Jones Act Lawyers

Jones Act lawyers represent workers and families of workers who have suffered serious injury, illness or have been killed while employed as seaman aboard a vessel operating on navigable waters.

Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (commonly known as the Jones Act) gives U.S. citizens rights above and beyond those offered to all seamen by international maritime law. The Jones Act allows seamen or their surviving family to seek damages from their employer if their injury was caused by unseaworthiness of the vessel on which they served or any negligence on the part of the vessel’s owner, master or any other crew member. The Jones Act also gives injured seamen the right to trial by jury – a right that is not normally afforded to seamen under general maritime law.

The distinction between the rights offered under the Jones Act and those offered under general maritime law is significant.

Under maritime law, employers are obligated to pay injured sailors maintenance and cure regardless of whether or not any negligence contributed to an injury. Maintenance is a basic subsistence wage for room and board until the injured seaman reaches what is called “maximum medical cure” (MMC). Maintenance can run as little as $20 to $30 per day. Cure is the payment of the injured seaman’s medical expenses until they reach maximum medical cure. Maximum medical cure is reached when everything that can be done medically to return a seaman to the condition they were in prior to an injury has been done. For example, if a sailor lost his arm while loading cargo, the employer would be responsible for treatment and hospitalization until the seamen was released from the hospital and fitted with a prosthetic arm. At that point, maintenance and cure would end with no further obligation from the employer.

In the same scenario, if the sailor qualified as a seaman under the Jones Act and if any negligence or unseaworthiness was proved to be a contributing factor to the accident, the seaman would not only be eligible for maintenance and cure, they could also receive compensation for:

• Lost wages
• Loss of future earning capacity
• Loss of fringe benefits resulting from any time spent out of the workforce
• Physical pain, suffering and disfigurement
• Mental anguish
• Present and future compensation for reasonable and necessary charges related to medical care arising from the event