit’s request for a temporary restraining order is not a routine procedural move. It is the single most urgent filing in a rig-collapse case, and here is why: oilfield operators routinely remediate wellsites and remove equipment within days of an incident. The rig floor that collapsed — the physical evidence of the failure mode — can be scrapped, hauled off, or altered before anyone has the chance to examine it. When that evidence is gone, the ability to prove what failed and who is responsible goes with it.
The evidence that must be preserved, and how fast each piece can legally disappear:
Rig floor structural components and collapsed debris. This is the single most important physical evidence in the case. The failure mode — fatigue fractures, corrosion patterns, weld failures, overload signatures — tells a forensic metallurgist or structural engineer exactly how and why the floor collapsed. This evidence must be examined in place and then preserved for expert analysis. Timeline: immediate. Wellsite remediation can destroy this evidence within days if the TRO is not granted.
Digital operational data, drilling parameters, and real-time monitoring records. Modern drilling rigs generate continuous digital data — weight on bit, rotational speed, torque, vibration sensors, and structural monitoring systems. This data shows whether the rig was operating within safe parameters, whether anomaly detection flagged structural stress, and whether operators continued drilling despite warning signs. Timeline: hours to days. Electronic data logs may be overwritten on routine cycles or deliberately purged. Original electronic copies with metadata are critical.
Maintenance, inspection, and certification records for the rig floor. These records establish whether the defendant had notice of the deteriorating condition, whether required inspections were performed, and whether API or internal safety standards were followed. Timeline: days to weeks. Records may be altered, backdated, or deleted. The original electronic copies with metadata — showing when each record was actually created or modified — are the proof.
Internal safety policies, training records, and enforcement documentation. The lawsuit alleges failure to follow or enforce proper safety procedures. These records prove whether safety procedures existed on paper but were not enforced, and whether workers were trained to recognize structural hazards. Timeline: days to weeks. Policies can be updated post-incident to create a false appearance of compliance.
Prior incident reports, near-miss documentation, and OSHA or internal safety audits. Prior similar events or documented safety deficiencies are the foundation for gross negligence and exemplary damages. If the same hazard had been reported before and nothing was done, the company had actual knowledge of the risk. Timeline: days to weeks. Post-incident document retention policies may result in destruction of older records.
Personnel assignment records and witness statements from crew members. The crew members who were on site that day are the witnesses who can describe what they saw, what they heard, and whether anyone flagged the hazard before the collapse. Timeline: days. Crew rotation in oilfield operations means witnesses disperse quickly. Memories fade. Statements are influenced by employer pressure. Identifying and interviewing every person who was on that site is urgent work.
Cell phone photos or videos taken by workers. Workers routinely photograph and film conditions on the rig — before and after incidents. This contemporaneous visual evidence is often more candid and complete than official scene documentation. Timeline: immediate. Personal devices may be lost, replaced, or wiped. Workers may delete content fearing employer retaliation.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving notice that it must be preserved, the law answers. An adverse-inference instruction allows the jury to assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says it was. Sanctions are available. The leverage begins the moment the preservation letter is on file. But the letter has to go out before the evidence is gone — not after.
This is why the TRO request in this lawsuit was filed within four days of the incident. Every day that passes without a court order freezing the wellsite is a day the evidence can be altered or destroyed.
The Medicine: What Happens to a Body Trapped and Crushed Under a Collapsed Rig Floor
The medical profile of a worker trapped and crushed under a collapsed rig floor is one of the most serious injury patterns in trauma medicine. “Crush injuries” is not a single diagnosis — it is a cascade of damage that begins at the moment of impact and can continue for days, weeks, and years after the worker is pulled from the wreckage.
The mechanism. When a rig floor — a steel structure weighing thousands of pounds — collapses onto a worker, the forces involved are devastating. The weight compresses the body, and depending on what part of the body was trapped, the damage can include orthopedic trauma (fractures of the pelvis, legs, spine, or ribs), internal organ injury (liver, spleen, kidney laceration from blunt compression), and soft-tissue destruction. The worker was not just struck — he was pinned. The duration of entrapment matters: the longer the tissue is compressed, the deeper the damage goes.
