If you work in a maritime environment including offshore or on a vessel, you may fall under a federal statute known as the Jones Act. Under the Jones Act you are allowed to file a tort-like lawsuit against your employer if you ever suffer a work-related injury. The Jones Act allows an injured seaman to collect several different types of damages.

Before the specific types of damages are discussed, it is important to first understand two important points about the Jones Act. The Jones Act is a fault-based statute which means that an injured employee must prove that his employer was at fault, to some degree, before the employee can collect any type of damages. If the Jones Act employer did not cause or contribute in any way to the employee’s injury, then the Jones Act does not allow the injured seaman to recover any money from his employer. Also, the Jones Act is separate from general maritime law of maintenance and cure. An injured seaman has rights under general maritime law to collect “maintenance and cure” separate and apart from any suit which he may pursue under the Jones Act for negligence on the part of his employer.

Pain and suffering is the first category of damages which may be collected by an injured seaman against his employer. There is no scale or chart which indicates the value of types of injuries. Instead, pain and suffering awards are generally determined by the trier of fact based upon the type of injury and the amount of suffering as may be determined by the trier of fact whether it is a judge or a jury. However, it is important to remember that pain and suffering awards are usually reviewed by the courts of appeal and the award can be lowered or reversed entirely if the court of appeal believes the award is too excessive.

The second category of damages which an injured seaman can collect under the Jones Act is for lost wages. This includes both past lost wages from the time of his injury through his trial date as well as future lost wages which he may incur in the future after his trial date. generally this is a comparison of the amount the employee was earning at the time of his injury compared to the amount that he would be limited to earning in the future due to his injury. In almost all cases future lost wages must be calculated by an expert economist who can reduce the amount to “present day value” since the injured employee will be receiving the amount at the time of trial for damages that he will not incur until the future.

An injured employee can also collect his past and future medical expenses under the Jones Act. In order to collect any type of medical expenses under the Jones Act the employee must simply prove that the medical expenses are “reasonable and necessary” and that “more likely than not” the employee has or will incur such expenses. Usually medical expenses must be proven through expert medical testimony. Courts will not allow an injured seaman to collect medical expenses which are merely speculative and are not based upon medical testimony.

The last category of damages allowed under the Jones Act relate to loss of fringe benefits and other employment-related benefits. If the injured seaman will lose fringe benefits including the value of his 401(k), health benefits, disability benefits or other fringe benefits which were previously provided by his Jones Act employer, then the Jones Act allows the injured seaman to seek money for such damages. The Jones Act even allows the injured seaman to collect money for the value of the meals which he enjoyed while he was working offshore!

Before an injured seaman can even begin to estimate the value of his claim against his employer, he must first understand the types of damages which he can collect under the Jones Act. The Jones Act is a very special statute and usually it provides for a much higher recovery to the injured seaman than a typical workers’ compensation statue would. Seamen generally work in dangerous environments and the Jones Act tries to compensate them if they ever suffer work-related injuries due to their employer’s fault.

Damages under the Jones Act can be complicated and hard to understand. For information about the Jones Act and maritime law, visit JonesActLaw.com.