Maritime Accidents Articles

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Liability Insurance Required For “Party Boats”

Like motorists, boat drivers have duties and responsibilities when operating boats in a safe manner. However, boating accidents are still a common occurrence, and damages stemming from these types of accidents can be substantial. Boat owners must make sure that crew members are trained and certified to operate commercial boats. They must also ensure that…

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Abraham Watkins

The Perils of the Seaman Status– 5th Circuit Revised Seaman Status Test

The Fifth Circuit’s recent en banc decision in Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, L.L.C., No. 19 20506,2021 WL 1882565 (5th Cir. May 11, 2021) upends 20 years of its own precedent and reformulates the seaman status analysis. The plaintiff in the lawsuit was a welder working on a jack up-rig. Sanchez had been onboard the second of two…

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Abraham Watkins Scores Victory Under New 5th Circuit Maritime Precedent

In Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators, a unanimous, en banc decision of the 5th Circuit upended existing precedent in greatly narrowing the critical threshold issue of who qualifies as a seaman under the Jones Act.  As one of the leading personal injury firms in the nation, and the longest operating in Texas, Abraham Watkins attorney Benny…

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Zone of Danger: 5th Circuit Leaves Open the Door for Purely Emotional Injury

The availability of emotional injury claims in maritime law is unsettled. As it stands, recovery of purely emotional injuries requires proof of an attendant physical injury—or at least emotional injuries that present with concurrent physical symptoms. But a recent decision from the 5th Circuit potentially expands the scope of cognizable emotional injury claims. In In…

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Abraham Watkins

Maritime Injury: Claims for Purely Emotional Injuries and the Physical Impact Rule

An often overlooked component and independent cause of action in maritime injury claims is infliction of emotional distress. If you have been involved in accident and sustained psychological injury such as substantial distress, anxiety, grief, depression, insomnia, or other psychological symptoms without soft tissue or orthopedic injury, you or maritime employees who witnessed the event…

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Maintenance and Cure: They Cut You Off?    

No, a vessel owner or employer cannot unilaterally terminate maintenance and cure benefits without serious justification. Maintenance and cure requires that vessel owners and employers provide sick and injured seaman their basic living expenses and reasonable and necessary medical expenses until the point that they reach maximum medical improvement (MMI). But that raises a question:…

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Maintenance & Cure: Three Tiers of Potential Damages

The payment of maintenance and cure benefits for injured seaman are supposed to be “virtually automatic.” These claims are protections afforded to mariners in recognition of the perils of seafaring life. Maintenance benefits provide for a seaman’s basic living expenses; cure for their reasonable and necessary medical treatment; and both are intended to provide basic…

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