Working offshore or on vessels usually means you have a relatively good income to take care of yourself or your family. Life doesn’t stop after you’ve been injured. If your offshore income is what keeps your bills at bay and house afloat, its easy to want to place faith in your employer after you get injured on the job. The problem is that your employer wants you to trust them for the wrong reasons.
Getting injured offshore or on navigable waterways means you may have additional rights. That means if you work on a tugboat, barge, rig, drill ship, fishing boat, etc. and you get injured, you may have maritime and Jones Act claims against the shipowner or your employer. These employers and shipowners won’t tell you that if they failed to keep you safe or the vessel seaworthy, you have these additional claims.
After you get injured offshore or in service of a vessel, your employer may promise to send you money and pay for your medical bills. Your employer may be trying to trick you into thinking they pay for these things out of the goodness of their hearts, or because of your years of hard work with the company. What they don’t tell you is that the law requires certain offshore employers to pay for medical bills and provide a regular maintenance check to assist paying living expenses no matter how you became injured on the job. Consulting a lawyer early on is the best way to check if your employer is taking advantage of you
If you or someone you know has been injured or killed while working offshore or near water, contact an experienced attorney at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner by calling (713) 222-7211 or toll free at 713-222-7211.