What This Page Is, and What It Is Not
If you are a refinery worker at a Houston Ship Channel plant, a Jones Act mariner out of Galveston or Sabine Pass, an offshore platform crew member in the Gulf of Mexico, or the family member of any of them — and you have been watching the news this week about the U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian-flagged vessels transiting the line, the Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and the mixed messaging from Washington about whether the Strait of Hormuz is open or closed — then this page is for you.
Let us be honest at the front: there is no case file open at this firm about the events described in the news. No American worker has been identified as injured by them. No American vessel has been seized. No Texas refinery has shut because of them. This page is not a demand letter. It is not a case pitch. It is not a solicitation based on a particular incident.
What this page is, is the legal education we would give a Texas Gulf Coast worker if they called our office tonight and said: I am reading this news and I want to know what the law says about me, my job, and my family if this thing escalates. It is the same education we would give the spouse of a Jones Act seaman who is being told their husband’s next hitch may take him through the Strait of Hormuz. It is the same education we would give the family of a refinery operator whose plant runs on Middle Eastern feedstock and who is wondering what happens to their paycheck — and their workplace safety — if the feedstock stops flowing.
At Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court, building cases for the people on the wrong end of large companies and complicated industries. Ralph’s background is rooted in Texas catastrophic injury and refinery litigation, including the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation. Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like the ones described below. We know the other side’s playbook because one of us lived it. Lupe serves families fully in Spanish — Hablamos Español — and we say so with pride, because in the Houston refinery and maritime communities, language access is not a courtesy. It is a duty.
This page teaches the legal landscape that would govern if the events in the news produced an American injury. It is a thought-leadership piece. It is not legal advice for your specific situation, because we do not yet know your specific situation. If, after reading it, you have a fact pattern that needs a lawyer’s eyes, the consultation is free, 24/7, and confidential, and there is no fee unless we win. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911.
What Is Happening, in Plain English, and Why a Texas Worker Should Care
The news this week, simplified: the United States has imposed a naval blockade on Iran in the Gulf of Oman, in connection with a memorandum of understanding being negotiated between Washington and Tehran, to be signed at the G7 summit. The blockade covers Iranian ports and vessels. Five Iranian-flagged ships — three crude oil tankers, one bulk carrier, and a container ship — departed the southern Iranian port of Chabahar and have crossed the U.S. blockade line in the past 24 hours. Another tanker called the Stream turned off its location broadcasting system as it approached the blockade zone from the east, having left Pakistan’s port of Karachi. On Wednesday, the crude tanker Herby and bulk carrier Aries were tracked heading for the blockade area from Pakistan. All five vessels are owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) or the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) — both U.S.-sanctioned entities. Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf that historically sees around 135 vessel transits per day carrying roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply, is in the single digits. The price of oil fell sharply when the deal was announced and has since stabilized — Brent crude trading around $78 per barrel, down from a brief spike on the war news, but still well above its pre-war level of about $70 a barrel in late February. President Trump has sent mixed messages — announcing an agreement, then saying the blockade would only lift when the deal is signed on Friday, while a senior Iranian diplomat said Tuesday the blockade was already lifted. Major shipping companies say they will not resume normal operations until details are clear and safety guarantees are in place.
Simultaneously, Israel has continued carrying out strikes in Lebanon despite the deal framework, targeting areas including Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Kfar Tebnit, and Ansariyeh in the Zahrani area, with Iran’s foreign minister saying the continuing Israeli presence in Lebanon would violate the agreement.
Here is why a Texas Gulf Coast worker should care about any of it.
The Houston Ship Channel is the largest petrochemical complex in the Western Hemisphere. The refineries that line it — the ones that make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and the feedstocks for plastics, fertilizers, and lubricants — run, in significant part, on crude oil and condensate imported through the Gulf of Mexico, much of it historically sourced from the same Middle East producers whose shipping is now disrupted. When the Strait of Hormuz is functionally closed, the feedstock supply tightens. When the feedstock supply tightens, refineries throttle back production, schedule maintenance, and in the worst case, shut down. When refineries shut down, workers are laid off, contractors are released, and the safety posture of restart operations becomes more dangerous than steady-state operations. The Texas energy workforce — including many of our clients and their families — lives downstream of decisions being made in Washington, Tehran, Jerusalem, and the Gulf of Oman, often in languages and boardrooms far from the gate at the refinery or the deck of the ship.
