How Do You Prove Negligence in an Industrial Accident Case?

In an industrial accident case, it can vary from case to case how we prove negligence. In some of the larger chemical plants, they will actually do a type of investigation called a root cause analysis, and the root cause analysis will oftentimes at least lay out the rough framework for what happened. Now, in those situations, even there, that doesn’t tell us everything because the people doing the root cause analysis are oftentimes the people who were negligent, and so they’re not gonna be as forthcoming about what happened, but if you’re at a chemical plant or a refinery, let’s say, and it’s one of the major companies that will at least give you a framework. You’ll also oftentimes get investigations by outside bodies like the Chemical Safety Board. The Chemical Safety Board can do a good job oftentimes in preparing a summary of events and what led to different things happening. OSHA also does investigations and there’s citations can give you some insights into it, but oftentimes those are patterned more after specific statutory language, and they’re not as much of a fact type of result that would show you, here’s the negligent acts that occurred. So ultimately, what you have to do to investigate is file a lawsuit, send out discovery, start taking depositions, and eventually you can find out what it is that caused something to happen.