Maritime Injury Benefits In The Jones Act

Maritime Injury Benefits

Maritime Injury Benefits are generally awarded to an injured offshore worker who is successful in a claim against an employer under the laws that govern the safety and compensation rights of workers at sea. This includes both maintenance and cure as outlined in the Jones Act, which is the law that governs injury of maritime workers. If a worker is not adequately compensated for maintenance and cure after sustaining an injury on the job while at sea, he has the right to make a claim under these laws against his employer. The laws that govern these situations are complicated at times and require the services of a good maritime lawyer to decipher.

Maritime Injury Benefits do not include the claims it is possible to make in the event of any sort of negligence on the part of the employer. If you are injured while working at sea and are not being awarded maintenance and cure payments, seeking out the services of an excellent maritime lawyer may enable you to instead file a suit in regards to the seaworthiness of the vessel or negligence on the part of your employer. This ensures that an injured employee has recourse if the injury was due to malpractice of some kind on behalf of his employer.

The two kinds of maritime injury benefits that have been named are payments for two distinct and separate reasons. Maintenance is the payment that is to supplement the regular living expenses of an employee when he is no longer receiving his regular pay check because of an injury. It is possible for employers to try and shirk on the amount of a maintenance payment and, due to the cost of living always increasing, these payments can often not be enough to replace the paycheck the worker was formerly receiving and cannot cover the basic and essential costs for survival. A good maritime lawyer will help ensure that you are receiving high enough maintenance payments during the time of your rehabilitation to cover all of the costs required to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Cure refers to all of the treatments and procedures required to take you from your injured state to your maximum state of medical improvement. That is, until a doctor says you can't get any better. Unfortunately, some injuries are permanent and rehabilitation will reach a point where there will not be any further improvement. Once a doctor rules that a patient is as healthy as they can get, the cure payments will no longer be required. Up until that point though, all medical and medically associated fees can be covered under the cure payments.

The laws that govern maritime injury benefits are in place to ensure that workers who are employed in these highly dangerous jobs receive adequate protection. They are working in a high risk environment and any laxness or carelessness on the part of an employer can cause serious injury, or even death, and must be penalized.

It is the responsibility of an employer to watch out for the safety of their employees so, when one is injured, these laws ensure that they are also responsible for that worker’s recovery. At the Ogletree Abbott Law Firm, we know it can be tough; that’s why we are here. Give us a call today to discuss your case.