Maritime Injuries

Traditionally, "maintenance" meant food and quarters of the kind enjoyed by a seaman before the disability, and cure meant proper care if they remained on board.

In modern usage, “maintenance” of a seaman during the period of a ship owner’s liability refers to a seaman’s right to reimbursement for their actual costs for food and lodging comparable to those which they were entitled at sea, and “cure” is care (including nursing and medical attention) during that period.

In other words, if a seaman is injured while on board a vessel, the ship owner should ensure that the injured seaman is care of -- and must reimburse the injured seaman for all the costs they have incurred during the time that they were injured.

The Unseaworthiness Doctrine provides seaman protection from dangerous conditions beyond their control by shifting the risk to the ship owner. The basic premise of this claim is that a ship owner has duty at commencement of the voyage to furnish their employees with a vessel that is seaworthy in itself, and also as respects its appurtenances and appliances.

A seaman can file an action for any injury caused to them due to its seaworthiness.

The Jones Act provides an expansive remedy for seaman. The policy behind that remedy mandates that even marginal claims are properly left for a jury’s determination. Coverage under the Jones Act, like the jurisdiction of admiralty over claims for maintenance and cure, depends not on the place where the injury is inflicted, but rather on the nature of the service and its relationship to the operation of the vessel plying in navigable waters.

The Jones Act contains a liberal causation requirement that entitles a seaman to recover if negligence chargeable to their employer played any part in producing the seaman’s injury. The Jones Act does not overturn or eliminate pre-existing remedies available to seamen. Rather, it preserves common law causes action.

Put simply, any and all negligence claims made by a seaman fall under the Jones Act.