Maritime Injury Law · Houston, Texas · Nationwide

Jones Act Lawyer

If you are a seaman who has been hurt at work, the Jones Act gives you rights that are dramatically more powerful than the workers’ compensation system that covers most American workers. Most injured seamen do not realize how much is at stake. Most companies do not tell them.

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Overview

If your job involves working on a vessel at sea, along the Gulf Coast, in a river system, or on an offshore oil rig, you are not entitled to workers’ compensation. You are covered by federal admiralty law — maritime law, and the Jones Act.

Brian Beckcom and Vuk Vujasinovic work on contingency, and a Board Certified partner runs every file. The consultation is free and confidential. We have decades of experience against practically every company in the maritime and offshore industry, including the Somali piracy case behind the film Captain Phillips.

The First Question

What is the Jones Act?

Brian Beckcom inspecting a tug at the dock
We inspect the vessel ourselves. What a deck, a winch or a watch schedule shows is usually worth more than anything the company puts in writing afterwards.

Why the Jones Act is different

If you are a seaman who has been hurt at work, the Jones Act gives you rights that are dramatically more powerful than the workers’ compensation system that covers most American workers. Most injured seamen do not realize how much is at stake. Most companies do not tell them.

In one screen, what the Jones Act gives you over ordinary workers’ compensation:

  • You can sue your employer in federal or state court — workers’ comp prohibits this
  • You have the right to a jury trial
  • Even slight negligence wins — the “featherweight” causation standard, the most plaintiff-favorable in American tort law
  • There is no cap on damages — past and future medical, lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment
  • You can combine three independent federal claims — Jones Act negligence, maintenance and cure, and unseaworthiness — in a single case

Workers’ comp pays a fixed schedule of partial wages. The Jones Act, in the hands of a real maritime trial lawyer, is the most powerful worker-protection framework in the United States.

Before you sign anything: what to do in the first 72 hours

If your injury just happened — or if your loved one is in the hospital tonight — these are the things that matter most right now.

1
Get the medical care you need. Document the injury. Refuse pressure to return to work before you are medically able. If a company-paid doctor tells you that you have reached maximum medical improvement and you do not believe you have, you may have rights to a second opinion.
2
Do not give a recorded statement. Adjusters and company representatives will often ask for a recorded statement within hours or days of the incident. The actual purpose is to lock in your version of events before you have spoken to a lawyer. Decline politely, in writing, and call a lawyer.
3
Do not sign releases, waivers, or settlement papers. Companies sometimes offer small “advances” that come with broad release language buried in the paperwork. The release can extinguish your Jones Act claim entirely. Sign nothing without a maritime lawyer reviewing it.
4
Preserve evidence. Take photographs. Save text messages with co-workers, supervisors, and dispatchers. Identify witnesses and write down their names. Vessel logs, surveillance footage, and incident reports often disappear within weeks if no one has formally demanded their preservation.

How the Jones Act actually works

The Jones Act is Section 33 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, codified today at 46 U.S.C. § 30104. It exists for two enduring reasons: the merchant marine has always been an instrument of national security — a country that cannot supply its forces by sea cannot defend itself — and the seaman has always been the historical “ward of admiralty,” the worker whom courts of admiralty have protected since long before workers’ compensation existed. The Jones Act gave that protection statutory teeth.

A Jones Act case is, in plain English, a federal lawsuit by a seaman against his or her employer for negligence. Three structural features make it powerful.

The featherweight causation standard

To prevail on a Jones Act negligence claim, a seaman need only show that the employer’s negligence played any part — however slight — in producing the injury. This is not rhetorical flourish. It is the actual legal standard, imported from the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) and applied to maritime cases for nearly a century. The standard is dramatically lower than ordinary tort proximate cause. A jury that believes the employer was even partly responsible can return a full verdict.

The right to a jury

Unlike admiralty cases tried in their pure form, which are tried to a federal judge, a Jones Act case can be tried to a jury. The case can be filed in federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1333 admiralty jurisdiction or under diversity, or in state court under the savings to suitors clause. The choice of forum — and the right to a jury that comes with it — is one of the most consequential strategic decisions in any Jones Act case. Brian and Vuk make that call at the outset of every case the firm accepts.

Full tort damages, no cap

Past and future lost wages and earning capacity. Past and future medical expenses. Pain and suffering. Mental anguish. Physical impairment and disfigurement. Maintenance and cure are paid separately under the general maritime law. Damages are not capped under the Jones Act.

