How Maritime Law Is Different

How Maritime Law Is Different

If you were injured while working offshore, on a vessel, or on the water, the rules that apply may be very different from the rules in a land-based injury claim. Maritime law is its own body of law. It can affect who can be held responsible, what you may be able to recover, where your lawsuit can be filed, and whether you may be allowed to have a jury. For workers and families trying to understand their rights after a serious offshore injury, those differences matter.

“If you’ve been injured working offshore or working on water, most lawyers, especially the ones that you might see on TV or a billboard, really don’t know anything about that type of law.”

Why Maritime Law Requires a Different Approach

Maritime law includes some of the oldest legal rules in the United States. These rules were created for work and injuries that happen on navigable waters, vessels, rigs, and other offshore environments. That means a maritime injury claim cannot be treated like an ordinary injury claim on land. The law is different, and so are the facts. Offshore work involves different equipment, different procedures, different safety standards, and different risks.

“If a lawyer is treating a maritime case like a run-of-the-mill injury case on land, then that lawyer is doing their client a huge disservice.”

Full Transcript

If you’ve been injured working offshore or working on water, most lawyers, especially the ones that you might see on TV or a billboard, really don’t know anything about that type of law. You really want the best.

If you went to a doctor for a brain tumor or something, you wouldn’t want an average doctor or a doctor who knew a little bit about the brain. You’d want someone who was the world-leading expert.

There’s a special body of law called maritime law that takes over the case. One, it’s the actual body of the law. So, the law if you get hurt on land is not the same as if you get hurt on the water.

A lot of the laws that function for people who get hurt on the water are really, really old laws that go back to the beginning of the United States. And it affects who you can sue. It affects what you can recover in a lawsuit. And it might affect what court your lawsuit can be brought in. It may even affect whether or not you’re allowed to get a jury.

The other way that maritime law is different from law on land is the facts of what happened are so different. The equipment is different. How it’s used is different. The procedures people are doing, whether you’re working on a vessel or drilling rig, are just totally different and very fact-specific. If a lawyer is treating a maritime case like a run-of-the-mill injury case on land, then that lawyer is doing their client a huge disservice.

If you were injured working offshore or your loved one was injured working offshore, and you’re trying to figure out, “How do I choose the right lawyer?” what you need to figure out is, number one, does this person understand the difference between maritime law and state law? And number two, what are their recoveries for their clients in the past?

How many million-dollar recoveries do they have? How many hundred million? How many tens of millions? How many recoveries have they had that they actually did the work on? Because there’s a lot of lawyers that are out there right now that are claiming other people’s results as their success, and that is a non-starter.

You need the people that actually do the cases, do the work, and it’s someone that’s not going to treat you like just another file on their desk, but someone who’s going to understand what happened to you, what your goals are from the lawsuit, and help work to get you the very, very best outcome possible.

Call us, email us, text us. We’ll respond and hold the people who did it accountable and make sure that your family’s taken care of.