Two specific Texas workforce populations sit directly in the blast radius. Jones Act mariners — the licensed officers and unlicensed crewmembers who work on U.S.-flagged vessels, including the tug-and-barge operators, the offshore supply vessels, the chemical tankers that move feedstock between Gulf Coast ports, and the crew boats that service the platforms. Offshore platform workers — the drilling crews, production crews, caterers, and roustabouts who work on the thousands of fixed and floating platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, many of them in federal waters three to 200 miles off the Texas and Louisiana coast. A third group, Houston Ship Channel refinery and petrochemical workers, is affected indirectly through the supply chain: their plant’s feedstock availability, their shift schedules, and in some cases their employment status if a refinery idles. Offshore injuries, refinery accidents, and wrongful death in these environments are what our practice has been built on, and the legal frameworks that govern them do not disappear when the news cycle moves on.
The Federal Frameworks That Would Govern an American Injury
If an American maritime worker is injured or killed in connection with these events — whether by an act of war, a sanctions-enforcement incident, a refinery shutdown, or a downstream supply-chain disruption — the case would not be decided under state tort law alone. It would be decided under a layered stack of federal frameworks, each with its own statute of limitations, its own damages regime, and its own traps. We are going to teach you each one, plainly, because the people who will call our office at 2 a.m. need to know which framework applies to their fact pattern before they decide what to do.
The Jones Act — the Seaman’s Negligence Cause of Action
The Jones Act, codified at 46 U.S.C. § 30104, gives a “seaman” — defined through a long line of Supreme Court cases as someone who contributes to the function of a vessel and has a substantial connection to it in terms of duration and nature of work — a negligence cause of action against their employer for any injury that happens in the course of employment. The standard of care is very low: the employer owes a seaman the same duty of reasonable care that any negligence defendant owes, but courts apply it with a hand tilted toward the worker, in part because the maritime environment is unforgiving and in part because of the historical reluctance to treat seamen as second-class plaintiffs. A seaman can sue for past and future lost wages, past and future medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and — where the employer’s conduct rises to gross negligence or willful misconduct — punitive damages.
Critically, separately from the Jones Act negligence claim, a seaman is entitled to maintenance and cure from the employer regardless of fault, from the moment of injury or illness until maximum medical cure is reached. Maintenance is a daily living allowance, traditionally set at a level the parties negotiate, often tied to the seaman’s regular wages. Cure is the employer’s obligation to pay all reasonable medical expenses related to the injury or illness. Failure to pay maintenance and cure, or to keep paying it as long as medically required, exposes the employer to punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.
The deadline: a Jones Act claim must be filed in court within three years of the injury. The clock starts at the date of the incident, not the date of diagnosis, not the date the seaman leaves the ship, not the date they first speak to a lawyer. Three years.
The Death on the High Seas Act — Wrongful Death Beyond the Three-Mile Line
If a seaman or other person is killed on the high seas — waters more than three nautical miles from shore — the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. § 30302 et seq., applies. The DOHSA remedy is brought by the personal representative of the decedent for the benefit of a defined beneficiary class (spouse, parent, child, dependent relative). The damages are limited to pecuniary loss — the financial support the decedent would have provided, plus funeral expenses. Notably, DOHSA does not allow recovery for non-pecuniary damages like pain and suffering or loss of consortium in its own right, though a state-law survival action or wrongful-death claim can sometimes ride alongside it for related claims within state territorial waters. The Olympic line of cases and more recent circuit decisions continue to refine when a seaman killed on the high seas can also pursue a Jones Act wrongful-death claim (the answer turns on whether the death occurred within state territorial waters or beyond, and on the specific facts of the voyage).