Who counts as a seaman

Not every maritime worker is a Jones Act seaman. The Supreme Court’s framework comes from Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis (1995): your duties must contribute to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of its mission, and your connection to the vessel — or to an identifiable group of vessels under common ownership or control — must be substantial in both duration and nature. Courts have used roughly thirty percent of working time aboard as a working benchmark, but the inquiry is fact-intensive. It is a guideline, not an automatic rule.

The seaman category includes:

Jobs Often Covered
  • Tug, towboat, and barge captains, mates, deckhands, and engineers
  • Supply boat, crew boat, and lift boat crews
  • Drillship, semisubmersible, and jack-up drilling vessel personnel
  • Dredge crews — levermen, mates, mechanics, deckhands (the Supreme Court resolved this in Stewart v. Dutra in 2005)
  • Fishing vessel crews
  • Roughnecks, roustabouts, drillers, toolpushers, derrickmen, company men, OIMs (Offshore Installation Managers), mud engineers, deck engineers
  • Ordinary seaman, able-bodied seaman, tankermen, cooks, galleyhands, and other supporting jobs

It generally excludes longshore workers, who are covered by the LHWCA, shore-based shipyard workers, and workers on fixed offshore platforms, who are covered by OCSLA. The line is fact-specific. If your employer is telling you that you are not a Jones Act seaman, do not accept that without speaking to a maritime lawyer first — worker classification decides which law applies to your injury, and it is the first thing a maritime company’s lawyers will try to characterize in their favor.

Jones Act vs. Longshore vs. workers’ compensation

Sorting the framework correctly is one of the most consequential decisions in any maritime case. The wrong category can cost a worker the value of his or her case.

Jones Act

Federal cause of action. Right to a jury. Featherweight causation. Full tort damages. The most powerful framework available to an injured maritime worker.

LHWCA (Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act)

Federal workers’ compensation: scheduled benefits, no jury, limited tort recovery. VB Attorneys does not generally market for LHWCA-only matters. If your case is a Longshore or Harbor Worker claim, we are happy to refer you to an experienced LHWCA lawyer who handles those cases full-time.

State workers’ compensation

Land-based workers who happen to work near the water. State systems vary. Texas, notably, allows employers to opt out of workers’ comp — in which case a negligence claim against the employer is available.

Employers and their insurers regularly try to push injured workers into the lower-recovery category. Do not let them do it without counsel.

How we win Jones Act cases

Serious Jones Act cases resolve because the defense knows we will try them.

That is the entire game. Defense firms and insurance carriers — the small group of national maritime defense firms that handle most Jones Act litigation — keep private lists of which plaintiffs’ lawyers actually try cases at the partner level and which firms hand cases off to junior associates as soon as the marketing brings them in. The number tracks the list.

Brian and Vuk prepare every case for trial from day one. Vessel logs preserved within days. Critical witnesses interviewed before memories drift. Liability experts retained at the outset. Damages models built early. Pretrial motions briefed at federal-practice quality. The substantial majority of our cases resolve before a jury is picked — not because we begged, because the defense did the math.

The cases we take are the cases we are prepared to try.

What the company does after you are hurt

Every one of the points below is something the firm has published on directly. They are the moves injured mariners meet again and again.

1
Do not cash that company check. Do not trust anyone at your company if they tell you it’s “okay” to cash the check, and do not trust the insurance adjuster either. Once you got hurt, you became an instant liability to your company. Company lawyers and company insurance adjusters will try to trick you into taking a secret settlement that you didn’t even know was a settlement. You absolutely must have your own independent lawyer look it over first.
2
You cannot trust the claims adjuster. If you are hurt offshore, it’s likely that you are going to be picked up at the docks by a maritime claims adjuster. These are professional insurance adjusters hired by the offshore companies to handle your claim. They are trained on how to make you do things that will hurt your offshore injury claim. They tell you they are trying to “help” you. They are paid to ensure that your company pays you nothing, or as little as possible.
3
Financial pressure is a tactic, not an accident. How will you pay your bills if you’ve been hurt offshore and can no longer work? Maritime companies use that financial pressure against you. Specifically, they use it to try to force you to just quit and give up, or come back to work before you’re ready. It’s a tactic designed specifically to help them protect their money.
4
Company doctors and an early MMI. After a maritime injury, your offshore company must pay you maintenance until you reach “Maximum Medical Improvement,” or MMI. The company will commonly encourage you to see only company doctors, and company doctors put you at MMI sooner than you are, so the company can stop paying your maintenance. Go see an independent doctor and let them examine you, look at your records, and give you their opinion on whether you are at MMI yet.
5
The fear of being blackballed. Many mariners are afraid they will be fired and blackballed in the industry if they hire an attorney or bring a legal claim. You can assert your legal rights after a maritime injury without that fear. VB Attorneys stands behind our clients and protects them from being blacklisted by enforcing employment security in the settlement agreement.
6
Waiting costs you the case, and the career. One of the most frequent questions we receive from mariners who have suffered nerve damage is whether they’ll be able to work offshore again. The longer you wait, the less likely it is we can help you recover enough to go back to work — and the more time the company has to minimize or eliminate your claim.

