Case at a glance
- Recovery: Confidential Settlement
- Injury: Leg injury during crane work
- Practice: Maritime injuries
- Attorney: Brian Beckcom
A construction job over the river
Ricardo worked as a pile driver on a marine construction project repairing and replacing railroad trusses across the San Jacinto River. The work involved a crane and a crew working around heavy structural components.
His lawsuit described a crane boom being lowered without warning, pinching his leg between the boom and a wooden mat. The injury disrupted the physical work on which he depended for a living.
Brian and the team filed suit seeking compensation for Ricardo’s injuries, medical care, pain, physical limitations and lost earnings. The lawsuit also sought maintenance and cure, the maritime benefits associated with a qualifying seaman’s recovery.
The employer challenged his right to bring a maritime claim
The employer did not simply dispute the extent of Ricardo’s injuries. It asked the court to end his case through summary judgment, arguing that he was a land-based construction worker rather than a Jones Act seaman.
The motion challenged the waterway, the status of the construction barges and the amount and nature of Ricardo’s work aboard them. It characterized the barges as stationary work platforms and disputed whether his duties connected him sufficiently to a vessel in navigation.
Those arguments put Ricardo’s ability to pursue his maritime claims at issue before a jury could hear the case. His lawsuit took the opposite position: he was assigned to the employer’s fleet of vessels and was injured while working as a crew member.
The court refused to end the case on summary judgment
The court denied the employer’s motion for summary judgment. That ruling kept Ricardo’s case alive rather than ending it on the employer’s seaman-status arguments.
The distinction matters. The order was not a jury verdict deciding fault or setting damages. It was a meaningful procedural result that allowed Ricardo to continue pursuing his injury claims.
For a worker injured on a marine construction project, the legal dispute can extend beyond how the equipment moved or how badly someone was hurt. In Ricardo’s case, it also involved whether the employer could remove the claim from the maritime framework altogether.
A confidential settlement after the case moved forward
After the summary-judgment ruling, the parties reached a confidential settlement resolving Ricardo’s claims. Brian and the VB Attorneys team represented him through the lawsuit and its resolution.
The result followed a case in which both the injury allegations and the worker’s legal status were contested. Ricardo’s story shows why a serious workplace injury may require more than documenting the accident: the right to pursue the claim itself can become a central issue.
Questions about the 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.