In the days since the spill was discovered, lawmakers have appealed to Pres. Barack Obama to waive off the provisions of the Jones Act to allow foreign-flagged vessels to help with the oil spill cleanup effort. Several countries have offered us help with oil spill cleanup efforts, including sending their own foreign-flagged vessels to help with the efforts.

The president has remained noncommittal on the issue, rarely speaking on it. Many sections of the media have devoted valuable space to push for repeal of, what they called an outdated and antiquated law that dates back decades. The Washington Post has come out with a piece strongly supporting any move to repeal the law, and so has the San Francisco Examiner.

These efforts by lawmakers seem to be aimed more at political one-upmanship than any real desire to help with oil spill cleanup efforts. For now, the US Coast Guard Navy ships and others are doing all they can to help with the cleanup, and at this point in time, it doesn’t seem like waiving the Jones Act would do any good.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

According to the lawsuit, the injury occurred on July 23, 2008, when the seaman was performing heavy labor. He sustained injuries to his back and other parts of his body. According to the seaman, he was performing the tasks without the help that he needed. The lawsuit further claims that  the employer was aware of the injury risks from the seaman performing extremely strenuous tasks on his own, but allowed him to go ahead and work anyway.

To any non-maritime worker, a back injury may not seem like a major problem. All of us have suffered back pain at some point in our lives. However, for a maritime worker who performs strenuous physical labor as part of his daily activities, a back injury can spell the end of his career.

Often, a back injury is not a single injury. These may be combined with injuries to the neck and shoulder. Besides, back injuries may not always be that easy to prove. In fact, employers often try to show that the injury occurred because of a pre-existing back injury or spine condition. Back injuries can also often lead to other serious medical conditions, like degenerative spine disease. These injuries can be debilitating, and can severely impact the seaman’s ability to return to his former job, or to any kind of employment at all.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

In June of 2005, seaman Clarence Smith was woken up from his sleep by two crewmembers, who then proceeded to drag him out, and beat him up. He suffered a head injury, several lacerations, a retinal tear, hemorrhage in the left eye, and multiple abrasions. He also suffered several broken teeth, a temporomandibular joint injury, as well as shoulder and lower back injuries. As a result of the incident, Smith developed post-dramatic stress disorder, for which he had to undergo psychological counseling.

The assault occurred on a barge, and Smith filed a petition against the two crewmembers who attacked him, as well as Weeks Marine, the owner of the barge. Smith then amended his claim to include his employer, Atlantic Sounding Company Incorporated. His claim alleged negligence under the Jones Act, and unseaworthiness of the vessel.

A trial court granted him a partial summary judgment on the issue of the barge owner’s failure to maintain seaworthy conditions on the vessel. The trial court also denied the motions for summary judgment filed by both Weeks Marine and Atlantic Sounding. Weeks appealed this decision, and an appeals court in Louisiana has now also affirmed the trial court’s decision.

A vessel owner’s duty to maintain safe conditions on a vessel includes the hiring of competent crewmembers. A vessel owner cannot get away with the argument that he had no awareness of his crewmembers’ proclivity to violence, or history of assaults and battery. Employers are required to conduct a background check before hiring a worker. A vessel owner may be held liable for failing to provide a seaworthy vessel even if he couldn’t have possibly expected or anticipated an attack.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen, galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and in international waters.

Anthony Leco Jr. worked for Martin Marine as a seaman. He injured his arm and lower back after an accident on a vessel.  The company paid for his treatment, and then got him to agree to a settlement of $10,000 to close his claim. Leco took up the offer, and signed the settlement papers. Later, he filed a Jones Act claim of negligence against Martin Marine.

The company naturally brought up the settlement agreement that Leco had entered into with Martin Marine. Leco argued that he had no idea he was signing away his rights when he agreed to the settlement. He said he had thought it was an advance payment of his maintenance rights. The court however found this account not credible, and dismissed his claim against Martin Marine.

