employment texas workplace injury
Is there any legal action I can take after my company discouraged me from calling 911 after a workplace injury?
<p>I fell at work causing me to have 6 compound femur fractures. I begged my boss to call 911 because my leg was broken . They laughed at me saying there's no way it was broken and that I was exaggerating.</p>
<p>A nurse at the  nurse's station said there is nothing wrong with my leg  and advised me to take myself to the hospital or call someone other than 911.</p>
<p>I called a family member who took me to the hospital where it was determined that I had six compound femur fractures and emergency surgery was performed</p>
<p>What legal actions do I have?</p>

<p>You are asking the wrong question: it is up to you to decide how to deal with your injury. The employer's role, if any, is limited to after-the-fact compensation. In Texas, workman's compensation coverage is not mandatory, so that is a variable affecting the details. If the employer has workman's comp, they are protected from various legal actions against time, but they also don't get a &quot;vote&quot; in compensation, which is provided by the insurance company.</p>
<p>Assuming that the employer is a non-subscriber (as they are called), then the question of employer liability is resolved either by negotiation or lawsuit. You can read a breakdown of the legal essentials <a href="https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/texas-work-injury-law-what-you-need-to-know-51023" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. When you go to court, you would have to prove that the employer was at fault. Let's assume that you've proven that, then the remaining question is whether that loss is reasonably related to the injury that the employer was responsible for.</p>
<p>There are multiple kinds of medical transportation available, ranging from patient self-transportation on the bus to calling 911. The laws regarding 911 calls are a matter of local jurisdiction, but the general rule is that you only call 911 for genuine emergencies. However, there isn't a clear, practical standard that distinguishes between an emergency vs. &quot;something that you need to deal with eventually&quot;. Given your description of the injury, I will work on the assumption that this qualifies as a true medical emergency in your town. Now, typically, 911 EMTs make a professional judgment whether you need ordinary ambulance transportation vs. &quot;Medic One&quot; style transportation – this isn't decided by the employer.</p>
<p>The one area where an employer could have a say in the matter is in accessing his personal or work phone, in order to call 911. Your description of the circumstances is not exactly clear: do you have a phone, or access to a phone? You do not have to have employer permission to make an emergency call on your phone.</p>
<p>So to continue looking for ways to make this a problem for the employer, I will assume that you had no access to a phone of your own or any other employee, and the employer refused to let you use his personal phone or company phone to call 911, but would let you use his phone to call home (this is an entirely rhetorical assumption, but I have no evidence that the situation is otherwise). Now the question is whether the employer has a <em>legal</em> obligation to provide access to a work or personal phone in order to make an emergency call. Now we have a specific Texas law, <a href="https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-42-062.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Penal Code §42.062</a> which says in part that it is a crime when one</p>
<blockquote>
<p>knowingly prevents or interferes with another individual's ability to
place an emergency call or to request assistance, including a request
for assistance using an electronic communications device, in an
emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other
agency or entity the primary purpose of which is to provide for the
safety of individuals</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.dougmurphylaw.com/interference-with-emergency-calls" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is a lawyer's talk-through of this law, which does not address to $64,000 question whether the law creates a &quot;duty to assist&quot; rather than a &quot;duty to not interfere&quot;. The answer is tied to the basic lawsuit question of whether the employer is at fault. Under the common law, if a party has created a harmful situation, they have a duty to assist in mitigating that situation.</p>
<p>So if you were horsing around on the job and you're at fault for the injury, then the employer is not liable and you have to shoulder the burden for treatment. If they are at fault, they also have to assist you in seeking emergency medical treatment. I doubt that the courts would find it to be a <em>crime</em> to refuse to call 911, but the employer could be civilly liable.</p>