The deadline: DOHSA actions must be filed within three years of the death. That deadline is a hard federal bar; missing it permanently eliminates the claim, regardless of how strong the facts are.
The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act — the Landward Maritime Worker
The Jones Act covers seamen. The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., covers a different class of worker: longshoremen, harbor workers, ship repairers, shipbuilders, and certain other maritime workers who work on the landward side of a vessel. A platform worker injured in the course of construction, repair, or decommissioning of a fixed platform may fall under the LHWCA rather than the Jones Act, depending on the situs and the nature of the work.
LHWCA is a workers’ compensation scheme. The worker gives up the right to sue the employer in tort in exchange for a no-fault schedule of benefits. The schedule is medically driven: a specific injury — the loss of a leg at the knee, for example — has a specific number of weeks of compensation attached to it. Death benefits are payable to the spouse and dependents. The system is administered through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP).
The deadlines, and they are tight: the injured worker must give written notice of the injury to the employer within thirty (30) days of becoming aware of the injury. The claim for compensation must be filed within one (1) year of the injury or of the last payment of compensation, whichever is later. For death benefits, the dependent has one year from the date of death to file. These are short, hard deadlines. The OWCP can grant extensions in narrow circumstances, but the default assumption is that the worker knew, or should have known, and the clock runs from there.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — the Offshore Platform Worker
Platform workers on the Outer Continental Shelf — federal waters generally three to 200 miles offshore — sit in a unique jurisdictional zone. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq., makes the laws of the adjacent state applicable to the OCS as surrogate federal law. For a platform off the Texas coast, that means Texas law applies to the platform worker in many contexts — including, importantly, Texas workers’ compensation for state-law claims. The result is a layered system: OCSLA borrows the state compensation law, but federal law (including DOHSA) continues to apply to the waters and to certain claims. The exact configuration depends on whether the injury occurred on a fixed platform, a floating platform, a vessel underway, or in the water.
UNCLOS, the Law of the Sea, and the Status of the Blockade
The U.S. naval blockade itself is governed by the international law of the sea, principally the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — which the United States has not ratified but which the Navy follows as customary international law — and the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea. A lawful blockade under these frameworks must be declared, notified, effective, and not indiscriminate. The mixed messaging this week from Washington — announcing the deal, announcing the lifting of the blockade, then saying it would only lift on signing day, with a senior Iranian diplomat saying it was already lifted — is not just a public-relations problem for shippers. It is a question of whether the blockade is, in fact, an operative legal regime, and that question has consequences for everyone transiting the area, including any U.S.-flagged vessel that may be ordered into or near the area in the course of its commercial operations.
OFAC, IRISL, NITC, and the Sanctions Trap
OFAC — the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the U.S. Treasury — administers sanctions against Iran primarily under 31 CFR Part 560 (the Iranian Transactions Regulations) and a series of executive orders, including EO 13846 and EO 13902. IRISL and NITC, the two Iranian state-linked shipping entities named in the news, are on OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. U.S. persons — meaning U.S. citizens, U.S. residents, U.S.-domiciled companies, and their foreign branches — are broadly prohibited from transacting with SDN entities, with narrow exceptions that require specific licenses. The criminal and civil penalties for non-compliance are severe, including felony exposure for individuals.
The point for our reader: if you are a Texas maritime worker, a refinery employee, or a shipping logistics professional and your employer asks you to facilitate a transaction involving IRISL, NITC, or any vessel flagged as owned by them — even an apparently innocent one like filing paperwork, providing coordinates, or signing off on a port call — that transaction is not a “gray area.” It is a sanctions violation, and the consequences are not hypothetical. We do not represent companies on OFAC compliance defense — that is a different practice — but we will say plainly that a worker being directed to handle SDN-related transactions should not do it and should speak to counsel immediately.
