Jury Finds ExxonMobil 100% Liable for Baytown Plant Explosion, Awards Five Workers $28.59 Million
Won by Abraham Watkins.
A Harris County jury found ExxonMobil 100% responsible for a July 2019 explosion at its Baytown olefins plant caused by decades-ignored popcorn polymer buildup, awarding five injured workers $28,591,000 after three weeks of trial.
What happened
On July 31, 2019, a line ruptured at ExxonMobil's Baytown Olefins Plant on the Texas Gulf Coast. The rupture sent a fireball approximately 900 feet into the air, one of the largest industrial explosions seen in the region in years. Thirty-seven workers were injured in the blast. Five of them retained Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz and Stogner to pursue their claims.
The cause was popcorn polymer, an industrial byproduct that can accumulate inside process lines and eventually create enough pressure to cause a rupture. Evidence presented at trial showed ExxonMobil had been aware that popcorn polymer posed an extremely hazardous risk at the Baytown facility since at least 1995. The company had identified the problem but declined to address it, in part to avoid the cost of taking the line offline for maintenance.
OSHA had issued eight safety violations at the Baytown complex in the decade before the explosion, seven of them classified as serious. ExxonMobil denied all allegations at trial and disputed both the cause of the accident and the extent of the workers' injuries. The company argued throughout the three and a half years of litigation that followed the blast.
The case went to trial in Harris County in February 2023, with lead attorney Benny Agosto Jr. heading the Abraham Watkins team alongside Karl Long and Jonathan Sneed. The trial lasted three weeks. The team put on evidence of ExxonMobil's long internal record on popcorn polymer hazards and the company's repeated choice not to act on that knowledge. Two of the five plaintiffs underwent surgeries for neck and back injuries. Two others treated disc herniations with injections and orthopedic care. All five received psychological or psychiatric treatment in the aftermath of the explosion.
The jury returned a verdict of $28,591,000 and found ExxonMobil 100% responsible for causing the explosion. Following the verdict, ExxonMobil said it was sympathetic to the plaintiffs but intended to appeal. Abraham Watkins was also representing approximately 20 additional injured workers from the same explosion, with this group being the first to reach trial.
ExxonMobil appealed. On January 8, 2026, the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals, in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Brown, largely overturned the damages. Reviewing the awards to the three plaintiffs whose claims were not barred by workers' compensation exclusivity, the panel rendered take-nothing judgments on the physical-impairment awards and on one plaintiff's mental-anguish award, and remanded the remaining negligence claims for a new trial on damages, finding parts of the award unsupported by the evidence. The appellate court did not disturb the jury's finding that ExxonMobil was responsible for the explosion.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Houston Press: Jury Finds ExxonMobil Liable in 2019 Baytown Plant Explosion·Archived copy
- 2.Click2Houston: ExxonMobil to pay over $28 million to 5 workers injured in 2019 plant explosion·Archived copy
- 3.BIC Magazine: Injured Exxon plant workers awarded $28 million from 2019 explosion·Archived copy
- 4.Litigation Commentary: Texas Fellow Benny Agosto Jr. Obtains $28,591,000 Verdict Against ExxonMobil·Archived copy
- 5.Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Brown, Tex. App. 14th Dist. (Jan. 8, 2026): appeal reversing and remanding damages
More proven verdicts from Abraham Watkins
All Abraham Watkins proven verdicts →A Harris County jury awarded about $21 million to Santiago Arias, a construction worker paralyzed from the chest down after falling roughly 20 feet at a Houston job site where his employer had provided no fall-protection equipment or safety training.
A federal jury awarded Kimberly Curtis $2 million in compensatory and $30 million in punitive damages after a sliding barn door fell on her at a Manhattan Hilton Garden Inn and defendants were found to have willfully destroyed evidence; a judge later cut the punitive award to $10 million.
A Harris County jury found Red Bluff LLC, owner of the Courtyards of Pasadena nursing home, liable for $7.1 million after a certified nursing assistant suffered a serious spinal injury when a wheelchair with faulty brakes gave way during a bariatric patient transfer.
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