We’ve recovered billions of dollars for clients injured in industrial accidents, including plant and refinery explosions throughout Louisiana. Our approach is straightforward: we investigate every case to find out who could have prevented the explosion and didn’t, then we hold every responsible party accountable. That means employers, plant operators, equipment manufacturers, and parent corporations. Companies that defer maintenance, underinvest in safety systems, and ignore known hazards must answer for those decisions.
If you or a family member was injured in a Louisiana explosion, call Arnold & Itkin now at (888) 493-1629 for a free, confidential consultation. There’s no obligation and no fee unless we recover compensation for you.
Louisiana Explosion Verdicts Arnold & Itkin Has Won
The industrial corridor along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is ground zero for some of the most serious explosion cases in the country. We’ve tried those cases in Louisiana courts and won.
Geismar, Deridder & Deepwater Horizon
On June 13, 2013, the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar, Louisiana, exploded, killing two workers and injuring 167 others. In the first bellwether trial brought on behalf of contract workers, our attorneys Kurt Arnold and Kyle Findley secured a $15.4 million verdict in Iberville Parish. The jury assigned 95% of the responsibility to Williams Companies, Inc. That verdict didn’t come through negotiation. It came because we prepared for trial and went to trial.
When a plant explosion in Deridder, Louisiana, killed three workers, the corporate defendants spent seven years refusing to accept responsibility. We took that case to trial and won a $141 million verdict for the victims’ families. We also represented workers after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, one of the most consequential offshore disasters in Louisiana history, and secured a result that Arnold & Itkin has characterized as the largest single-event injury verdict in Louisiana history at $117 million.
These results are past outcomes and not a guarantee of what any future case will produce. But they show that we take Louisiana explosion cases all the way when that’s what it takes.
How We Build an Explosion Injury Case
After a major industrial explosion, corporate defendants move fast. Their legal teams arrive at the site, begin controlling access to evidence, and start constructing a narrative that limits the company’s liability. Physical evidence at a blast site degrades quickly. Witnesses’ recollections shift. That’s why the speed of the response from an experienced explosion attorney matters so much.
We investigate to answer the questions companies don’t want answered: What maintenance was deferred? Which safety investments were cut from the budget? Who knew about the hazard and failed to act? That investigation often reveals patterns, not isolated incidents, and it identifies every party whose negligence contributed to the explosion.
Responsible parties in Louisiana explosion cases often include:
One important warning for anyone injured in a Louisiana industrial explosion: don’t accept a settlement offer from a company before speaking with an attorney. Early offers are almost always structured to limit corporate exposure, not to reflect what an injured worker actually needs to recover. We review cases at no cost and carry all litigation expenses, so there’s never a reason to settle before you know more about your legal options.
Why Explosion Injuries Demand Serious Legal Representation
Explosions aren’t injuries people recover from in a few weeks. The blast itself delivers blunt force trauma to anyone in the radius. The heat produces severe burn injuries that require multiple surgeries, skin grafts, and years of rehabilitation. Scarring and disfigurement are often permanent and painful.
Long-term effects of explosion injuries include:
Each of these consequences carries a compounding financial weight. Medical bills accumulate while income stops. Families that depended on a worker’s salary face losing their financial stability entirely. These are preventable accidents caused by corporate decisions, and the law allows injured workers and their families to pursue compensation for the full scope of that harm, including future medical costs, lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering.
Louisiana’s Prescriptive Period for Explosion Injury Claims
Louisiana law sets a deadline for filing personal injury claims. For incidents occurring on or after July 1, 2024, the prescriptive period is generally two years from the date of injury under La. Civ. Code Art. 3493.1. For incidents occurring before that date, the prior one-year prescriptive period applies. Wrongful death claims and certain other claim types may follow different deadlines. An attorney can identify which period applies to your specific situation.
That said, the filing deadline isn’t the reason to call us today. The reason to call now is that evidence disappears, corporate defendants are already working, and the decisions made in the first weeks after an explosion shape everything that follows. The extended prescriptive period is not a reason to wait.
When Explosions Change Lives in Louisiana, People Turn to Our Attorneys
We’ve faced some of the largest companies in the world and won, including oil and gas companies after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and chemical companies after the Williams Olefins Geismar explosion. Those companies had armies of defense attorneys. We outworked them. Our clients needed us to find a way to pursue the strongest possible outcome, and we did.
We’ve recovered more than $25 billion in verdicts and settlements for clients nationwide, including multi-billion-dollar verdicts of $8 billion, $2.25 billion, and $2.07 billion. Kurt Arnold and Jason Itkin are members of the Inner Circle of Advocates, recognized among the 100 best plaintiff’s lawyers in the nation. Every case we take is prepared for trial, because that preparation is what forces companies to face real accountability. We work on contingency: you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you, and we cover all litigation costs along the way.
Call Arnold & Itkin now at (888) 493-1629 for a free consultation. Your options are confidential, there’s no obligation, and you won’t pay anything unless we recover compensation for you.
