Unseaworthiness Doctrine

A maritime injury claim based upon unseaworthiness is when a person is injured due to an unsafe condition aboard the vessel. Now, an unsafe condition may include unsafe operation of the vessel, inappropriate type of vessel for the work involved, defective or unsafe equipment, old obsolete or worn out equipment, improperly supplied vessel, improperly trained or inadequate crew, insufficient number of crew, and any other unsafe condition anywhere on the vessel which leads to injury. These would all be situations when an unseaworthiness claim would be available.

Negligence in Unseaworthiness Claims

Both the Jones Act and the unseaworthiness doctrine under the general maritime law has a negligence component. Under the Jones Act, the injured seaman has to show that the employer negligently failed to provide him a safe place in which to work. And again, that negligence could be in any number of fashion.

Similarly, under the general maritime law, an injured seaman needs to show that the ship owner violated or breached its warranty of seaworthiness and that could be in any one of many situations ago involving the vessel, the crew, the equipment and anything that renders the vessel unsafe for its intended purpose.

Elements of Negligence

The elements of negligence include, first, that the injured person must be a seaman working in the service of a vessel in navigation.

The injured person must be employed with the vessel or fleet of vessels that is substantial both in terms of duration and nature. In other words, just for a land based employee to have a passing or just very occasional association with a vessel does not render him a maritime employee entitled to Jones Act coverage. In addition, the person’s work must contribute to the function of the vessel.

Now, once these requirements have been established, then the next element is that it must be shown that the employer negligently failed to provide a safe place in which to work.

The final element is that such negligence causes of contributes to damages which can be injuries, lost wages, and all the various damages that we discussed earlier.