How to choose a Jones Act lawyer

In our view, this is the most important question a seriously injured maritime worker has to answer — and the one most often answered badly. The choice of lawyer determines the outcome of the case far more than most clients understand.

The honest framework: in a serious Jones Act case, the only thing that ultimately matters is which lawyer will actually be working on your file when the work matters.

Volume firms vs. trial-first firms

Many of the largest plaintiffs’ firms in the country are marketing organizations first and law firms second. They aggregate thousands of cases through advertising and resolve most of them at the pre-litigation stage through a high-volume, paralegal-driven case-management system. The model works for the routine cases that make up the bulk of any volume practice — there is nothing wrong with the model and nothing wrong with the firms that run it.

Serious Jones Act cases are not the right kind of case for that model. Catastrophic injuries, career-ending injuries, wrongful deaths — these cases are decided in federal court by depositions, motion practice, expert designations, and the credibility of the lawyer who will actually walk into the courtroom. The defense bar in maritime cases is small and specialized. They know exactly which plaintiffs’ firms try cases at the partner level and which firms hand cases off as soon as the marketing brings them in.

Brian has written separately on how to evaluate a lawyer in a serious case, including the questions to ask in the consultation and the things AI-driven lawyer-recommendation tools cannot see: How to Choose a Maritime, Wrongful Death, or Serious Injury Lawyer, and Why AI Can’t Do It for You.

The single most important question, in our view, is the simplest one: which specific lawyer will be working on my file when it matters? At VB Attorneys, the answer is Brian or Vuk. A Board Certified partner runs every file from first call to final resolution.

Jones Act videos

These break down different aspects of the Jones Act and maritime law. Our YouTube channel carries a great deal more.

The Jones Act Explained: What Injured Seamen Are Owed — The Jones Act is the common name for 46 U.S.C. § 30104, a federal statute that provides a statutory remedy for a seaman injured in the course and scope of his employment, against his employer and possibly others. Brian explains the Jones Act and its intricacies.

How to Hire a Maritime Lawyer: What to Ask Before You Sign — When you’ve been hurt in an offshore or maritime accident, time is not on your side. More than likely you’re putting your energy into recovering and trying to pay your bills, and you may not be sure where to turn or who to trust.

How To Pay Your Bills After a Maritime Accident — Maritime companies use financial pressure against you — to force you to quit and give up, or to come back to work before you’re ready. It is a tactic designed specifically to protect their money.

Protect yourself from getting blackballed — Brian Beckcom explains the concept of being “blackballed” or “blacklisted” in the marine industry, and how to assert your legal rights after a maritime injury without that fear.

How long will you get Maintenance Payments after a Maritime Injury? — After a maritime injury your offshore company must pay maintenance until you reach Maximum Medical Improvement. Company doctors tend to reach MMI sooner than you do — which is when the payments stop.

Books and resources on the Jones Act

The Jones Act is a complicated piece of legislation designed to protect seamen. Below are resources to educate yourself on all aspects of it. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Blackballed

If you are reading this book, you have the same fear that many have in the maritime industry. You are probably afraid that you will get fired and blackballed in the industry if you hire an attorney or bring a legal claim. You may believe that you will be put on a “blacklist” or a “Do Not Hire” list. You are afraid for your future. You are afraid that you will never be able to find work in the maritime industry again. Brian answers all of your questions in this book.

Insider’s Guide to Winning Your Maritime Injury Case

The purpose of this book is to level the playing field between the offshore companies and the insurance companies. We want you to have as much information as possible so you can handle your case and make decisions intelligently. It will also arm you with information so you can make decisions about what to do about your case and your legal rights, without being misled, misinformed, or mistreated.

Protecting Your Future

All too often, the employer (or its insurance company) treats the injured worker badly. The company makes the injured worker visit only company doctors. Or the company forces the injured worker back to work before he is ready. Sometimes, the company will even fire the injured worker after he is hurt. In these types of situations, it really is a no-brainer for the injured maritime worker to seek immediate legal help from an experienced maritime attorney. In this book, Brian lays out the steps to win your maritime injury case.

