The two-part Chandris v. Latsis test for whether a maritime worker qualifies as a Jones Act seaman.
If you load, unload, build, or repair vessels and you get hurt on the job, you are probably covered by a federal law that most injured workers have never heard of until the day they need it. It pays your medical bills in full, replaces two-thirds of your lost wages, and does it without making…
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…
A fisherman goes over the rail in a heartbeat, a slip on a wet deck, a rogue wave, a line that catches a leg, and from that instant survival is measured in minutes. Federal safety researchers have studied these moments in grim detail, and what they found does more than describe a tragedy. It points…
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,…
If you are a dock, harbor, or shipyard worker, your LHWCA benefits pay your medical bills and a slice of your wages, but they stop well short of what the injury actually cost you, no pain and suffering, and only a capped share of lost earnings. The most valuable thing you can learn after a…
After a serious injury on a fishing boat, the first question is almost always about money: what is my case worth, and how will I provide for my family? The figures online swing from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million, and that spread is not noise. It reflects how much the value of…
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…
If you load ships, repair vessels, or work on a dock or in a shipyard and you get hurt, one threshold question decides almost everything about your recovery: are you covered by federal law or by your state’s workers’ compensation system? For most maritime workers who are not seamen, the federal answer is the better…