Three Hypotheticals: What the Law Would Actually Do for a Texas Worker
What follows is clearly framed as hypothetical. We are not representing any of the workers in these scenarios. We are not asserting any of these events have occurred. We are teaching the law by walking it through the kind of fact pattern the news this week is most likely to produce if it produces one.
Hypothetical 1: The Jones Act Mariner Ordered Through a War-Risk Zone
A tug-and-barge operator in Galveston, working under a U.S.-flag certificate, is told by the company to take a deck-loaded cargo of pipe from a Gulf Coast port to a Persian Gulf delivery point, with a transit through the Strait of Hormuz during the period the blockade is in disputed status. The master raises concerns about war-risk and is told to proceed. During the transit, the vessel is involved in an incident that results in serious injury to a crewmember.
The legal analysis: the seaman has a Jones Act claim against the employer for negligence, including the specific theory that ordering a vessel into a known war-risk zone without adequate insurance, security, or contractual indemnification is itself a breach of the duty of reasonable care. The damages include past and future lost wages, medical, pain and suffering, mental anguish, and — if the conduct is found to be willful or wanton — punitive damages. The employer is also on the hook for maintenance and cure from day one, regardless of fault. The case would be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Houston Division), where our firm is admitted and where Ralph has practiced for 27+ years. The deadline is three years from the date of the incident, but the evidence preservation (AIS logs, dispatch orders, master’s correspondence, the company’s war-risk insurance policy) starts the day of the incident.
The employer’s playbook, in this scenario, is going to look exactly like the playbook Lupe watched from the inside at the defense firm. A friendly call within days of the incident, asking the seaman to “just walk us through what happened” — on a recording. A quick check, with a release printed on the back, arriving before the seaman’s MRI results. A company-chosen doctor for the second opinion. A defense attorney assigned to the file before the seaman has had time to call his own lawyer. The counter to each of those plays is the same: do not give a recorded statement without counsel, do not cash the check without reading the back, do not let the company doctor be your only doctor, and pick up the phone to a plaintiffs’-side maritime lawyer before you pick up the phone to the company’s adjuster.
Hypothetical 2: The Refinery Worker Laid Off After a Feedstock Disruption, Then Injured on a Restart
A process operator at a Houston Ship Channel refinery is told in early summer that feedstock supply has tightened, that the plant is idling a unit, and that he is being laid off for an indefinite period. He collects unemployment, then is called back. During the restart, an incident occurs in the unit — a process upset, an equipment failure, a release — that injures him.
The legal analysis: the injury itself is a refinery accident and falls under Texas refinery and industrial law, with potential state-law negligence claims against the operator and equipment vendors, and potential claims under Texas workers’ compensation (which is the exclusive remedy against the employer but not against third parties). Refinery restart operations are well-documented in the Process Safety Management (PSM) literature as higher-risk than steady-state operations. Federal OSHA’s PSM standard at 29 CFR 1910.119 imposes specific obligations on operators preparing equipment for startup, and a deviation from those obligations is discoverable in a subsequent lawsuit. The deadline is two years from the date of the injury under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. The evidence is the plant’s process safety information, mechanical integrity records, the management of change (MOC) documentation, the operator’s pre-startup safety review, and the operator’s own incident report. PSM records are required to be retained for the life of the process for some categories and five years for others; preserving them is the first job after any incident.
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence rule: a worker who is more than 50% at fault cannot recover. That is a real constraint, and it is the reason the employer’s first play will be to manufacture a percentage of comparative fault — “you skipped a step,” “you didn’t follow the procedure,” “the MOC had the wrong signoff.” The counter is the same as in any refinery case: the system failed, not the operator; PSM is a system of overlapping defenses precisely because human error is foreseeable; and a worker with 30 years on the same unit is not “at fault” for an engineering decision made above his pay grade.
Hypothetical 3: The Offshore Platform Worker Evacuated in a Hurry, Injured in the Process
An offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico receives an order to evacuate due to a tropical weather system or a security advisory tied to Middle East tensions that the operator interprets broadly. The evacuation is rushed, the lifeboat drill is compressed, and a worker is injured during the descent.