How to Hire the Best Attorney For Your Maritime Injury Case

When you’ve been hurt in an offshore or maritime accident, time is not on your side. This book explains what to look for in a maritime lawyer, what questions to ask, and how to tell a firm that tries these cases from a firm that refers them out.

Common Questions

Jones Act questions, answered.

The Jones Act is a 1920 federal statute (46 U.S.C. § 30104) that gives American seamen the right to sue their employers for personal injuries caused by employer negligence. The statute is the most powerful worker-protection framework in the United States. Most injured seamen do not realize how much it is worth — until a maritime lawyer explains it to them.
A worker whose duties contribute to the function of a vessel in navigation and who has a substantial connection — generally about thirty percent of working time or more — to that vessel or to an identifiable fleet of vessels under common ownership or control. The Supreme Court’s test comes from Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis. In my experience, tug captains, deckhands, mates, engineers, levermen, and members of offshore drilling crews almost always qualify.
Yes — if you are a Jones Act seaman. Workers’ compensation prohibits suing the employer; the Jones Act expressly authorizes it. The case is filed in federal or state court, with the right to a jury, and damages are not capped.
Workers’ compensation is a fixed schedule of partial benefits with no right to a jury and no right to sue the employer in tort. The Jones Act is the opposite: a federal lawsuit, with a jury, and full tort damages including pain and suffering, mental anguish, and lost earning capacity. In a serious case, the difference can be measured in seven or eight figures.
It is the Jones Act causation standard. To prevail on a Jones Act negligence claim, a seaman need only show that the employer’s negligence played any part — however slight — in producing the injury. The standard is the most plaintiff-favorable in American tort law and has been settled doctrine since the Supreme Court’s decision in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad (1957).
Generally three years from the date of injury. Shorter contractual or jurisdictional deadlines can apply. Earlier is always better — vessel logs, surveillance footage, and crew witness statements vanish quickly.
No. A Jones Act case can be filed in state court under the savings to suitors clause, or in federal court under admiralty or diversity jurisdiction. The choice is strategic and is made at filing. Brian makes that call based on the case.
Tug captains, deckhands, and crew on inland tows on the Mississippi, the Ohio, the GIWW, and other inland routes are commonly Jones Act seamen. Dredge crews are commonly Jones Act seamen. Inland-water work does not change the analysis.
The Lauritzen-Rhoditis factors apply. American seamen on American-flag vessels generally have full Jones Act protection regardless of where the vessel is operating. Foreign-flag and foreign-employer cases require additional analysis. Call us for a confidential evaluation.
We work on a contingency fee. We are paid out of any recovery, and there is no recovery, no fee. The percentage is fixed in writing at the outset of the engagement.
Probably not. The substantial majority of our cases resolve before a jury is picked. But the resolution is at a number our client can live with because we prepare the case for trial from day one — and the defense knows it.
Three signals to verify, not just claim. First: Board Certification in Personal Injury Trial Law (Texas Board of Legal Specialization) — held by less than 1% of Texas lawyers. Second: subject-matter depth — where did the lawyer study admiralty law? Has the lawyer published in legal journals on maritime topics? Third: actual experience in the federal admiralty courts, against the major Jones Act defendants. Brian and Vuk meet every standard.
Your Legal Team

Board Certified. Partner-led. From day one.

When you hire VB Attorneys, you work directly with Brian or Vuk. Not a case manager. Not an intake coordinator. Experienced, Board Certified attorneys.

Brian Beckcom — Founding Partner, VB Attorneys

Brian Beckcom

Founding Partner

When Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama, Brian Beckcom represented nine of her crew against Maersk in one of the most complex maritime and Jones Act cases in history — a case that changed the safety and security of mariners — and won confidential recoveries for every one of them. He is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law, a distinction held by less than 1% of Texas lawyers.

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Vuk Vujasinovic — Founding Partner, VB Attorneys

Vuk Vujasinovic

Founding Partner

Vuk Vujasinovic is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law, a distinction held by less than 1% of Texas lawyers. Vuk’s signature win is a $44 million trial verdict in a wrongful death case.

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Talk to a Board Certified Maritime Trial Lawyer

Tell us what happened.

If you were hurt working on a vessel, a rig, a barge or a tug, the company already has its adjuster, its doctors and its lawyers working. Call our office directly for a free and confidential case review. You’ll get a straight answer about whether the Jones Act covers you and what your case is worth. Hablamos español.

(877) 724-7800

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