Maritime Injury Lawyer Blog

The body of a barge worker who fell into the Mississippi River while working on a bridge-building project on Wednesday, March 28, was recovered by search teams the following day. According to East St. Louis Police Chief, Michael Floore, divers found the body of 35-year-old Andy Gammon of Park Hills, Mo. on Thursday, March 29. East Saint Louis is located in St. Clair County, Illinois in the southwestern part of the state, about 93 miles southwest of Springfield and 42 miles northwest of Evansville.

The accident occurred at around 10:30 a.m. when the four-wheeled aerial lift Gammon was in toppled into the river from a barge near East St. Louis. Police, coast guard and rescue crews searched the Mississippi north of downtown for more than five hours on Wednesday.

Continue reading "Barge Worker Falls to His Death" »

On Sunday, March 11, two men, aged 59 and 33, were welding on a 46-foot dredging boat off Commodore Way, north of Fishermen's Terminal on Magnolia and across the canal from Ballard, when two nearby 80-gallon gas tanks exploded. The tanks each contained about three to six inches of fuel, according to other workers in the area. One tank flew over a fence and landed near the railroad tracks, while the other tank was obliterated by the explosion.

Continue reading "Dry Dock Explosion Burns Two" »

A 57-year-old man was killed Sunday after falling into the chemical holding tank of a barge located on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, according to fire officials.  

The man was first reported missing around 10am local time by a co-worker who had thought the man could have fallen overboard. The employee said he had last seen the man near the hatch of the chemical hold and just briefly turned away before turning back and realizing his co-worker went missing.  Firefighters responding to the scene said they had found a rope that led into an open hatch that covered a chemical holding tank on the barge.  Almost 4 hours later, the man's body was pulled from the emptied tank by HAZMAT crews.

Continue reading "Man Dies on Portland Barge" »

A man has been confirmed dead in a crane accident at the Houston Ship Channel. The fatality occurred when the worker was hit by the crane, and dragged under it.

According to news reports, the accident occurred at the Barbours Cut Container Terminal.  The man seems to have been working when he was caught under the crane which began to move. The victim's legs were severed.  He was rushed to the Bayshore Medical Center in Pasadena, but died from his injuries. The man was a member of the International Longshoremen's Association union.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently released new rules targeting safety for shipyard workers. The agency believes that the rule can help prevent at least 350 shipyard worker injuries every year.

The rule was published in the May 2 Federal Register, and updates several provisions in shipyard safety standards that were established in 1972. The new rules take into consideration changes in industry practices and technology and address hazards that did not exist earlier.

Continue reading "OSHA Shipyard Rules" »

A shipyard worker was seriously injured in an accident near Chula Vista harbor in California over the weekend. According to Signs on San Diego, the man was working with a crew on disassembling a 124-foot-long barge at the Marine Group Boat Works shipyard. At some point, a beam that the man believed was still attached to the barge, fell on his head and face. He suffered serious facial lacerations, and injured his trachea.

Fire crews transferred to the man to the University of California San Diego Medical Center, where he has now been placed in a medically induced coma. His condition is reported to be critical.

According to police, there was no foul play involved in this incident. The man was wearing a hard hat at the time that could not protect him from facial and neck injuries.

NANTUCKETT, MA. - A seaman employed by Toscana Corporation barge was injured Tuesday, December 18, after being pinned between a barge and Steamboat Wharf and then falling into the freezing water. The incident occurred as workers on the Toscana Corporation barge were attempting to untie the vessel after unloading material at the wharf in rough weather, Detective Lt. Jerry Adams said. Other Toscana employees were able to get the man out of the water as police and EMTs rushed to the scene.

The victim was placed on a stretcher after his coworkers pulled him from the water. He was taken to Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

Continue reading "Seaman Injured In Fall" »

The large lock at the Ballard Locks is closed for the next two weeks for annual maintenance.

During the closure, US Army Corps of Engineers workers will remove barnacles from the walls and floor. According to Andrea Takash with the Corps, the annual work reduces the hazards to juvenile salmon drawn into the filling tunnels.

The small lock will remain open for boat traffic throughout the closure. The small lock can normally accommodate vessels 100 feet in length with 25 foot beams.

The large lock is scheduled to re-open at 5 p.m. on November 24th.

More World War II-era ammunition has been brought to the surface from underneath Seattle's busiest cruise ship terminal at Pier 91 in the Magnolia neighborhood.

Most of what they recovered earlier this fall included harmless objects such as training rounds and empty shell casings. But they also discovered projectiles containing high explosive material.