As a maritime lawyer, I come across far too many seamen who rush into settlement agreements with their employer. It’s very important for a worker to understand that when the company hands over a piece of paper, asks you to sign it and gives you money in exchange, you can bid any other rights you have goodbye. In fact, I’ve often found that companies attempt to settle with an injured worker as quickly as possible. In the first few days after an injury, an injured worker may be under stress, in deep pain, and in a sensitive state of mind. This is never a good time to make a decision.

In fact, if you ever find yourself in this position, get on the phone to talk to a maritime attorney at the earliest. Even if you do want to settle with the company as soon as possible, you should at least know what you’re signing, and what rights you could be giving up in exchange. A maritime attorney may be able to explain that to you better than your company.

In ATLANTIC SOUNDING CO. INC. V. PETREY, Timothy Petrey, an employee of Atlantic Sounding Company Incorporated, was injured on the job. Atlantic Sounding moved to deny maintenance and cure payouts to Petrey, because his injuries were the result of the dislocation of a pre-existing prosthetic hip Petrey had not disclosed that he had a prosthetic hip at the time of his employment.

Petrey, on the other hand, said that even though he did not mention it in his pre-employment questionnaire, all the crew members on the vessel were aware of the prosthetic hip because he spoke about it all the time. He also maintained that it was not the hip dislocation that caused the injury, but an injury caused by a tow cable that struck him. An Atlantic physician testified that if he had known that Petrey had a prosthetic hip, he would not have cleared him for employment.

The court ruled that Petrey had no right to maintenance and cure, because he willfully concealed his medical condition, and also that he was not able to prove causation necessary to claim under a Jones Act claim of negligence.

The lesson to take home from this is never to conceal prior injuries or medical conditions at the time of your employment. The courts take a dim view of someone who has concealed such injuries, and it can negatively impact your ability to recover damages under the Jones Act.

In Godbold vs. Maersk Line, the court had to decide if injury suffered in the course of travel to a vessel could be taken as having occurred in the service of vessel. Here, the plaintiff Godbold was injured in a motorcycle accident, as he was on his way to his job as a security guard on a military supply ship moored in Louisiana.

On the day of the accident, Godbold was making his daily commute to the vessel, as he did every day. The vessel was on a “reduced operating status”. His employer argued that Godbold was not eligible for a claim, because he was not in the service of the vessel at the time of the accident.

The court however argued that although the vessel was on a ”reduced operating status”, it was a fact that the vessel could set sail at any time, and Godbold would have to be ready for such a situation. Godbold’s commute to the vessel everyday was part of his job since he was a regular crew member of the ship. His case is therefore, different from a nontraditional seaman, who may have a fixed offshore schedule that allows him to be on shore for a certain period of time. That was not the case with Godbold at all.

Fortunately, the court found in favor of Godbold, and denied Maersk Line’s motion for summary judgment. As a maritime lawyer, I don’t believe that the verdict could have gone any other way. Godbold met the definition of being in service to the vessel at the time the injury occurred.

As I have discussed earlier, Latsis vs. Chandris held that a seaman, in order to be considered a Jones Act Seaman, must have a substantial connection with a vessel, and that the connection must be substantial in both nature and duration. This duration is held at approximately 30% of the time.

In Chad Alex vs. Wild Well Control Inc, a Louisiana court held that the plaintiff Chad Alex did have a substantial connection with the vessel MV Toisa Pretoria, on which he was injured. His employer Longnecker Properties, denied that he met the criterion of the Jones Act, because he did not have substantial connection with the vessel or fleet of vessels (owned by Longnecker) that the Jones Act demands.

However, Alex had spent his time on the Toisa Pretoria, which was owned by Newfield Explanation Company.  The Court held that Alex did meet the criteria for Jones Act seaman status because of the time he spent on the MV Toisa Pretoria. The fact that his employer did not own the vessel was not relevant to the question of his seaman status.

