Workplace Falls | Who is Liable for a Workplace Fall?

Texas is one of the deadliest states for workplace falls. In 2023, 92 of the state’s 564 fatal occupational injuries were caused by falls, slips, and trips. The vast majority of those deaths occurred in private industry, with construction and extraction work driving a disproportionate share.

These are not freak accidents. Fall protection has been OSHA’s most frequently cited standard for more than a decade, and yet Texas workers keep dying from preventable falls off roofs, scaffolds, platforms, and elevated surfaces.

Multiple parties can be held liable for a workplace fall in Texas, including the property owner, the employer, a general contractor, subcontractors, equipment manufacturers, and safety consultants. Who bears responsibility depends on who controlled the worksite, who created or failed to correct the hazard, and whether the employer carried workers’ compensation insurance.

At Varghese Summersett, our personal injury team includes former prosecutors and trial-tested attorneys who handle construction accidents, industrial injuries, and wrongful death claims across Texas. With offices in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and Southlake and a team of over 70 legal professionals, we have the resources and experience to investigate complex workplace fall cases and fight for full compensation.

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How Common Are Workplace Falls in Texas?

The numbers tell a sobering story. Texas recorded 564 fatal occupational injuries in 2023, and 92 of those deaths were attributed to falls, slips, and trips. Roughly 93 percent of those fatalities occurred in private industry. Construction, natural resources, and extraction industries contribute heavily to fall deaths, with falls to a lower level (from scaffolds, roofs, platforms, and elevated surfaces) accounting for a significant share.

Nonfatal injuries are just as alarming. Texas private employers reported approximately 178,800 total recordable nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2022. National data consistently shows that falls, slips, and trips account for a major share of the most serious nonfatal cases, including those resulting in days away from work, restricted duty, or job transfers.

What makes these statistics especially frustrating is that falls are among the most preventable workplace injuries. A Texas-focused review found that OSHA cited 641 fall-protection violations in the state during a recent multi-year period. During that same timeframe, 32 Texas workers were killed by falls in the data analyzed. These are well-established safety standards that have been the law for decades.

Who Can Be Held Liable for a Workplace Fall?

Workplace fall cases rarely involve just one responsible party. Depending on the circumstances, several entities may share liability. Identifying all potentially liable parties is one of the most important steps in building a strong claim.

The Property Owner

Under Texas premises liability law, property owners have a legal duty to maintain their property in a reasonably safe condition and warn of known hazards. Industrial buildings often present inherent fall risks, including elevated platforms, open floor holes, catwalks, mezzanines, and unguarded edges.

If the area where a worker fell lacked proper guardrails, barriers, or covers, the property owner may face significant liability. The same is true if warning signs were missing near fall hazards or if the owner knew about unsafe conditions and failed to correct them. Missing, damaged, or inadequate fall protection infrastructure can form the basis of a strong premises liability claim.

The Employer

Texas is unique among all 50 states. It is the only state where private employers are not required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Employers who opt out are known as “non-subscribers.”

If the employer was a non-subscriber, the victim’s family may file a wrongful death lawsuit directly against the employer. In non-subscriber cases, the employer loses several powerful legal defenses under Chapter 406 of the Texas Labor Code. The employer cannot argue contributory negligence, assumption of risk, or the fellow-employee defense. This significantly lowers the burden of proof for the family and makes non-subscriber cases some of the strongest wrongful death claims available under Texas law.

Even if the employer carried workers’ compensation, a third-party liability claim may still be viable against other entities involved in the incident.

OSHA’s Dallas and Austin area offices dedicate inspectors who routinely investigate fall-protection violations at construction and industrial sites. When a worker dies, OSHA will almost certainly open an investigation, and any citations that result can serve as a roadmap for identifying the specific failures that caused the death.

The General Contractor

If the victim was working on a construction, renovation, or maintenance project, a general contractor overseeing the work may also share responsibility. General contractors have a duty to ensure the worksite complies with safety regulations and to coordinate safety measures among subcontractors.

Texas courts have recognized that general contractors can be held liable when they retain control over the means, methods, or details of the work and fail to exercise that control with reasonable care. Failures such as not implementing a site-specific safety plan, neglecting regular safety inspections, or not ensuring fall protection systems were in place can all create liability.

