A hatch with one purpose
The steel hatch above the engine-room ladder of the tug Candace existed for one reason: getting a crew out alive. It said so — EMERGENCY EXIT, KEEP CLEAR. On July 21, 2024, Weeks Marine was using it as a work route, running a compressor hose through it for paint-prep work. When a young mariner climbed the ladder beneath it, the hatch cover came down on his head.
The latch that should have held it open was unlike anything else in the Weeks fleet. The Candace was the fleet’s only Dutch-built tug, and her hatch locked through a five-step mechanism the crew opened by beating the locking dogs with a rubber mallet. Weeks’ own chief engineer testified that’s how it worked — two hands to unlock, two hands to lift — and that a new crewman ’may find it difficult.’ Weeks’ own familiarization paperwork showed no one had ever trained the young mariner on it. Its own corporate representative compared opening it to a car door.
There was no hard-hat requirement in the engine room that day. Two days after the injury, Weeks sent a fleet-wide email creating one.
’Work as tolerated’
The day the hatch came down, the company’s medical response was a telemedicine call: a bump on the head, work as tolerated. No concussion protocol. No evaluation. He kept working while the symptoms — headaches, motor problems, swelling — got worse, and was transferred to a second vessel where crewmates watched it happen.
A traumatic brain injury does not tolerate work. It compounds. By the time he could pay out of his own pocket for the diagnosis Weeks never provided, the medicine had a name for what the company called a bump: post-concussion syndrome, with cervical disc herniations and a torn rotator cuff and labrum that needed surgery besides.
What the company did next
In June 2024, Weeks’ own paperwork praised him as an employee. After the injury, the paper changed. An assessment letter suddenly painted him as a problem. An executive sent an ultimatum while he was replying, in writing, ’I am in pain — waiting on a doctor.’ His health benefits were cut off — backdated — while he was still reporting symptoms. In January 2025, six months after the hatch came down on his head, Weeks Marine fired him.
At deposition, the captain who signed the document used to run him off admitted he signed it without reading it — and that it was prepared specifically for that purpose. The company’s head of safety admitted he never ordered a root-cause investigation of a head injury aboard his own fleet. Payroll records showed workweeks over 84 hours against Weeks’ own 12-hour fatigue policy.
Even the defense’s own experts wouldn’t carry the company’s story: the defense doctor confirmed the concussion, and the defense economist still calculated three-quarters of a million dollars in economic loss.
The eve of trial
Weeks’ first offer was $50,000. Mediation failed. Then every summary-judgment motion was denied, the exhibits were built — the KEEP CLEAR sign, the shipyard drawings, the mallet testimony, the Master Mariner’s credential blown up large — and jury selection in the 157th District Court of Harris County was days away.
The case resolved, confidentially, over the final weekend. The timing is the lesson: the number a company offers reflects whether it believes you will pick a jury. This case was built so there was no doubt. Brian Beckcom served as lead trial counsel.
The client, afterward, in his own words: ’I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank you and your team for all of your hard work, dedication, and assistance throughout my case. I am grateful for everything that has been done on my behalf and for the outcome that was achieved.’
What the evidence showed
Every fact below came from Weeks Marine’s own witnesses and records.
- Weeks’ corporate representative admitted there was no engine-room hard-hat policy before the injury, that the hatch was unique in the fleet, and that orientation covered none of it.
- The chief engineer testified the latch was opened by beating it with a rubber mallet — and that he never trained the client on it.
- Weeks’ fleet-wide hard-hat email went out two days after the injury.
- The head of safety never ordered a root-cause investigation.
- The captain admitted the paperwork used to terminate the client was prepared for that purpose — and that he signed it without reading it.
- Payroll showed workweeks over 84 hours against the company’s own 12-hour fatigue policy.
- The defense’s own doctor confirmed the concussion; the defense’s own economist calculated \~$750,000 in economic loss.
The offer, and the answer
From a $50,000 offer to a confidential resolution with a jury panel waiting. Companies don’t pay for injuries. They pay for trial-ready cases.
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.