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Offshore work in the Gulf covers vessel crews, platform workers, divers, catering and construction hands. The legal route differs by role and by where the work happened, and the difference is substantial. A worker treated as a seaman has a jury trial against the employer. A worker who is not may fall under a federal compensation scheme instead.
Do not accept a company’s characterization of your status without checking it. Call 713-521-0059.
46 U.S.C. Section 30104 provides that a seaman injured in the course of employment may elect to bring a civil action at law, with the right of trial by jury, against the employer, and that the laws of the United States regulating recovery for personal injury to a railway employee apply to that action. That last clause is what imports the railway employee standard into a maritime case.
Whether a particular worker is a seaman for that purpose depends on the worker’s connection to a vessel and is a question we look at case by case rather than assume.
Report the injury and get the incident report in writing. Company doctors and company statements early in an offshore case shape everything afterward. Photographs of the equipment and the deck condition are frequently the only evidence that survives the vessel returning to service.
A Texas personal injury claim generally must be filed within two years of the injury under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. A Jones Act or other maritime tort claim carries three years under 46 U.S.C. Section 30106. Evidence in an industrial setting moves faster than that. Call 713-521-0059.
