Florida Cruise ship crew injury lawyer

The three claims a crew member brings, and why they go together

A passenger has one claim. A crew member has three, and they are brought at the same time because each reaches something the others do not.

1. Jones Act negligence. 46 U.S.C. § 30104 lets an injured seaman bring a civil action at law against the employer, with the right of trial by jury. This is where lost earnings, future earning capacity and pain and suffering live. One detail much published guidance still gets wrong: the venue provision this section used to carry was struck in 2008, so it is the contract rather than the statute that usually decides where the case is heard.

2. Maintenance and cure. Not a statute at all — it comes from the general maritime law, which is why searching the code for it finds nothing. The shipowner owes an injured seaman a daily allowance toward food and lodging ashore, plus medical care, regardless of who was at fault, until maximum medical improvement.

3. Unseaworthiness. A separate claim against the vessel owner, and it does not require negligence either. The question is whether the ship, its equipment or its crew were reasonably fit for their intended purpose — an understaffed galley, a defective winch, a walkway that floods, a crew not trained for the task.

They are not alternatives. Maintenance and cure keeps treatment running while the other two are worked out, and the first is owed even where the other two ultimately fail.

Maintenance and cure: what the shipowner owes regardless of fault

This is the part that matters in the first weeks, and the part most often underpaid.

It has two halves. Maintenance is a daily allowance toward food and lodging ashore while you are unfit for duty. Cure is the medical care itself. Both are owed because you were injured or fell ill in the service of the ship, not because anyone did anything wrong.

It ends at maximum medical improvement — the point at which the condition is not expected to improve further with treatment. That is a medical judgment, and it is routinely where the dispute sits. A company doctor declaring you fit is not the same thing, and an opinion from a doctor you chose carries real weight.

Accepting it gives nothing up. Maintenance and cure is not a settlement, and taking it does not waive the Jones Act or unseaworthiness claims. It is also not wages: lost earnings are recovered through the other two claims.

What to keep. Every receipt for rent, food and transport while ashore, every medical bill and referral, and every communication about what was authorized or refused. The gap between what was owed and what was paid is itself part of the claim.

My contract says I have to arbitrate in my own country. Is that enforced?

Generally yes — and you should hear that from a lawyer on day one rather than discover it after filing. This is the single most important practical fact about a crew claim, and it is the one most pages leave out.

Most seafarer employment agreements contain an arbitration clause, frequently seating the arbitration in the seafarer’s country of citizenship and under another country’s law. Federal courts in this circuit generally enforce those clauses under the New York Convention, which 9 U.S.C. § 202 applies to an arbitration agreement arising out of a commercial legal relationship — and a seafarer employment agreement has been treated as commercial for that purpose.

It is not unlimited, and the limits are worth knowing. The scope of the clause matters: what claims it actually covers, and whether a clause signed in a later contract reaches an injury that happened under an earlier one. Those are questions answered by reading the agreement, not by assuming.

Which is why the contract is the first document to find. The seafarer employment agreement, any collective bargaining agreement it incorporates, and the version in force on the date you were hurt. Ask for copies while you still have the easiest access to them.

And it changes the strategy rather than ending it. Knowing early where a claim will be heard shapes how it is prepared, what evidence has to be gathered aboard, and what the realistic path looks like. A lawyer who tells you this at the start is giving you the thing you most need.

Can they fire me for reporting an injury?

Not lawfully, and the protection is broader than most crew members realize.

46 U.S.C. § 2114 provides that a person may not discharge or in any manner discriminate against a seaman for a list of protected acts. Among them: notifying, or attempting to notify, the vessel owner or the Secretary of a work-related injury or illness.

The list goes further. Reporting in good faith a suspected violation of a maritime safety law to the Coast Guard or another appropriate federal agency. Reporting sexual harassment or assault, whether you were the victim or know of it against another seaman. Refusing to perform duties where you reasonably fear serious injury to yourself, other crew or the public — subject to the conditions in subsections (a)(2) and (a)(3), which include having asked the employer to correct the condition first. Testifying in a safety enforcement proceeding, cooperating with a safety investigation, and accurately reporting hours of duty.

Why this matters more at sea than ashore. A crew member who does not report an injury loses the medical log entry, the witness names, and often the contract renewal they were trying to protect. The fear of reporting is what actually ends most of these claims, long before any legal question arises.

A complaint under this section is filed through the procedure at 49 U.S.C. § 31105, which is a different route from the injury claim and has its own timing.

They repatriated me. Do I still have a claim?

Yes. Being sent home ends the voyage, not the claim.

Maintenance and cure continues until maximum medical improvement, wherever you are living. The obligation follows the seaman, not the ship, and treatment received at home still counts.

The three-year deadline keeps running under 46 U.S.C. § 30106, from wherever you are. Distance is not a tolling event, and the most common way a strong crew claim is lost is simply that time passed while the person was recovering at home and assumed nothing could be done from there.

What gets harder is the evidence, which is why the days before leaving the ship matter so much. The medical log entry, the incident report, photographs of the place and the equipment, and above all the names and personal contact details of witnesses — crews disperse to other ships and other countries within weeks, and a colleague who is easy to find this month is unreachable next year.

A claim can be started from another country. It is harder, and it is not impossible.

PortMiami, Port Tampa Bay, and where a crew claim is decided

South Florida is where the industry is administered, which is why so many crew claims land here regardless of where the ship was. The major lines operating from the United States have their corporate operations in and around Miami-Dade, and PortMiami is the busiest cruise port in the country. The terminals sit on Dodge Island, reached by the tunnel from I-395 or the Port Boulevard bridge from Biscayne Boulevard.

Tampa is a working port as well as a cruise port. The cruise terminals are on Channelside Drive, but Port Tampa Bay also carries tugs, barges, bulk and container traffic — and seamen on those vessels have the same three claims as a cruise steward does.

Where the case is decided depends on the contract first. If the arbitration clause applies, it may be seated abroad. If it does not, a maritime claim is frequently brought in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida at 400 North Miami Avenue, or the Middle District in Tampa at 801 North Florida Avenue.

Where you are treated. A crew member taken off a ship at PortMiami with a serious injury goes to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial or to Mount Sinai; from Port Tampa Bay, to Tampa General on Davis Islands. Those records are frequently the only independent medical account in the file, because everything before them came from the ship.

What to do in the first days after a crew injury

Almost everything that decides a crew case is created or lost in the first week, while you are still aboard.

Report it and make sure it reaches the medical log. An injury that is not logged is an injury the company can say happened ashore. Ask what was written and ask for a copy.

Get the contract. Your seafarer employment agreement and any collective bargaining agreement it refers to. This is the document that decides where your claim will be heard, and it is far easier to obtain while you are employed than after.

Write down the witnesses, with personal contact details. Not the crew list — phone numbers and messaging handles. They will be on other ships within weeks.

Photograph the place and the equipment before anything is repaired or cleaned, including what the surface, the lighting and the staffing actually looked like.

Keep copies of everything you sign, and have a lawyer read anything that mentions settling, releasing or discharging a claim before you sign it. A statement about how it happened is evidence and can be explained. A release ends the case.

Do not rely on the ship’s fitness determination as the measure of your injury. See a doctor of your own as soon as you are able, wherever you are.