With fall protection violations ranking as OSHA’s number one most-cited standard year after year, general contractors in Texas cannot credibly claim ignorance. These are foreseeable, well-documented hazards that general contractors are expected to plan for.

Subcontractors and Co-Employers

Industrial worksites frequently involve multiple subcontractors working in close proximity. If another subcontractor created the hazardous condition (for example, by removing a guardrail, leaving a floor opening uncovered, or failing to secure scaffolding), that company could be liable as a third party.

These third-party claims are especially valuable in Texas because they allow injured workers or their families to pursue compensation beyond what workers’ compensation provides. This includes damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, and full lost earning capacity.

Equipment and Safety Product Manufacturers

If the victim was wearing a harness, using a lanyard, or relying on any fall-arrest or fall-restraint system that failed, the manufacturer may face a products liability claim. Under Texas law, a manufacturer can be held strictly liable if their product was defective in design, manufacturing, or marketing (meaning inadequate warnings or instructions).

The same applies to scaffolding, lifts, or other equipment that malfunctioned. Even something as seemingly minor as a defective carabiner or a harness with degraded webbing can be the difference between life and death at height.

Safety Consultants and Inspectors

Some industrial operations hire third-party safety consultants or inspection companies to evaluate worksite conditions. If a consultant cleared the site or failed to identify an obvious fall hazard, they could be held liable for negligent performance of their duties.

What Must You Prove in a Workplace Fall Lawsuit?

A workplace fall claim is a personal injury case (or wrongful death case if the worker died). Under Texas law, the plaintiff carries the burden of proof and must establish four elements by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning “more likely than not.”

The four elements are:

Element	What It Means
Duty	The defendant owed a legal duty of care to the injured worker. Property owners, employers, general contractors, and equipment manufacturers all owe specific duties under Texas law.
Breach	The defendant failed to meet that duty. Examples include missing guardrails, absent fall protection training, defective equipment, or ignoring known hazards.
Causation	The breach directly caused or substantially contributed to the fall and resulting injuries or death.
Damages	The injured worker (or surviving family) suffered actual, measurable harm, including medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and loss of companionship.

Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule under Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.001. If the injured worker was partially at fault for the fall, their recovery is reduced by their percentage of responsibility. However, if the worker is found to be more than 50 percent at fault, they are barred from recovering any damages.

In wrongful death cases brought under Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.002, the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased may bring a claim. A separate survival action under § 71.021 can also be filed on behalf of the estate for pain and suffering the victim experienced before death, along with funeral and burial expenses.

If you or a loved one was injured in a workplace fall, talk to an experienced Texas industrial injury attorney who can identify every responsible party and fight for the compensation your family deserves.

How Does Workers’ Compensation Affect a Workplace Fall Claim?

One of the first questions any attorney will ask after a fatal workplace fall in Texas is whether the employer carried workers’ compensation insurance. The answer fundamentally changes the legal options available to the victim’s family.

What Is the Exclusive Remedy Rule?

In most states, workers’ compensation operates as a tradeoff. Employees receive guaranteed benefits for workplace injuries regardless of fault. In exchange, the employer is shielded from personal injury lawsuits by the “exclusive remedy” doctrine. If an employer carries workers’ comp, the injured worker or their family generally cannot sue the employer directly, even if the employer was clearly negligent.

For families dealing with a loved one’s death, this tradeoff can feel deeply unjust. Workers’ compensation death benefits in Texas are calculated as a percentage of the deceased worker’s average weekly wage, subject to a statutory cap. They do not include compensation for pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship, or punitive damages. The difference between workers’ comp benefits and what a wrongful death lawsuit could recover may be enormous.

What Do Workers’ Comp Benefits Actually Pay?

Texas workers’ compensation covers medical treatment and replaces a portion of lost wages, but the benefits are limited by strict formulas and caps set by the state each year. Here is what an injured or deceased worker’s family can expect.

For injured workers who survive:

If you are hurt in a workplace fall and cannot work, you may receive Temporary Income Benefits (TIBs) equal to 70 percent of your average weekly wage (AWW). For injuries occurring between October 2025 and September 2026, the maximum TIB payment is approximately $1,271 per week. TIBs do not begin until you have missed more than seven days of work, and they end when your doctor determines you have reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) or you return to work at your prior wages.