On Thursday, Port of Seattle divers found yet more ammunition at the bottom of Elliott Bay while working on a completely different project: inspecting pier pilings the Port is about to replace.

Continue reading "Ammo Found Under Cruise Ship Terminal" »

A King County Judge has ordered B&N Fisheries to reinstate an injured crewman's maintenance and care benefits.

The Court further ordered the company to authorize surgery for the crewman's elbow and to pay reasonable attorney fees in connection with the motion. B&N Fisheries moved to block the attorney fee award, arguing that only a jury can determine the amount of attorney fees due in a case involving the wrongful withholding of maintenance and care. The Court denied the motion and again affirmed the crewman's right to be compensated for attorney fees.

Recently discovered military shells and other weapons found buried in silt under Seattle's new cruise ship terminal create obvious public safety and ecological risks.

"This stuff is toxic," said Kathy Fletcher of People For Puget Sound. Fletcher said not only does this pose an active risk to salmon and other fish in the area, but also threatens to delay badly needed cleanup projects. 

The Coast Guard has said they don't know yet the extent of the weapons in that area.

A controversial new permit governing Washington boatyards is going back to the drawing board in the wake of reaction from stakeholders.

The Boatyard General Permit, which governs about 100 boatyards around the state, was expected to be implemented this month and would impose stricter water standards but also give struggling boatyards more time to meet the new requirements.

After receiving 80 pages of written comments from boatyards, port authorities, trade groups, environmental organizations and others, the state Department of Ecology, which issues the permit, is considering revising the draft document. Gary Bailey, Ecology's water quality permit specialist, said he is putting together a report detailing possible changes to the permit, which will go to Ecology management for review and a decision.

The draft permit proposes stricter benchmarks for copper and zinc but a more lenient limit for lead (benchmarks are considered target levels and are not legally enforceable, while limits are legally enforceable levels). The permit also sets the same benchmarks for boatyards on both freshwater and saltwater. Many boatyards would need to install costly treatment systems, which can cost upward of $100,000, to meet the new standards.

Continue reading "Boatyard rule changes delayed" »

The large lock at the Chittenden Locks in Ballard will open Thursday Oct. 14 on a limited basis, due to the need to manually operate the large lock, which experienced an electrical outage from a lightning strike Oct. 11.

At this time, there will be two lockages daily -- one beginning at 9 a.m. and one at 1 p.m. Both lockages will include an up and then down lockage or vice versa, depending on the flow of the traffic. Vessels entering the Locks from Lake Washington require lowering the water. Vessels entering the Locks from Puget Sound require raising the water.

Lockages will be done on a priority basis. The barges and freighters on scheduled runs will get a one per lockage priority. The next priority will go to all other commercial vessels. If there are no other commercial vessels, another barge and freighter could be included.

Continue reading "Chittenden Lock to open Oct. 14 on limited basis" »

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard has agreed to pay a $56,000 fine for the improper handling and storage of hazardous chemicals, officials say.

The fine was issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency following an unannounced inspection in January 2009. Inspectors from both the EPA and Washington Department of Ecology were involved.

State and federal officials had worked with the shipyard over the years to improve waste-handling techniques, said Jack Boller, an EPA inspector. During the surprise inspection in 2009, "we started finding things that we thought we had addressed years ago."

Among the more serious violations was an open-grated floor in the shipyard's plating shop, where hexavalent chromium was allowed to drip down and accumulate in the basement below.

Continue reading "PSNS Fined for Hazardous Waste Violations" »

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that ship construction workers are not covered under maritime law. Casas v. U.S. Joiner, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 5099, March 10, 2010.

Casas an employee of Land Coast Insulation, Inc., tripped, fell, and was injured while installing insulation in a compartment of an amphibious transport dock (LPD-19) under construction in Northrup Grumman's Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard. He brought maritime tort claims as well as Mississippi state law tort claims against Northrup Grumman and U.S. Joiner.

28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) gives district courts original jurisdiction over "any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction." A party seeking to invoke admiralty jurisdiction over a tort claim must show that the tort has (1) a "maritime situs" and (2) a "maritime nexus" (i.e., that the alleged wrong bears a "significant relationship to a traditional maritime activity"). The district court found that Casas' tort claim had no maritime nexus because U.S. Joiner's alleged negligence arose in the context of shipbuilding, which is not a maritime activity. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court's holding that an injury to a worker on board a ship under construction and lying in navigable waters is not a maritime tort.

Ship construction workers may, however, be covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act.