Admiralty/Maritime

Admiralty and Maritime law relate to events that generally occur on navigable waters. An adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing or building a vessel is included in the "navigable waters" category. Navigable waters generally include the oceans of the world and also large lakes or rivers that can be used for commercial shipping. These bodies of waters are divided into territorial waters and the high seas. Territorial waters are usually close to land while the high seas are those waters that are further away from land. Seamen, longshoremen, and offshore oil & gas workers are exposed to many conditions and substances which cause them serious injury and even death. Unfortunately, some employers, vessel owners, offshore companies, and even insurance companies treat injured workers unfairly often putting pressure on workers not to seek legal assistance to obtain all remedies to which they are legally entitled.

If you or a loved one has been seriously injured or killed in a Admiralty/Maritime situation please e-mail us the short form questionnaire so that we may evaluate your case against all of the potentially careless or negligent parties. The evaluation process is free and confidential. We will generally respond within 24 hours. We can also visit you in your home State or we can arrange to fly you to our office if a further consultation is needed. Your employer and the insurance companies have attorneys to protect their interests. Shouldn't you?

Monetary Recovery for injury to or death of a seaman under the Jones Act, recovery under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, and recovery under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act depend on a number of factors some of which are listed below.

Jones Act

Prior to the passage of the Jones Act, general maritime law usually entitled a seaman who fell sick or was injured both to maintenance and cure (or the right to be cared for and paid wages during the voyage, see, e.g., Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 482–483 (No. 6,047) (CC Me. 1823) (Story, J.)), and to damages for any “injuries received . . . in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship,” The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 175 (1903). Suits against shipowners for negligence, however, were barred. Courts presumed that the seaman, in signing articles of employment for the voyage, had assumed the risks of his occupation; thus a seaman was “not allowed to recover an indemnity for the negligence of the master, or any member of the crew.” Ibid. In 1920 Congress enacted the Jones Act to remove this bar to negligence suits by seamen. Specifically, the Jones Act provides: “Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply.” 46 U. S. C. App. §688(a). The Jones Act is not workers' compensation. It does not require payment regardless of fault. A seaman must prove negligence or some degree of fault on the part of the vessel's owners, operators, officers, and/or fellow employees or by reason of any defect in the vessel, its gear, tackle, or equipment, i.e., unseaworthiness of the vessel. Unseaworthiness generally describes a vessel or any of its parts or machinery that is not reasonably fit for its intended use. Also, unseaworthiness can describe the vessel's crew if they are not reasonably competent or skilled to perform the assigned work. A vessel owner has a duty to provide and maintain a seaworthy vessel. In order for a vessel to be deemed "seaworthy", it must supply proper equipment and safety gear to its seamen, provide a safe environment for seaman to work in, and adhere to all safety requirements for operating vessels in general. Seamen, or their families, usually file unseaworthiness claims against the vessel's owner, who may also be their employer. Passengers may not hold a chartered vessel liable under the seaworthiness doctrine, but passengers may bring a claim against the vessel's owner in a negligence suit based on the unseaworthiness of the vessel. In cases of death on the high seas because of an unseaworthy vessel, a family member may bring a claim under the Death on the High Seas Act. Under the Death on the High Seas Act, a family may recover damages in the form of lost services. Only a seaman can recover under the Jones Act.

Seaman

Although the statute is silent on who is a “seaman,” both the maritime law backdrop against which Congress enacted the Jones Act and Congress’ subsequent enactments provide some guidance. First, “seaman” is a term of art that had an established meaning under general maritime law. We have thus presumed that when the Jones Act made available negligence remedies to “any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment,” Congress took the term “seaman” as the general maritime law found it. The term "seaman" is very broad under maritime law. It was the intention of Congress, to protect seamen, and to include all seamen hired to serve on board a vessel. Second, Congress provided further guidance in 1927 when it enacted the LHWCA, which provides scheduled compensation to land-based maritime workers but which also excepts from its coverage “a master or member of a crew of any vessel.” 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G). This exception is simply “a refinement of the term ‘seaman’ in the Jones Act.” Thus the Jones Act and the LHWCA are complimentary regimes that work in tandem: The Jones Act provides tort remedies to sea-based maritime workers, while the LHWCA provides workers’ compensation to land-based maritime employees. Still, discerning the contours of “seaman” status, even with the general maritime law and the LHWCA’s language as aids to interpretation, has not been easy. To qualify for “seaman” status under the Jones Act, a worker must have an “employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation.”  Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347 (1995). In order for the plaintiff to qualify the worker's duties must contribute to the function or mission of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission, and the worker must have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or an identifiable group of vessels) that is substantial in both its duration and its nature. A prospective plaintiff's status as a seaman (and, therefore, his eligibility to sue under the Jones Act) depends, in the first instance, on his connection to a "vessel in navigation." McDermott Int'l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 354 (1991).  

