The Jones Act allows "seafarers" to file a malpractice suit against their employers. To be entitled to sue under the Jones Act, the first employee must meet the requirement of being a "sailor". Very often the first question during an interview with a Marine injured worker is whether the person meets with the definition of a seaman. The technical definition of a Marine is an individual more or less permanently assigned to a vessel or fleet of vessels in navigation. This article will address each of these specific requirements for an individual to qualify as a seaman.
The first requirement that the individual is "more or less "permanently assigned to a ship which is usually interpreted as requiring the individual to work at least 30 percent or more of their time aboard a ship or ships. Several cases have held that as long as the employee complies with "30 percent" will satisfy the requirement of consistent definition of seafarers.
The next requirement is that the individual is assigned to work aboard a vessel or fleet of vessels. This does not necessarily mean that the individual work aboard a vessel traditional like a tugboat, supply vessel or boat crew. In the Gulf of Mexico and other regions, there are many specialized structures that actually describes as "vessels" under the Jones Act. Specifically, up offshore drilling rigs and semi submersible drilling rigs and ships barge crane and raise all qualify as vessels under the definition of a seaman. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a recent case indicates that any structure that is "typically seaworthy" may meet the definition of a vessel under the Jones Act seaman status purposes.
Also be taken into account in the definition of vessel that the employee need not be assigned to a particular vessel. The Jones Act allows an employee to qualify as a seaman, but is assigned to several ships, which constitute a fleet of ships. However, there is a requirement that the fleet of ships to be under common ownership or control. In other words, generally people who are randomly assigned to vessels owned, operated and controlled by many different parties will have a difficult time establishing that they were assigned a fleet of ships owned or joint control. Wire-line workers in Austin and other skilled workers in the Gulf of Mexico off the challenge in meeting the definition of a seaman under the Jones Act.
The third requirement, to meet the definition of a seaman under Jones Act is that the individual is assigned to a ship that is "in navigation". This requirement has been broadly defined and essentially means any person who somehow contribute to the mission of the ship, a term that is also broadly defined. Normally, the "in" Easy navigation requirement is met.
That meets the definition of a seaman under the Jones Act may be critical to an injured worker Maritime to fully recover due to an injury at sea. Only by meeting the definition of a sailor who injured employee is permitted to sue under the Jones Act. And only under the Jones Act to collect the injured employee lost wages, pain and suffering, past and future medical expenses and other compensation for his injury. If the injured employee does not meet the definition of a seaman, not be allowed to file a neglect type of civil liability claim against your employer. Instead, be limited to the recovery of benefits only to workers' compensation rate are not fairly compensate employees.
Author Timothy Young has been practicing maritime law for more than 15 years in New Orleans, Louisiana and throughout the Gulf Coast region. His office has been helping injured seaman for years.
Supreme Court Case – Arrested for Not showing identification
|
|
The proceedings in the case of His Majesty’s Attorney-General, J.T. Gellibrand, esq: As well in the supreme court of Van Diemen’s Land, as upon the late … with this most important case, in 2 parts … |
|
|
10 Supreme Court cases every teen should know: more of the Court’s most important rulings on freedom of speech and privacy at school, and other issues … An article from: New York Times Upfront $9.95 This digital document is an article from New York Times Upfront, published by Thomson Gale on September 17, 2007. The length of the article is 2275 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: 1… |