Fifteen hundred dollars
The first number the company put on an injured offshore supervisor’s Jones Act claim was $1,500. Not a negotiation — a message: we don’t think anyone will make us answer for this.
Then the company filed for bankruptcy. For most injured workers, that’s the end. The claim gets a case number in a court nobody understands, behind banks and bondholders with better lawyers, and it quietly dies. Companies know this. Some of them count on it.
Into bankruptcy court
We didn’t close the file. We followed the claim into bankruptcy court and litigated it there — proofs of claim, priority fights, the unglamorous work most injury firms never do — until the recovery came back at roughly 400 times the company’s opening number.
The first number tells you what a company thinks it can get away with. The last one tells you whether anyone made them answer for it. In his testimonial, the client says it plainly: he searched out VB Attorneys, and he’s very glad he did.
What the evidence showed
- The claim was proven in two courts — the injury case, and the bankruptcy.
- The company’s opening offer was $1,500 for a Jones Act injury claim.
- The company’s bankruptcy would have extinguished most claims by default.
- The claim was litigated through the bankruptcy to a recovery roughly 400 times the opening offer.
The offer, and the answer
Bankruptcy is where injured workers’ claims go to die — unless someone follows the claim in and refuses to leave.
More from the record
Every case is different. Prior results depend on the facts of the individual case and do not guarantee a similar outcome.