Crush syndrome — the injury that does not stop when the weight is lifted. Here is the part that most families never hear about until it is happening. When muscle is crushed, the damaged cells release their contents into the bloodstream. One of those contents is myoglobin — a muscle protein that the kidneys were never built to handle. In large amounts, myoglobin clogs and chemically burns the kidney’s filtering tubules, causing acute kidney injury. The medical term is rhabdomyolysis. Doctors track it with a blood enzyme called creatine kinase (CK), and CK keeps climbing for up to 72 hours after the injury — so a single reassuring blood draw in the first hour proves nothing. The kidney failure that follows crush syndrome can require dialysis, and a meaningful fraction of severe crush-AKI survivors do not fully recover renal function.
Reperfusion — the most dangerous moment. The moment the weight is lifted off a trapped limb is not the end of the danger. It is the beginning of a second wave. When blood flow returns to oxygen-starved muscle, it flushes accumulated potassium, myoglobin, and acid into the central circulation all at once. Potassium, in high enough concentrations, stops the heart. Approximately 20% of crush victims die of cardiac arrest induced by hyperkalemia or hypovolemic shock within a short time after decompression. This is why rescue protocols call for intravenous fluids to be started before the weight is removed — the release is the kill switch, and the body has to be prepared for it.
Compartment syndrome — the six-hour window. When a crushed limb swells inside its tough, non-stretchy fascial sheath, the pressure inside that sealed space can rise until it strangles the muscle’s own blood supply from within. The surgery that relieves it — a fasciotomy, slicing the sheath open — has a window. Done within six hours of the injury, there is almost complete recovery of limb function. After six hours, the muscle dies and the damage is permanent. The warning signs come early: pain wildly out of proportion to the injury, pain that explodes when the toes or fingers are moved. The reassuring signs people wait for — a missing pulse, a numb foot — are the late ones, the ones that mean the limb is already dying.
The long arc. The “major surgery” mentioned in the public reporting could be any of several procedures — fasciotomy for compartment syndrome, open reduction and internal fixation for fractures, spinal decompression or fusion if the back was involved, or laparotomy for internal organ damage. The ongoing hospitalization tells us the injuries were not survivable without surgical intervention. What follows is a trajectory that can include inpatient rehabilitation, permanent functional impairment, the possibility of never returning to oilfield work, and a lifetime of medical needs that a life-care planner must price out — not a guess, but a formal medical-economic document built to a national professional standard that lays out, year by year, every surgery, therapy, medication, and piece of equipment the worker will need for the rest of his life.
The injuries are real, they are documented, and they are provable. The defense will try to minimize them. The medicine is the answer.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Try — and What You Do About It
When an oilfield worker is crushed on the job, the company’s insurance apparatus activates within hours. Here is what to expect, and how each play is countered:
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within days, someone will call the family — or visit the hospital room — sounding warm and concerned. They will ask you to “just tell us what happened” and assure you they are “on your side.” This conversation is being recorded. It is engineered to get you to say things that will later be quoted against you — “he was feeling okay,” “it was just an accident,” “we’re not looking to sue anyone.” The counter: do not give a recorded statement to the company or its insurer without legal representation. You are not required to, and nothing you say will help your case. Everything you say can and will be used to reduce what they pay.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the full extent of the injuries is known, before the MRI results come back, before the surgeon has even decided whether a second operation is needed. It will come with a release attached. Once you sign that release, the case is over. You cannot reopen it when the medical bills turn out to be ten times what you expected. The counter: never sign a release, settlement offer, or medical authorization from the employer or its carrier without legal review. A check that arrives before the medical picture is complete is designed to close the case cheaply.
Play 3: The “independent” medical examination. The insurer may send the injured worker to a doctor of their choosing — called an IME, or “independent medical examination.” That doctor is not independent. The insurer picks the doctor, the insurer pays the doctor, and the doctor’s report will minimize the injuries, question whether they are work-related, or argue that the worker has reached maximum medical improvement sooner than the treating physicians say. The counter: know that this is coming, make sure the treating physicians’ records are complete and contemporaneous, and have your own medical experts ready to rebut the defense IME.
