Case at a glance
- Recovery: Confidential Settlement
- Injury: Neck injury requiring spinal fusion
- Practice: Maritime injuries
- Attorney: Vuk Vujasinovic
A winch, a heavy steel plate and worsening neck pain
Anthony had worked on barges for more than ten years. During one assignment, he was using a winch and an extension bar to bring two barges into alignment. He described feeling something in his neck before two other crew members pushed on the bar to help. The bar then jerked, and he felt neck pain.
Anthony said he reported what happened, but no incident report was created. He continued working for approximately another month.
The next assignment involved moving a steel plate weighing an estimated 150 to 200 pounds from a barge to a tug and then into his supervisor’s vehicle. Anthony said that work aggravated his neck injury. He went to the emergency room the following day.
The company disputed the incidents
This was not a case with an agreed account of what had happened. Other crew members denied in their depositions that an incident had occurred or that Anthony had reported one.
His medical history presented another challenge. He had undergone two earlier neck surgeries, and the treatment records did not consistently connect his later symptoms to a specific work event.
The team examined those issues rather than relying on the fact that Anthony needed surgery. One important distinction was the side of his body affected: his earlier complaints involved the right side, while the later pain radiated to the left.
Anthony ultimately underwent another neck fusion. The case required the team to address his prior condition, the disputed work assignments and the symptoms that followed.
Examining how the work should have been performed
The VB Attorneys team retained Captain Joseph Derie, a marine safety consultant and retired Coast Guard officer, to review Anthony’s deposition and the company’s operating, lifting and incident-reporting procedures.
Derie questioned the planning and supervision of the two tasks. His analysis addressed the winch operation, the use of an extension bar and whether the company had properly investigated Anthony’s reported injuries.
The steel plate presented a separate safety issue. Derie identified a company lifting standard of 55 pounds for an individual. In his opinion, moving the much heavier plate by hand, even with two people, exceeded that standard. He identified a crane and a forklift as the appropriate way to move the plate ashore.
His analysis gave the team a concrete basis to examine the work practices instead of treating the injury as an unavoidable part of barge work.
Showing what the injury meant for Anthony’s working life
The investigation also addressed what Anthony could do after surgery. A vocational economist interviewed him and reviewed his work history, earnings information and medical restrictions.
The restrictions addressed lifting, climbing ladders, repetitive gripping and pushing or pulling with his hands. Those limitations mattered for someone whose working life had included seaman, deckhand and other physical jobs.
The vocational assessment connected those restrictions to his ability to work and earn money. It formed another part of the evidence the team developed alongside the maritime-safety analysis and the competing accounts of the incidents.
Vuk and the VB Attorneys team obtained a confidential settlement resolving Anthony’s maritime injury claim. The result came in a case that required confronting both a significant prior medical history and direct disputes about what had happened aboard the barges.
Questions about the case
Related legal help
Learn about maritime injury claims, or read about another maritime workplace injury case.
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Every case is different. Prior results depend on the facts of the individual case and do not guarantee a similar outcome.