Law Office of Scott A. Nelson, P.C.

Maritime common law failed to provide a seaman a cause of action against his employer for damages caused by the negligence of co-employees. Congress remedied this by adopting the Jones Act, which states, in part:

Since the Jones Act is remedial legislation, it is liberally construed to accomplish its beneficent purposes and thus is an extremely effective method of recovery for work-related accidents.

Jones Act cases relax the standard of proximate cause between the wrongful act and the injury imposed by the general maritime law and shoreside tort law. The Jones Act requires a more lenient standard of "legal cause", which does not require that a negligent act be the sole proximate cause of an injury to result in liability, but only that it contributed even in the slightest degree to the injury. Legal cause under the FELA is established when an employer’s negligence plays "any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought." This same rule applies to Jones Act cases.

The "course of employment" criterion of 46 U.S.C.A. Section 688 is liberally construed. The criterion is deemed met if the activity in which the seaman was involved was related to his duties or his living arrangements aboard ship.

There is a three-year statute of limitations on Jones Act claims. However, the employer may be estopped from asserting the defense if it has misled the seaman into withholding suit, by conduct such as active misrepresentation of the seaman’s rights, or a promise to pay or settle the claim if the seaman foregoes legal action.

Contact our Texas Jones Act attorney Scott Nelson if you need help with a maritime matter.  Mr. Nelson represents clients in Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Galveston, and throughout Texas.

The rights and remedies available to an employee against his employer and the vessel on which the employee is working are determined by the employee’s "status." The employee’s status may be (1) seaman, (2) a nonseaman maritime worker, or (3) a nonmaritime worker. Two of the seaman’s major claims-negligence against the employer and unseaworthiness against the vessel-are governed by tort principles. The other major claim, maintenance and cure, is similar to worker’s compensation but is governed not by statute, but by judicially developed principles of maritime law.

The same three requirements for seaman status must be met for eligibility for maintenance, cure and wages as eligibility for Jones Act remedies: (1) the vessel must be "in navigation;"(2) the person has an employment connection to the vessel that is substantial both in terms of duration and its nature; and (3) his employment contributes to the work of the vessel. A seaman is a worker on a vessel who is exposed to the perils of the sea as an incident to employment. Sometimes, workers who sail the high seas are referred to as "blue water" seaman and those who work on waters other than the high seas (like the Intracoastal Waterway), especially those who work in the oil and gas production business, are called "brown water" seaman.

Because seaman status requires an employment-related connection to a vessel, a worker may not attain seaman status by performing work on a fixed platform, or in a helicopter, or on a vessel under construction in the shipyard. The general rule of thumb is that a worker must spend at least 30% of his time aboard a vessel in navigation. Seaman status is normally a mixed question of law and fact for the jury.

Contact Brownsville maritime lawyer Scott Nelson if you are injured in a boating accident.

Many times, whether a matter or claim is "in admiralty"depends on whether it has a sufficient relationship to a "vessel." For instance, an injured seafarer may qualify as a "seaman" only if his employment has the requisite connection with a "vessel." This seaman status allows the seaman to gain the benefits of maintenance and cure, the Jones Act, and the warranty of seaworthiness.

Unfortunately, there is no settles definition of the term vessel. This is frequently a litigated issue on offshore oil rig accidents. There are many types of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico--fixed rigs, drill ships, SPARS, tension leg platforms, etc. Some may be considered vessels, while some may not.

The United States Congress has defined "vessel" as including "every description of watercraft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water." 1 U.S.C.A. Section 3. The United States Supreme Court has defined vessels as "all navigable structures intended for transportation." Cope v. Vallette Dry-Dock Co. (S.Ct. 1887). It has been said in a great admiralty law treatise that "perhaps the best approximation [of a test] would be to say that the term ‘vessel’ is applied to floating structures capable of transporting something over the water." Grant Gilmore & Charles L. Black, Jr., The Law of Admiralty 33 (2d ed. 1975).

The United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi), which gets most of the offshore oil and gas production cases, has generally settled on a test which looks to "the purpose for which the craft is constructed and the business in which it is engaged." Blanchard v. Gas Compressor Servs., Inc. (5^th Cir. 1978). The Fifth Circuit places importance on such circumstances as the manner in which the structure is attached to the shore or the ocean bottom, whether it is registered and equipped for navigation, and the extent to which it is moved. See Ducrepont v. Baton Rouge Marine Enters., Inc. (5^th Cir. 1989).

If you have questions regarding offshore oil rig accidents, please contact Scott Nelson, representing Galveston, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, and the entire coast of Texas in maritime matters.