Play 4: The surveillance and social-media watch. The insurance company may conduct surveillance — photographing or filming the injured worker in public — and will monitor social media accounts. A photograph of the worker at a family barbecue, smiling, will be presented as proof that the injuries are not serious. The counter: assume you are being watched. Do not post about the injury, the case, or physical activity on social media. Maintain the treating physicians’ documented restrictions. A moment caught on camera out of context can damage a case that is otherwise strong.
Play 5: The “you assumed the risk” defense. If the employer is a workers’ compensation subscriber, the company cannot use this defense. If the employer is a non-subscriber, this defense is also eliminated. But third-party defendants — a drilling contractor, a rig manufacturer — may try to argue that the worker “knew the job was dangerous” and accepted the risk. The counter: assumption of risk is a defense that Texas non-subscriber law eliminates against the employer, and it is a defense that a strong safety-record showing and the industry’s own API standards can defeat against third parties. The job is dangerous. That is why the industry wrote safety standards. When the standards are not followed, the danger is not assumed — it is imposed.
Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he joined this firm. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how claim valuation software works, how IME doctors are selected, and what surveillance tactics look like from the inside. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. When we tell you what the adjuster is going to do, we are telling you because we have been on the other side of that table.
The Proof Story: How a Rig-Collapse Case Is Actually Built
Here is how a case like this is built, from the day a family calls to the day a number is put in front of a jury:
Week one. The preservation demand goes out — a letter ordering every potential defendant and every third-party data vendor to freeze the rig floor structural components, the digital operational data, the maintenance and inspection records, the internal safety policies, the prior incident reports, the personnel records, and the crew’s cell phone footage. The TRO is sought to lock down the wellsite. Experts are retained: a forensic structural or metallurgical engineer to examine the failed rig floor, a petroleum engineering expert on drilling-rig safety standards, and a life-care planner to begin projecting the long-term medical and functional consequences of the crush injuries.
Discovery. The defendant’s own records are demanded — maintenance logs, inspection certifications, API compliance documentation, internal safety audits, prior incident reports, crew training records, drilling parameters from the rig’s monitoring systems. The drilling contractor is identified. The rig manufacturer is identified. The maintenance contractor is identified. Each new defendant opens a new insurance tower and a new set of records.
Depositions. The safety director sits across the table and explains the company’s choices under oath. The site supervisor explains what he knew and when he knew it. The drilling contractor’s maintenance manager explains the inspection history — or the lack of it. The rig manufacturer’s design engineer explains the load specifications and whether the floor was built to handle the conditions it was operating under. Each deposition is a chance to establish what the company knew, what it did with that knowledge, and whether its conduct rises to conscious indifference.
The number. The economic damages are built from the life-care plan (past and future medical expenses, rehabilitation, medications, follow-up procedures) and a forensic economist’s projection of lost wages and lost earning capacity. The non-economic damages — physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement — are argued from the medical record and the family’s testimony. The wife’s loss-of-consortium claim adds a separate, jury-visible channel for the loss of household services, spousal companionship, and support. If gross negligence is proven, exemplary damages are sought on top. The number at the end is built from all of it — every record, every deposition, every expert report, every medical bill, every day the worker could not go back to the rig.
This is not a process that can be rushed. Mediation should be deferred until expert analysis of the rig failure is complete and the full defendant stack is identified, because settling prematurely with only the operator defendant may leave significant insurance coverage from a drilling contractor or equipment manufacturer uncollected.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What Not to Do
If you or someone you love has been injured in an oilfield rig collapse, here is what matters most in the first 72 hours:
Medical first — and why symptoms lie. The injuries from a crush event may not all be visible on the first exam. CK levels climb for 72 hours. Compartment syndrome can develop over hours. Internal injuries can declare themselves late. The medical record is the foundation of the case — every pain level, every procedure, every complication, every rehabilitation milestone must be documented contemporaneously. Keep a daily medical journal. It will be far more persuasive at trial than a retrospective summary.