The legal analysis: the worker may be a Jones Act seaman (if his primary duties are vessel-related) or an LHWCA-covered worker (if his duties are platform-construction or platform-repair related) or an OCSLA-surrogate-Texas-law worker (if the platform is producing). Each framework has a different remedies regime, a different deadline, and a different procedural posture. The tortola line of cases and the Chandris line of cases have, over decades, drawn the line between seaman status and platform-worker status in ways that turn on very specific facts about the worker’s day-to-day duties. The deadline for a Jones Act claim is three years, for LHWCA it is thirty days’ notice and one year to file, for a Texas state-law claim it is two years. Missing any of those deadlines permanently kills the case.
The employer’s playbook, in an evacuation case, often includes a version of the “voluntary assumption of risk” argument: you knew this was the job, you signed up for the platform, the drill is part of the work. The counter: the assumption of risk doctrine in maritime law has been narrowed dramatically over the last fifty years, and the employer has an affirmative duty to provide a reasonably safe place to work, including reasonably safe evacuation procedures. A compressed lifeboat drill that produces injury is not “the job.” It is a deviation from the job, and the deviation is the employer’s choice.
The Evidence That Has to Survive, and How Fast It Dies
Evidence preservation is the first job after any catastrophic incident. In the maritime and refinery world, the evidence clocks are unforgiving, and the events described in the news this week would create several distinct evidence populations — each with its own clock — that would need to be frozen fast.
AIS / MarineTraffic vessel tracking data. AIS is the Automatic Identification System that ships use to broadcast their position, course, speed, and identity. The Herby, the Aries, the Stream, and the other named vessels are broadcasting AIS data continuously, and that data is being captured by commercial aggregators like MarineTraffic, VesselFinder, and others. But historical AIS data is not retained forever. MarineTraffic’s commercial historical data license is a paid product, and the company is under no obligation to retain a particular vessel’s track indefinitely. If your case turns on a vessel’s track, course, speed, or location at a particular time, that data must be preserved by written preservation request to the aggregator within days of the incident, and by subpoena thereafter. If the incident is hypothetical and not yet realized, the news-cycle data and the open-source tracking records being reported on this week are still being captured. Bookmark them now.
U.S. Navy / Fifth Fleet operational records and watch logs. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, is the Navy component that would be enforcing the blockade. The watch logs, communications with vessels, and operational records documenting the blockade line, the order to stop or pass a particular vessel, and the rules of engagement are typically classified. The standard method for a civil plaintiff to obtain them is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, supplemented by a motion for in camera review. FOIA requests can take months, sometimes years, to produce responsive records, and the records produced are sometimes heavily redacted. The takeaway: the moment you have a fact pattern that suggests Navy involvement, the FOIA request goes out immediately, because the federal court has no power to order the Navy to disclose classified material that the executive branch certifies would harm national security.
OFAC SDN list designations and enforcement records. OFAC’s designation of IRISL, NITC, and the named vessels is a matter of public record and is captured on OFAC’s website. Date-stamp and download the relevant entries now, while they reflect the status as of the events in the news. If sanctions are modified or lifted in the coming days, the current designation is the legally relevant one for the period in question.
G7 statements, White House transcripts, and public communications. The mixed messaging this week — the President’s Truth Social post on Sunday, his later statement that the blockade would only lift on signing day, the senior Iranian diplomat’s statement that the blockade was already lifted, the multilateral naval command’s Monday statement that the blockade was still in place — is captured in the permanent public record. White House transcripts, State Department briefings, G7 communiques, and verifiable social-media posts are the documented record of the legal status of the blockade at any given moment. They are public, they are free, and they are the spine of any later claim that a commercial shipper (or a mariner) reasonably relied on a particular announcement of the blockade’s status.
