A seaman injured in a two vessel collision was able to have a Louisiana Court invalidate his release clause and therefore bring the fishing company to trial after the vessel’s doctor’s diagnosis was incorrect. Clifton Lewis was a mate aboard one of the vessels in the collision. Upon impact, he…
Three fishermen were saved by the United States Coast Guard after their vessel capsized three miles southeast of Hilo. The fishermen were, luckily, able to retrieve a working cell phone from the vessel and hail a distress call to 911 around 1 a.m. on Wednesday July 15th. Two Coast Guard…
A Washington skipper has died resulting from injuries sustained aboard a fishing vessel last week. The vessel was fishing 15 miles west of Gray’s Harbor when the captain, 50-year-old Keenan Stearns of South Bend, Washington, became entangled in fishing gear. The crew was not able to free him. He was…
A Vermont woman is dead after falling out of her canoe while fishing on Sunday. 41-year-old Kelly Bruner fell out of her canoe while trying to retrieve a fishing pole she dropped in the water. Her friend in the boat, Ken Palmer, attempted to bring her back aboard the canoe…
The body of 56-year-old Steve Luhrs was found Monday July 13th after he fell overboard in Togiak Bay, Alaska. The United States Coast Guard reported that Luhrs and his two daughters were pulling up fishing nets around 9:00 a.m. when all three fell off their 18-foot skiff. The two daughters…
One boater was killed following an allision between a 23 foot pleasure vessel and the Jekyll Creek jetties around Brunswick, Georgia early Sunday morning. The United States Coast Guard responded to a distress call at 4:15 a.m. Sunday morning and helped rescue two of the boaters on board the vessel.…
The United States Coast Guard is searching for five people aboard an aircraft that crashed in the Gulf of Mexico last week. The crash occurred on July 8th around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The airplane was traveling from Collin County Regional Airport in McKinney Texas to Tampa International Airport,…
The search for a 38-year-old crewman was called off early Sunday July 5th after a week of searching. The crewman, Nhial Opiew, was last seen aboard the vessel, a 140 foot trawler named the Rebecca Irene, at 4 a.m. Saturday July 4th. The search for Mr. Opiew began around 8:30…
Congress is considering legislation holding the fishing industry to a significantly higher safety standard in vessel construction in an effort to decrease the fatalities suffered at sea. This bill would require training of all skippers and mandate Coast Guard inspections of vessels. This proposed bill has been under development for…
On June 25, 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the seaman’s favor! The High Court decided that seamen are entitled, as a matter of general maritime law, to seek punitive damages for their employers’ willful and wanton disregard of its maintenance and cure obligation. Punitive damages are now…