Do not talk to the company. Do not discuss the incident, the rig condition, or the injuries with Petro-Hunt representatives, coworkers, or insurance adjusters. Do not sign any authorization forms, medical-release documents, or settlement offers without legal review. The company is not your friend in this moment. It is a potential defendant building its defense.
Preserve everything you can. If anyone who was on site has photos or video — before the collapse, during the rescue, of the rig afterward — save them. Do not delete anything. Do not let anyone from the company take your phone. If the injured worker had a personal device on site, secure it immediately.
Document the family impact. The wife should write down the specific household services she has lost — the cooking, the childcare, the repairs, the driving, the hundred jobs her husband did every day — and the emotional toll of watching him undergo major surgery and prolonged hospitalization. These observations form the evidentiary core of the loss-of-consortium claim and powerfully humanize the damages narrative for a jury.
Call a lawyer. Not next month. Not when the hospital discharge is being arranged. Now. The preservation letter that freezes the evidence at the wellsite has to go out before the equipment is removed. The witnesses who were on site are dispersing with every crew rotation. The digital data that shows whether the rig was operating within safe parameters may be overwritten on the next cycle. The day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue my employer if I was hurt on an oilfield rig in Texas?
Yes — and the answer depends on whether your employer carries workers’ compensation. If your employer is a non-subscriber (meaning it opted out of workers’ comp), you can sue it directly for full negligence damages, and the employer cannot raise the usual defenses of contributory negligence, assumption of risk, or the fellow-servant rule. If your employer is a workers’ comp subscriber, the exclusive-remedy provision generally bars ordinary negligence claims, but you can still pursue exemplary damages if the employer was grossly negligent. In either case, you can also sue third parties — like a drilling contractor, rig manufacturer, or maintenance company — whose negligence contributed to your injury.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit for an oilfield injury in Texas?
Texas applies a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. That means you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit. Do not wait. The evidence at the wellsite — the physical structure, the digital data, the witness statements — disappears far faster than two years. The deadline to file and the deadline to save the proof are two different clocks, and the evidence clock is much shorter.
What is “conscious indifference” and why does it matter?
“Conscious indifference” is the Texas legal standard for gross negligence. It requires proof that the defendant had actual, subjective awareness of an extreme degree of risk and proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. Proving conscious indifference unlocks exemplary (punitive) damages, which can materially increase the value of a case and change the settlement dynamic. The evidence that proves it often lives in the company’s own files — prior inspection reports, near-miss documentation, internal communications about the hazard.
The petition says the case is worth more than $1 million. Is that all I can recover?
No. The $1 million figure is almost certainly a jurisdictional pleading minimum — a procedural floor to get the case into a particular court — not a real valuation. A case involving crush injuries, major surgery, and ongoing hospitalization has a value driven by the severity of the injuries, the permanence of impairment, whether gross negligence is proven, and how many defendants with separate insurance are identified. Realistic ranges for a case like this can run from $1.5 million to $15 million or more, depending on the facts.
My husband was crushed on a rig. Can I file a claim too?
Yes. Under Texas law, a spouse can assert a loss-of-consortium claim for the loss of spousal companionship, affection, and household services resulting from the injured worker’s incapacitating injuries. This is a derivative claim — it depends on the injured worker’s claim succeeding — but it is independently viable and adds a separate, jury-visible damages channel. The specific household services your husband can no longer perform, the emotional toll on the family, and the impact on the marriage are all compensable.
What if the company already asked me to sign something?
Do not sign it without legal review. A release, a medical authorization, or a settlement agreement signed in the first days after an injury — before the full medical picture is known — is designed to close the case cheaply. Once you sign a release, the case is over. You cannot reopen it when the medical bills turn out to be ten times what you expected. If you have already signed something, call a lawyer immediately — there may be grounds to challenge the validity of the release, but time is critical.
Who besides Petro-Hunt might be responsible?