Refinery process safety records (OSHA PSM). A refinery incident of any severity triggers OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard at 29 CFR 1910.119. Mechanical integrity records, process hazard analyses, management-of-change documentation, pre-startup safety reviews, operating procedures, and training records are required to be retained for specific periods — some for the life of the process, others for five years. The operator is required to make these available to OSHA investigators and, in litigation, they are producible subject to work-product doctrine analysis. The first preservation letter to a refinery operator should demand the entire PSM file for the affected unit, dated and time-stamped, and should flag that the operator has an affirmative duty under the standard to retain these records.
War-risk insurance policies and notices. War-risk insurance is typically written in the London market (Lloyd’s of London, the International Underwriting Association, the P&I Clubs) and is a separate coverage from the vessel’s standard hull and P&I policies. War-risk policies often contain strict notice provisions, exclusions for named hostile states, and requirements for “warranted safe port” declarations. If your husband or father is a seaman on a vessel ordered into the area, the war-risk policy in force on the date of the incident is the document that determines whether the incident is covered at all. Preservation of the policy, the underwriting file, the notice letters, and the claim correspondence is essential. These documents are typically not public and are obtained through discovery in any subsequent litigation.
The Playbook: What an Employer and an Insurer Will Do, and What You Do Back
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like the ones described in this page. We name the playbook here not because we have inside information on any specific case, but because the playbook is the playbook. It does not change with the news cycle.
Play 1: The recorded statement. Within days of an incident, a friendly claims representative from the employer’s insurance carrier will call the injured worker — or the bereaved spouse — and ask them to “just walk us through what happened,” on a recorded line. The recorded statement is not a courtesy. It is evidence-gathering, designed to lock in the worker’s account before counsel is involved, to elicit “I’m feeling okay” or “I don’t know what happened” or “I was a little distracted” statements that can be quoted back to a jury months later. The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement without counsel. The carrier will say you have to. You do not. If the carrier persists, that is its own evidence of bad-faith claims handling, and it is admissible in a subsequent case under Texas insurance law and the parallel federal doctrines.
Play 2: The quick check. Within the first two to four weeks, often before the medical picture is clear, a check arrives. The check has a release printed on the back. Cashing the check ends the case, forever, regardless of what the case turns out to be worth. A refinery worker with a back injury is not, in week three, in a position to know whether the injury is a soft-tissue strain that resolves in six months or a disc herniation that requires surgery and ends a career. The check is engineered to land before that question is answered. The counter is also simple: do not cash the check. Take it to a lawyer. The lawyer will tell you whether the case is worth more than the check.
Play 3: The company doctor. The employer’s workers’ comp carrier will assign a doctor. The doctor is paid by the carrier. The doctor’s reports are part of the claims file. In a Jones Act or general maritime case, the worker has the right to select his or her own treating physician once a claim is properly preserved, and the company doctor’s role is limited. In a Texas state-law refinery case, the worker can choose his own doctor after the 28-day statutory period if the employer does not have a workers’ comp network. The counter: keep all medical appointments, follow all medical advice, document all symptoms, and ask for copies of every report. If the company doctor is releasing you to full duty and you are not released to full duty, say so in writing to your own attorney.
Play 4: The social-media surveillance. Investigators for the carrier will pull the injured worker’s public social media within days of the incident. A photo of the worker at a family birthday, lifting a child, or even standing in a kitchen will be used to argue the worker is not as injured as claimed. The counter is not to delete the social media — deletion is spoliation and is its own problem — but to set the accounts to private, stop posting for the duration of the case, and not discuss the case online.
Play 5: The classification play. In a maritime case, the employer will often argue that the worker is not a “seaman” under the Jones Act, or that the injury did not occur “in the course of employment,” or that the worker is covered by LHWCA to the exclusion of the Jones Act. Each of these arguments reduces the worker’s available remedies. The counter: the worker should not be arguing these questions at the kitchen table. The classification analysis is a legal question for a maritime attorney, and the answer often turns on very specific facts about the worker’s day-to-day duties that only a careful interview with counsel will surface.