After you reach MMI, if your injury left you with a permanent impairment, you may receive Impairment Income Benefits (IIBs) at 70 percent of your AWW. The duration depends on your impairment rating: three weeks of benefits for every one percent of impairment. A worker with a 15 percent impairment rating, for example, would receive 45 weeks of IIBs. For catastrophic injuries such as total blindness, loss of both hands or feet, or paraplegia, Lifetime Income Benefits (LIBs) pay 75 percent of AWW with a three percent annual increase.

Workers’ comp also covers 100 percent of reasonable and necessary medical treatment related to the injury.

For families of workers killed on the job:

Under Texas Labor Code § 408.181, workers’ compensation death benefits equal 75 percent of the deceased employee’s AWW, subject to the same maximum cap. A surviving spouse receives death benefits for life, unless they remarry. If the spouse remarries, they receive a lump-sum payment equal to two years of benefits and the payments stop. When there are dependent children, the benefits are split: half to the spouse and half divided among the children. Other eligible family members (such as dependent parents or grandchildren) are limited to 364 weeks of benefits. Workers’ comp also pays up to $10,000 for burial expenses.

What workers’ comp does not cover:

Whether the claim involves an injury or a death, workers’ compensation does not pay for pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship and society, loss of quality of life, loss of inheritance, or punitive damages. There is no lump-sum payment reflecting the true impact of a devastating fall injury or a lost life. The benefits are purely a wage-replacement formula with a hard cap.

To put this in perspective, consider a 30-year-old construction worker earning $1,000 per week who suffers a spinal cord injury in a fall and can never work again. Workers’ comp would pay $700 per week in TIBs until MMI, then shift to impairment or lifetime benefits depending on the severity. Over a career, those capped payments may total a few hundred thousand dollars. A personal injury lawsuit against responsible third parties, by contrast, could recover millions when accounting for decades of lost earning capacity, ongoing medical costs, the worker’s physical pain, emotional suffering, and punitive damages in cases involving egregious safety failures. The same gap exists in death cases. The difference between workers’ comp and a fully litigated claim is often enormous.

What Happens if the Employer Is a Non-Subscriber?

If the employer opted out of workers’ compensation (a “non-subscriber”), the exclusive remedy doctrine does not apply. The victim’s family can file a wrongful death lawsuit directly against the employer and pursue the full range of damages available under Texas law, including:

• Pain and suffering
• Mental anguish
• Loss of companionship and society
• Lost earning capacity
• Exemplary (punitive) damages in egregious cases
• Funeral and burial expenses

Non-subscribing employers also lose access to several powerful legal defenses under Chapter 406 of the Texas Labor Code. They cannot argue that the worker’s own negligence contributed to the injury, that the worker assumed the risk of the job, or that a co-worker’s negligence caused the injury. The family only needs to prove the employer was negligent at all, not that the employer was primarily at fault.

Non-subscription is not uncommon in Texas. A meaningful percentage of Texas employers, particularly in construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas, operate without workers’ compensation coverage.

Can You Still Sue if the Employer Has Workers’ Comp?

Yes. If the employer carries workers’ compensation, the family’s direct claim against the employer is generally barred. However, third-party claims remain fully available. A third-party claim targets anyone other than the employer who contributed to the worker’s death, such as the property owner (if different from the employer), the general contractor, other subcontractors, manufacturers of defective fall protection equipment, and safety consultants who failed to identify the hazard.

These third-party lawsuits are not subject to workers’ compensation caps and allow the family to recover the full spectrum of wrongful death damages. Pursuing both workers’ comp benefits and a third-party claim simultaneously is common in Texas workplace fatality cases. The two are not mutually exclusive, though any workers’ comp benefits paid may be subject to a subrogation lien by the insurance carrier.

Employer Retaliation Protections

Texas law prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who file workers’ compensation claims. Under Section 451.001 of the Texas Labor Code, an employer cannot terminate, demote, or otherwise discriminate against a worker for filing a claim or hiring an attorney. While this protection does not directly apply in a death case, it protects co-workers and witnesses who may need to come forward during the investigation.

What Will the OSHA Investigation Reveal?

