What Protection Does the Jones Act Provide to Injured Seamen?

What Are Your Rights If You Are Injured While Working as a Seaman?

Seamen – the workers on transport ships and other boats and ships – are injured on the job far too frequently. If you are injured as a seaman and your employer’s negligence is a contributing factor – now or in the future – discuss your rights with a California maritime accident lawyer.

Under the Jones Act, a seaman who is injured because an employer was negligent may file an injury claim in either a federal or state court. If an out-of-court settlement cannot be reached with the employer, the injured seaman (the plaintiff) is entitled to a personal injury trial before a jury.

What is the Jones Act?

The Merchant Marine Act, the federal statute that governs maritime shipping in this nation, includes a section known as the Jones Act. The Jones Act requires vessels that transport cargo between U.S. ports to be:

1.  manufactured and registered in the U.S.
2.  owned and crewed by at least 75 percent U.S. citizens

Congress passed the Jones Act after the First World War to support the U.S. shipping industry, grow domestic commerce, and enhance the development of the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Who is Covered by the Jones Act?

The Jones Act gives seamen injured on the job the right to sue their employers for negligence and recover damages. Seamen are defined as employees – captains and crew members – who work on transport and cruise ships, fishing boats, or almost any ship or boat “in navigation.”

The U.S. Supreme Court (in Chandris v. Latsis, 1995) determined that workers who spend less than 30 percent of their employment time working on a vessel on navigable waters are presumed not to be seamen.

The Court held that workers who spend more than 30 percent of their employment time in vessels on navigable waters are seamen for the purposes of the Jones Act. Only maritime workers who are defined as seamen may file injury claims under the Jones Act.

What is an Employer’s Responsibility Under the Jones Act?

The Jones Act requires maritime employers to:

1.  provide workers with reasonably safe working conditions
2.  maintain, in a reasonably safe condition, the vessels that seamen work on

Offshore drilling rigs, drill ships, barges, and other movable motorized structures are also classified as vessels under the Jones Act. Although the Jones Act protects maritime workers who’ve been injured on the job, it is not the same as workers’ compensation.

What Can an Injured Seaman Recover?

If you’re a seaman and you are injured at work, and if your employer’s negligence was a contributing factor, the Jones Act holds the employer responsible for your medical costs (called “cure”) and for paying you a daily allowance (“maintenance”) for as long as you remain injured.

When you bring an injury claim under the Jones Act, you may recover compensation for your pending and projected future medical expenses, your lost earnings and projected future lost earnings, suffering, pain, disfigurement, and permanent or temporary disability.

What Does the Jones Act Require You to Prove?

In most personal injury cases, the victim – called the “plaintiff” – and his or her attorney must prove that the defendant’s negligence was a direct cause of the plaintiff’s injury.

However, if you’re an injured seaman, under the Jones Act, you and your California maritime accident attorney only have to prove that negligence was a contributing factor – and not necessarily a direct cause – of the accident that caused your injury.

To recover compensation through the Jones Act, you must prove negligence on the part of the vessel’s owners, officers, operators, or fellow employees. Alternately, you may maintain that a hazardous but preventable defect or some other hazardous situation existed on the vessel.

Additionally under the Jones Act, when a deceased seaman’s family brings a wrongful death claim against an employer, the family may recover damages only for the seaman’s conscious pain and suffering and for any financial losses that are a direct result of the wrongful death.

Is There a Deadline for Filing a Claim Under the Jones Act?

A seaman who is injured on the job has three years from the date of the accident to file an injury claim under the Jones Act. If an injured seaman fails to take legal action within that three-year window, the seaman’s injury claim will almost certainly be dismissed.

However, you cannot wait three years to consult a California maritime accident lawyer. You shouldn’t even wait three weeks. If you are a seaman who is injured on the job, and your employer was negligent, schedule a consultation as soon as you’ve been treated for your injury.

How Will Your Jones Act Injury Claim Be Handled?

Medical expenses stack up quickly after a serious injury, so if you need to recover compensation, you must act promptly. Your attorney should be allowed to examine any evidence before it can be lost or altered, and witnesses should be questioned before their memories fade.

If your Jones Act claim cannot be settled privately outside of the courtroom, your California maritime accident attorney will take the case to court, explain how (and how extensively) you were injured, and ask the jurors to find in your favor and award your compensation.

Your first legal consultation is provided without cost or obligation, and you’ll owe no legal fee to your maritime accident lawyer until your compensation is recovered.

Take Your Jones Act Injury Claim to the Law Offices of Preston Easley

At the Law Offices of Preston Easley, our personal injury team admires and respects those who live and work in the offshore environment. Attorney Preston Easley graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served for five years as a Naval officer.

Since that time, with more than thirty years of legal experience, attorney Preston Easley has won landmark decisions at the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, greatly expanding the rights of injured maritime workers. The Law Offices of Preston Easley offers quality legal services and advice to maritime workers throughout California and Hawaii.

We handle every aspect of your case and guide you step-by-step through the legal process. Call the Law Offices of Preston Easley at 310-773-5207 to learn more, to schedule a no-cost, no-obligation consultation with our personal injury team, or to begin the legal process.