The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1995 decision establishing the two-part test for Jones Act seaman status.
Commercial diving is among the most dangerous jobs in the maritime world, and when something goes wrong underwater the consequences are often catastrophic or fatal. Commercial diving injuries are also surrounded by a legal trap, because employers routinely tell injured divers they are not covered by the Jones Act when in fact they are. In…
One word can decide whether an injured maritime worker has powerful rights or almost none, and that word is “vessel.” Here is exactly how the term vessel under maritime law is defined and why that definition controls so much of an offshore injury case. In short: Under maritime law, a vessel is any watercraft or…
When a cruise ship crew member is injured at sea, the first shock is the accident. The second is discovering that the employment contract they signed, often without a lawyer and on a take-it-or-leave-the-ship basis, quietly stripped away the American jury trial they assumed they had and replaced it with private arbitration in a foreign…
If you are a seaman and you get hurt or sick in the service of your vessel, the law hands you something you do not have to prove fault to receive: a daily living allowance and full medical care, starting almost immediately. It is called maintenance and cure, it is one of the oldest rights…
The American offshore wind industry is being built faster than the country has boats and crews to build it safely, and that gap is showing up as injuries. Turbines rise more than 500 feet above the water, the only way onto many of them is to step from a pitching vessel, and a workforce drawn…
After an oil rig accident, the question that keeps you up at night is usually a money question: what is this going to cost me, and what can I recover? There is no honest single number, but there is something better than a number. There is a framework that decides which law governs your claim,…
Commercial fishing is the most dangerous job in America, and the law treats the people who do it accordingly. If you crew a fishing vessel and you are hurt, your rights are almost certainly far broader than a land-based worker’s, but only if you understand the status that unlocks them. In short: Almost all commercial…
Offshore wind is one of the fastest-growing industries in U.S. waters, and the law governing injuries to its workers is still taking shape. If you were hurt building, servicing, or transporting components for a wind farm, the single most important question is whether you count as the crew of a vessel or a worker on…
When an oil rig accident happens, the company that signs your paychecks is rarely the only party at fault, and sometimes it is not the one you can recover the most from. Offshore operations run on a web of operators, contractors, and equipment makers, and figuring out which of them is liable is the difference…
If you were hurt working on or around the water, one word decides almost everything about your case: whether the law counts you as a seaman. That single classification controls which statute protects you, who you can hold responsible, and how much your claim is worth. In short: You are a Jones Act seaman if…