Federal law requires employers to report any workplace death to OSHA within eight hours. The agency’s investigation will likely focus on whether fall protection systems were in place, whether the employer had a written safety program addressing fall hazards, and whether the victim received adequate training.

OSHA has the authority to issue citations carrying penalties of up to $16,131 per serious violation and up to $161,323 per willful violation. While OSHA citations are not automatically admissible in civil court in Texas, the underlying investigation findings (witness statements, photographs, measurements, and expert opinions) can be instrumental in building a wrongful death case.

Families seeking more detailed information about a specific employer’s safety record can use OSHA’s Fatality Inspection Data search to pull Texas-specific entries and filter by event type, including falls. OSHA’s Establishment Specific Injury and Illness Data can reveal employer-level injury rates, which can then be compared against industry averages to show whether a particular company had a pattern of unsafe conditions.

What Damages Can You Recover After a Workplace Fall?

The damages available depend on whether the fall resulted in an injury or a death, and whether the claim is against a non-subscriber employer or a third party.

If the worker survived: In a personal injury lawsuit against a non-subscriber employer or a third party, an injured worker may recover damages for past and future medical expenses, lost wages and lost earning capacity, physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress, physical impairment and disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. In cases involving gross negligence or willful safety violations, the worker may also pursue exemplary (punitive) damages.

If the worker died: Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased may bring a claim for loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, lost earning capacity, and loss of inheritance. A separate survival action under § 71.021 can recover damages for pain and suffering the victim experienced before death, along with funeral and burial expenses.

In non-subscriber cases or third-party claims, these damages are not capped by workers’ compensation limits. The full value of the claim depends on the severity of the injury, the victim’s age and earning potential, the cost of future medical care, and the circumstances of the fall.

What to Expect From Varghese Summersett

Varghese Summersett is a full-service Texas law firm with over 70 attorneys and legal professionals across offices in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and Southlake. Our personal injury team includes former prosecutors and experienced trial attorneys who prepare every case as if it will go before a jury.

When you bring a workplace fall case to our firm, we will investigate every party that may share liability, from property owners and general contractors to equipment manufacturers and safety consultants. We work with engineers, safety experts, and medical professionals to reconstruct the incident and build the strongest possible case. Our goal is always maximum compensation for our clients and their families.

We handle workplace injury and wrongful death cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay nothing upfront and owe no attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you.

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Watch: Texas Industrial Accidents and How to Get Compensation

Frequently Asked Questions About Workplace Fall Liability

Can I sue my employer for a workplace fall in Texas?

The answer hinges on whether your employer carries workers’ compensation insurance. If your employer is a non-subscriber (opted out of workers’ comp), you can file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit directly against them. If your employer has workers’ comp, you generally cannot sue them directly, but you can pursue third-party claims against other responsible parties like property owners, general contractors, or equipment manufacturers.

How long do I have to file a workplace fall lawsuit in Texas?

Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death claims. This means you generally have two years from the date of the injury (or the date of death in a wrongful death case) to file a lawsuit. Missing this deadline can permanently bar your claim, so it is important to consult with an attorney as soon as possible.

What is a non-subscriber employer in Texas?

A non-subscriber is a Texas employer that has opted out of the state’s workers’ compensation system. Texas is the only state that does not require private employers to carry workers’ comp insurance. Non-subscribers lose access to key legal defenses, making it easier for injured workers or their families to recover full damages through a lawsuit.

Can OSHA violations be used as evidence in a workplace fall lawsuit?

OSHA citations themselves are not automatically admissible in Texas civil court. However, the evidence gathered during an OSHA investigation (including witness statements, photographs, measurements, and safety records) can be extremely valuable in building a personal injury or wrongful death case. An experienced attorney will know how to use OSHA findings to support your claim.

What is the most common cause of fatal workplace falls in Texas?

Falls to a lower level, including falls from scaffolds, roofs, platforms, ladders, and other elevated surfaces, account for the largest share of fatal workplace falls in Texas. The construction, oil and gas, and extraction industries see the highest rates. Fall protection has been OSHA’s most cited violation nationwide for over a decade.

Injured in a workplace fall? Don’t wait. Call Varghese Summersett at (817) 203-2220 for a free consultation. We are available 24/7 and charge nothing unless we win your case.