The strict-liability general maritime law doctrine that a vessel and its appurtenances must be reasonably fit for their intended purpose.
On an offshore rig, a crane is never off. It swings drill pipe, supply baskets, and multi-ton loads over the heads of the crew, hour after hour, in wind and swell. When a line parts, a load drops, or a boom swings the wrong way, the worker underneath rarely gets a second chance. IN SHORT…
A blow to the head offshore is not just another bump. When a falling tool, a slip on a wet deck, or a collision injures your brain, the consequences can follow you for the rest of your life, and the law that protects you is unlike anything a land-based worker relies on. IN SHORT A…
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…
Back and spinal injuries are the most common serious harm suffered by maritime workers, and they are also the injuries employers fight hardest, usually by blaming your spine instead of the job. If you are a seaman, the law gives you strong tools to push back and recover. In short: Maritime back and spinal injuries…
A fire or explosion on a rig or vessel produces some of the most catastrophic injuries in the maritime world. Offshore burn injuries are life-altering, expensive to treat, and, because help is hours away by helicopter, often far more severe than the same burn would be on land. The law that applies can determine whether…
The crews who push barges down the Mississippi and work tugs in the nation’s harbors do some of the most dangerous work on the water, and most of them are Jones Act seamen with powerful rights. Tugboat and barge injuries are governed by maritime law, not ordinary workers’ compensation, and that changes everything about what…
After an injury at sea, employers love to argue that the accident was your fault. Under maritime law, even if some of it was, you usually still recover. Comparative negligence reduces a maritime claim, but it almost never destroys it. In short: Maritime law uses pure comparative negligence, which means an injured seaman’s own fault…
The Limitation of Liability Act lets the company that owns a vessel ask a federal court to cap everything it owes after an accident at the value of the boat, sometimes a boat that sank or burned and is now worth almost nothing. It is an 1851 law, and one of the hardest obstacles an…
When you are hurt offshore, your employer is often not the only party at fault, and a claim against your employer is often not your only source of recovery. Third-party claims are how injured maritime workers reach the full value of their case, especially when workers’ compensation alone falls short. In short: A third-party claim…
The most dangerous commercial fishing jobs are not spread evenly across the industry; some regions, fisheries, and tasks kill far more workers than others. Here is what the federal data shows about which fishing work is deadliest, and what the law does for fishermen who are hurt or killed. In short: The most dangerous commercial…