Vessel

The LHWCA did not define "vessel" when enacted, but §§1 and 3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 specified that, in any Act passed after February 25, 1871, " 'vessel' includes every description of water-craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water." The LHWCA is such an Act. Section 3's definition has remained virtually unchanged to the present and continues to supply the default definition of "vessel" throughout the U. S. Code. Section 3 merely codified the meaning "vessel" had acquired in general maritime law. In fact, prior to the passage of the Jones Act and the LHWCA, this Court and lower courts had treated dredges as vessels. By the time those Acts became law in the 1920's, it was settled that §3 defined "vessel" for their purposes, and that a structure's status as a vessel under §3 depended on whether the structure was an instrument of naval transportation. Then as now, dredges served a waterborne transportation function: In performing their work they carried machinery, equipment, and a crew over water. This Court has continued to treat §3 as defining "vessel" in the LHWCA and to construe §3 consistently with general maritime law.

A watercraft is not capable of being used for maritime transport in any meaningful sense if it has been permanently moored or otherwise rendered practically incapable of transportation or movement. By including special-purpose vessels like dredges, §3 sweeps broadly, but other prerequisites to qualifying for seaman status under the Jones Act provide some limits. Offshore drilling rigs, drill ships, barges and other motorized structures which are moveable and which float from hole to hole (semis and jackups), are considered vessels under the Jones Act.

Who is protected?

• If you work on a boat, barge, ship, fishing boat, tanker, container ship, cruise ship, casino boat, charter boat, transportable semi-submersible drilling rig, transportable jack-up drilling rig, moveable rig, freighter, tug, or supply and crew boat you are likely covered by the Jones Act. If you work anywhere in the water or near the water you may be covered by the Jones Act.
  

LONGSHORE AND HARBOR WORKERS' COMPENSATION ACT

The Longshore & Harbor Workers' Compensation Act provides for the payment of compensation benefits for disability or death of an employee coming under it, if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States. An adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing or building a vessel is included in the "navigable waters" category. There are basically three criteria which must be met in order for the plaintiff to recover on a claim under §905 b of the LHWCA:

·  The plaintiff must be a person covered by the LHWCA;

·  The plaintiff must have suffered an injury on or in connection with a vessel;

·  The injury must be caused by the negligence of the vessel, its owner, operator, charterer, agent or crew member.

A dock worker or stevedore that is injured while unloading a ship or if the injuries occurred on a offshore drilling rig platform then compensation may be governed under the Longshoreman & Harbor Workers Compensation Act (LHWCA). For purposes of the Act, the term employee means any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations such as Harbor-workers, Ship repairmen, Shipbuilders, and Ship-breakers.

Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) is a statute that provides for compensation for death or injuries "occurring as the result of operations conducted on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for the purpose of exploring for, developing, removing, or transporting by pipeline the natural resources, or involving rights to the natural resources, of the subsoil and seabed of the OCS." The OCS does encompass all submerged lands beyond state territorial waters but within U.S. territorial waters. This includes artificial islands and fixed structures upon the OCS, i.e., fixed oil drilling platforms. Injuries that occur on fixed oil platforms within state territorial waters are generally governed by state law.

Law is constantly
evolving

The laws are constantly changing and the definitions of Seaman and Vessel and other important terms are being further defined. Therefore, you should contact us for
an update on the current law in this area.

If you or a loved one has been seriously injured or killed in a Maritime/Admiralty situation please e-mail us the short form questionnaire so that we may begin to evaluate your case against all of the potentially careless or negligent parties. The evaluation process
is free and confidential. We will generally respond within 24 hours.

Representing one family and one individual at a time.

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Links/Resources

 Recovery 
for injury to or death of seaman 
 

Merchant 
Seaman

Tile 
46 Shipping 

Death 
on High Seas by Wrongful Act 

Longshore and 
Harbor Worker's Compensation Act 

Navigation 
and Navigable Waters

Compliance 
Assistance L&HWCA 

Outer 
Continental Shelf Lands Act 

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