Nowhere in the Jones Act does it say that an employer must own the vessel on which his worker is injured for the worker to be eligible to file a Jones Act claim of negligence. As long as the seaman has a substantial relationship with a vessel, he may be eligible for a claim.

If you have questions about your Jones Act seaman status, or any other question about the Jones Act or maritime law, contact a maritime attorney at Vujasinovic and Beckcom for a free initial evaluation of your case.

The Supreme Court ruled that a seaman may be eligible for punitive damages when his employer wrongfully withholds maintenance and cure payments. The Supreme Court held that its earlier decision in Miles vs. Apex, could not be interpreted to mean that a Seaman was not eligible for punitive damages if maintenance and care benefits were withheld.

Employers have often used Miles vs. Apex to deny or withhold maintenance and cure benefits to their workers, secure in the knowledge that they cannot be punished with punitive damages. As a maritime lawyer, I have often come across employers who used the lack of punitive damages availability to seamen, to browbeat an injured worker into signing off his rights to claim.

A worker, who is just recovering from a major injury, will barely have the strength to fight back against such injustice. But with this SC judgment in Atlantic Sounding Vs Townsend, workers now have an extra line of defense against employer atrocities in making maintenance and cure payments.

One of the more defining points in the evolution of the Jones Act came when the US Supreme Court held that a seaman could be considered  a Jones Act seaman if

He contributed significantly to the mission of the vessel

and

He had a substantial relationship with the vessel both in terms of nature and duration.

Latsis was working as a superintendent engineer on the vessel, SS Galileo owned by Chandris. He suffered an eye injury, and when the condition went untreated by his doctor, lost vision in one eye. Afterwards, he sailed to Germany with the vessel, and stayed with the vessel while it dry docked.

Soon after, he filed a Jones Act claim against Chandris. The District Court instructed the jury that the period when the vessel remained in dry dock could not be considered, because the vessel was not technically in navigation at the time. Based on that, Latsis lost his claim. However, the Supreme Court held that whether the vessel was in dry dock at the time of the injury, did no matter as much as the substantial connection Latsis had with the SS Galileo.

The ruling essentially held that the situation existing at the time of the injury alone could not be considered while determining a worker’s Jones Act seaman status. The ruling held that the overall nature of the employment was to be considered, to determine status under the Jones Act.

Obviously, this dramatically increased the scope of claims that can be filed under the Jones Act.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of injured Jones Act seamen, tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, drillers, offshore workers, oil rig workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, around the country and in international waters.

A Filipino seaman has been hospitalized after he sustained serious injuries in a fall accident on a cargo vessel off Alaska.  The seaman apparently fell 16-feet in the cargo hold, and broke his arms. He was airlifted by the Coast Guard, and was taken to a hospital in Dutch Harbor.

Fall accidents on a vessel are extremely common. These can leave a seaman with fractures, amputated limbs and broken arms.  Head injuries are common if the head receives the full impact of the fall.  Damage to the spinal cord is also often a result of such accidents. At the very least, there may be concussions that may require the seaman to take time off work for a few days.

Cargo Hold Accidents

In case of a broken arm, the seaman could be looking at weeks off from work. Depending on the kind of fractures that occurred, a seaman will not be able to return to work for several days.   Many times, accidents in cargo holds occur because a seaman perceives that it is a safe environment, when it is not.   Cargo holds are typically stacked with hundreds and thousands of boxes, cartons, bags or other containers. These can also constitute a dangerous environment to crew members.

As a maritime attorney who frequently represents foreign seamen, including Filipinos, I know that the stress of a maritime injury can be compounded for a foreign national. Many times, these seamen are not comfortable communicating in English.  Most of them have left behind families and loved ones thousands of miles away, in order to make a living on the seas. Navigating the murky world of maritime insurers and employers post an injury, can be tough for an American seaman, and harder for a foreign seaman who finds himself alone and utterly confused. These seamen must also know that they may be eligible for Jones Act benefits, depending on the nature and duration of employment, and the status of the vessel.