The well operator is frequently not the only responsible party. A separate drilling contractor may own and maintain the rig whose floor collapsed. A rig manufacturer may be liable if the floor had a design or manufacturing defect. A maintenance or inspection contractor may be liable if it failed to identify the deteriorating condition. Each of these defendants has its own insurance coverage, and identifying them through discovery is one of the most important early tasks. Settling with only the well operator before the full defendant stack is identified can leave significant coverage uncollected.
What should I do if the insurance adjuster keeps calling?
Stop talking to them. You are not required to give a recorded statement. You are not required to accept a quick settlement check. You are not required to see the insurance company’s doctor. The adjuster’s job is to minimize what the company pays — not to make sure your family is taken care of. Every conversation you have with the adjuster is evidence. Get a lawyer, and let the lawyer handle the communication. If you want to understand more about how insurance companies value and defend claims, visit our insurance claim practice page.
How much does it cost to hire an oilfield injury lawyer?
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. We advance the costs of investigation — the experts, the records demands, the depositions — and those costs are repaid from the recovery. If there is no recovery, you do not owe us attorney’s fees. You can learn more about how contingency fees work and what to expect from the process on our firm homepage.
What if I was partly at fault for the accident?
If your employer is a non-subscriber, the defense of contributory negligence is eliminated — your own share of fault does not reduce your recovery against the employer. If your employer is a workers’ comp subscriber, you cannot sue for ordinary negligence anyway, but you can pursue gross negligence. Against third-party defendants, Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule — your recovery can be reduced by your percentage of fault, and if you are found to be more than 50% at fault, you may be barred from recovery. But in a rig-floor collapse case, the fault typically lies with the entity that maintained the equipment, not the worker who was standing on it when it failed.
Who We Are
Ralph P. Manginello is the Managing Partner of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. A journalist before he was a lawyer, Ralph approaches every case as a story that must be proven — fact by fact, record by record, witness by witness. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association, and he leads the active $10M+ hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi at the University of Houston. You can read more about Ralph on his attorney bio page.
Lupe Peña is an Associate Attorney at the firm. He has been licensed in Texas since December 6, 2012 — 13+ years. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. Before joining this firm, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how claim valuation works from the inside, how IME doctors are selected, and what surveillance tactics look like. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. You can read more about Lupe on his attorney bio page.
The firm has recovered more than $50 million for clients. That figure includes a $5M+ brain-injury settlement, a $3.8M+ amputation settlement, a $2.5M+ truck-crash recovery, and a $2M+ maritime back-injury settlement. We handle commercial-vehicle, catastrophic-injury, and wrongful-death cases in Texas. Our approach to oilfield cases is informed by our broader Texas oilfield practice — we know the Permian Basin, its operators, its contractors, and the pressures that make equipment fail.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What the First Call Feels Like
The first call is free. It costs nothing and it commits you to nothing. You will speak to a live person — not an answering service — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We will listen to what happened. We will ask questions that matter — not just about the injury, but about the rig, the crew, the company, the timeline. We will tell you honestly whether we think you have a case and whether we are the right firm for it. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you that too.
If we take the case, the first thing that happens is the preservation letter. It goes out the day you call. Every potential defendant is ordered to freeze the evidence — the rig floor, the data, the records, the footage. Then the investigation begins. The experts are retained. The records are demanded. The defendant stack is built. The medicine is documented. The number is constructed, brick by brick, from every piece of proof the case produces.
This is not a process that happens overnight. But the first step — the call, the letter, the freezing of the evidence — can happen today. And every day you wait is a day the evidence at the wellsite gets a little harder to find.
If you or someone you love has been injured in an oilfield rig collapse in Pecos County or anywhere in the Permian Basin, call us. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win your case. We speak Spanish — Hablamos Español — and Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. Or call our direct line at (713) 528-9070. We answer 24/7.
The rig floor was supposed to hold. It did not. Now the question is what the company that put that floor under your husband, your brother, your son is going to do about it — and whether you have someone in your corner who knows how to make them answer for it. We do. Call us.