Maritime Injury Law Blog

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 fell against a table where he hit his left side. Lewis was knocked down again by fellow seamen “stampeding for the exit.” Lewis complained of pain shortly thereafter and went ashore to be looked at by an orthopedic surgeon the fishing company hired. The doctor, Dr. Duval, concluded that Lewis sustained “no serious injuries, only some soreness.”

The fishing company, Omega, then hired an attorney, Alan Breaud, to settle potential injury claims that would arise from the collision. Breaud met with Lewis to explain his rights and offer a release of potential claims for $500. Lewis accepted this offer based on Dr. Duval’s assessment that his leg and side “won’t give Lewis any permanent problems.”

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 over two years and is championed by Senators Olympia Snowe R-Maine and Maria Cantwell D-Wash, chair of the Senate subcommittee with oversight over the Coast Guard and fisheries, as well as Representative James Oberstar D-Minn, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

This legislation results from the significant dangers of and deaths from working at sea. While there was been a substantial decrease in commercial fishing fatalities in recent years, fishermen are 25 times more likely to die on the job than the national average for occupational deaths. We were reminded of the danger of commercial fishing when the Seattle-based vessels Alaska Ranger and Katmai sank in the Bearing Sea last year, killing 12 fishermen.

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 permitted in cases where the employer acts in bad faith. Punitive damages are designed to punish the employer for bad faith treatment of its employees regarding medical payments.

It is a too frequent story when an employer refuses to pay an injured seaman’s entitlements of maintenance and cure. After being injured on the job, seamen are in need of a consistent income and medical treatment. It was this concern that led to the creation of maintenance and cure, which is a vessel owner’s obligation to provide food, lodging, and medical services to a seaman injured aboard a vessel. While suffering from an injury, both a seaman and his or her family are often dependant on maintenance and cure payments.

Frequently, unfortunately, vessel owners intentionally withhold maintenance and cure payments from seamen. Before this Supreme Court case, employers were able to withhold such obligatory payments with limited financial penalty, leaving the injured seaman with no income and numerous medical bills. These seamen often have to turn to various high interest loans to pay these bills, a last resort to many.