Houston Personal Injury Law Blog

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, all eastbound and westbound lanes of Interstate 10 between State Highway 73 and Farm to Market 365 will likely be closed until Wednesday. The closing of the interstate follows a truck accident involving a hazardous chemical that occurred early yesterday morning.

A tanker truck carrying isobutane collided with a pickup truck at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning on I-10 East near Hamshire Road. Upon collision, the tractor trailer overturned, releasing the toxic chemical. The driver of the tractor trailer, Branden Swiney, 30, suffered leg injuries. The occupants of the pickup, a father and son, were unharmed.

Isobutane is a chemical used in the petrochemical industry as a feedstock. It is highly flammable and corrosive, and the inhalation of large amounts of the chemical can be deadly.

The tanker was carrying 8,500 gallons of isobutane. A hazardous material emergency response company is working to clean up the spill. The cleanup process has been slow and painstaking. Due to holes in the tank and the flammable nature of the chemical, workers have slowly been flaring the remnants.

A concrete truck spun out of control and overturned near the intersection of FM 1097 and Buffalo Springs Parkway earlier this week. The truck accident caused traffic on FM 1097 to be shut down for several hours Monday morning.

The accident occurred when a Cajun Ready Mix truck carrying nine yards of concrete lost control and rolled over. The truck was heading eastbound on FM 1097 for a construction pour. According to law enforcement officials on the scene, the concrete truck overturned before its bucket became separated from the vehicle. Once the bucket separated from the truck, two yards of concrete spilled over FM 1097. Montgomery firefighters arrived on the scene and quickly hosed the concrete from the roadway.

The driver apparently over-corrected after leaving the road and ended up losing control. The truck, which weighed an estimated 72,000 pounds, left clear impressions.

A member of the Texas Department of Transportation stated that, had the concrete dried on the roadway before firefighters arrived, the accident would have become a major issue.

Although thirty-three trapped miners are alive and safe, they have a long wait ahead.

The Chilean miners have been trapped underground for 17 days and were feared dead after a terrible industrial accident. However, Chilean president Sebastian Pinera shocked his country yesterday when he announced that the trapped miners had sent a note through a bore hole that revealed all 33 men had survived.

The note was written in red with capitol letters and stated, "All 33 of us are well inside the shelter."

The men were working at a depth of 2,300 feet at the San Jose gold and copper mine when the rock above them collapsed on August 5.

Rescuers discovered that there had been survivors of the mining accident when they heard hammering sounds.

As the news of the miners' survival spread across Chile, drivers in Santiago honked their horns and celebrations with thousands of people took place in other cities. President Pinera stated, "Today all of Chile is crying with excitement and joy."

The incidence of large-scale industrial accidents seems to be on the rise. Most recently, of course, was the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed eleven rig workers and resulted in the United States' worst oil spill in history. The Deepwater Horizon incident comes on the heels of mine and refinery explosions around the country this year.

Some feel that these incidents are not random accidents; nor is the inaction of the government following these tragedies. Rather, the ineffectiveness of federal agencies charged with oversight of safety is to blame. In the wake of devastating industrial accidents that claim the lives of workers and cost billions of dollars for taxpayers, Congress and federal regulatory agencies have been lagging in their response.

However, there are many reasons that regulatory agencies do not seem to be doing their jobs. For one, sometimes these agencies are given contradictory assignments by Congress. For example, before the Minerals Management Service was reorganized, its duties included maximizing royalties from offshore drilling while, at the same time, ensuring the safety of rig workers. Likewise, the Federal Aviation Administration is required to ensure the commercial viability of United States air carriers while also protecting the safety of air carriers' passengers.

Also, many agencies lack the resources to effectively execute their duties. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has only 135 inspectors who are responsible for tracking 2.3 million miles of pipeline in addition to monitoring almost one million daily shipments of hazardous material by land, sea and air.

Embattled BP has suffered yet another blow. The company has agreed to pay a record $50.6 million fine for safety violations that caused the 2005 industrial accident at its Texas oil refinery. An explosion at the refinery killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.

According to OSHA, the 2005 explosion was caused when a piece of equipment became overfilled with liquid hydrocarbons that are highly flammable. Meanwhile, the alarms and gauges that were supposed to warn of overfill were not working properly.

Although this fine is paltry compared to the billions of dollars BP will shell out as damages for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it is the largest penalty ever issued in the history of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The previous largest fine was $21 million, which BP was fined in September of 2005 for the same Texas City incident.

Matula & Matula Construction Inc. of Lake Jackson, Texas, has been cited by the United States Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) after an employee died while working inside a sanitary sewer manhole at a construction site earlier this year.

OSHA's proposed penalties for the citations total $136,000.

OSHA initiated an investigation on February 8, after a Matula & Matula employee was killed while pumping grout into a sewer line on the Highway 332 Utility Relocation Project in Lake Jackson. The worker was overcome by inhalation of hydrogen sulfide. Following the investigation, OSHA cited Matula & Matula with two willful violations, three serious violations and two repeat violations.

A 22-year-old Grimes County woman died yesterday on Texas 105 at Mount Miriah Road after her vehicle slammed into the back of a pickup truck, setting off a three-vehicle collision. Alison May Telthorster, of Anderson, died when her Honda Civic crashed into the rear of a pickup truck around 1 p.m. The impact propelled the truck into the path of an oncoming 18-wheeler.

The second collision with the 18-wheeler shaved off the hood of the pickup and crushed its engine. The cab of the 18-wheeler ended 20 feet up a hill with a damaged front axle. Skid marks from the 18-wheeler extended several hundred feet down the highway.

The other two drivers survived the truck accident. Kari Noey, 38, the driver of the 18-wheeler, walked away from the collision unharmed. Vernon Wayne Imhoff, 59, the driver of the pickup, was brought to a hospital and released less than three hours after the crash.

Maritime law has often been described as complicated and cryptic. Many feel that this particular area of law bears little resemblance to domestic law and is obscure to those outside of its practice. For the most part, maritime law is ignored by legislators. That is, until there is a major disaster like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Now, everyone wants to get involved.

The Deepwater Horizon spill has brought maritime law into the headlines in the last few months, resulting in a wave of proposed legislation. Maritime insiders believe that this legislation could result in significant changes for the practice. Whether this is good or bad depends on who you ask. 

There is no consensus within the practice about the proposed legislation because there are so many interests at play. There are some attorneys that feel change is long overdue, and would welcome many of the proposed changes. These attorneys would include those that represent victims of maritime injury and their survivors. For them, current maritime laws are archaic, contradictory and unfair. Meanwhile, attorneys representing corporate clients feel that legislators are reacting too quickly and are not considering the effects of their actions: substantially increasing the cost of doing business at sea.

Many of the eccentricities of current maritime law have been revealed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill. For example, the maritime industry enjoys liberal protection against liability as a result of early laws that were passed to encourage participation in the shipping industry. These laws were passed at a time when the industry was a lifeline for our country. In the wake of a great tragedy like the current oil spill, these limitations of liability seem objectionable. However, taking away these limitations upsets a balance that has been in existence for centuries.