Statute of Limitations and the Deadlines You Cannot Afford to Miss
The deadlines are short, they are different for each framework, and they are unforgiving. We list them here plainly because the cost of missing one is the case, period.
Jones Act (46 U.S.C. § 30104): three years from the date of injury. The clock starts at the date of the incident, not the date of diagnosis, not the date the seaman is discharged from the ship. Three years.
Death on the High Seas Act (46 U.S.C. § 30302): three years from the date of death. This is a hard federal bar; missing it permanently kills the claim, regardless of the strength of the facts.
Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (33 U.S.C. § 913): thirty days’ written notice to the employer, one year to file the claim for compensation. Notice is the shorter and more dangerous deadline. The OWCP can grant extensions in narrow circumstances, but the default is that the worker knew, or should have known, and the clock ran from there.
Texas personal injury and wrongful death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003): two years from the date of injury or death. Texas is a two-year SOL state for personal injury. The case must be on file within two years, or it is gone.
Texas workers’ compensation: eight days’ reporting to the employer (Tex. Lab. Code § 409.001) for general injuries, with the compensability clock running from there. The Texas Workers’ Compensation Act is the exclusive remedy against a subscribing employer in most cases, and the deadlines for reporting and filing are short.
The general rule across all of these is: do not wait. The strongest case is the one where the preservation letter goes out in the first week, the FOIA request goes out the same week, the medical documentation is preserved in real time, and counsel is involved before the recorded statement. The case that arrives at our office in month 23 is half the case it would have been in week 1.
46 U.S.C. § 30104: “A seaman injured in the course of employment or, if the seaman dies from the injury, the personal representative of the seaman may elect to bring an action against the employer for damages. Such an action may be brought within three years after the cause of action arises.”
Frequently Asked Questions
If the Strait of Hormuz reopens, does my refinery job become safe again?
The supply question and the safety question are different. Refinery safety is governed by OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard and by the operator’s own engineering and procedural decisions. A return to normal feedstock supply does not, by itself, reduce the underlying risk profile of a unit that has been running under stress, or restart cycles, or deferred maintenance. The legal question if you are injured is not whether the Hormuz situation was a factor; it is whether the operator’s conduct leading up to the injury met the standard of care. That is a fact-specific question we would have to evaluate with the medical records, the PSM file, and the timeline.
I am a Jones Act mariner. Can my employer fire me for refusing an order to transit a war-risk zone?
Retaliation against a seaman for raising a safety concern is, in many circumstances, actionable. The Seaman’s Protection Act (46 U.S.C. § 2114) prohibits retaliation against seafarers for reporting, in good faith, violations of safety regulations. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act and the OSHA whistleblower framework provide parallel protections in many circumstances. The retaliation claim is separate from any Jones Act claim for the underlying injury, and the deadlines are short — typically 180 days for OSHA whistleblower complaints. The counter: document the refusal in writing, keep copies of the dispatch orders, and call counsel before the situation escalates.
What is war-risk insurance, and why does it matter to me?
War-risk insurance is a specialized marine insurance coverage that pays when a loss is caused by hostile acts — war, terrorism, piracy, certain kinds of civil unrest. It is typically written separately from the vessel’s standard hull and P&I (protection and indemnity) policies, often through a London market syndicate. War-risk policies often contain exclusions for named hostile states or waters, strict notice provisions, and requirements for “warranted safe port” declarations. If your husband or father is on a vessel ordered into the area, the war-risk policy in force at the time of the incident is the document that determines whether the incident is covered. The carrier will read it narrowly. We will read it against the carrier.
I am a refinery worker in Texas. If my plant idles because of a feedstock disruption, am I eligible for unemployment?
Texas Workforce Commission administers unemployment benefits in Texas. Eligibility turns on the specific reason for the separation and on the worker’s earnings history. A temporary layoff due to a feedstock shortage is, in many circumstances, treated as a layoff rather than a discharge, which preserves unemployment eligibility. That is an administrative question, not a litigation question, and it is one to address with TWC directly. The legal question of whether the operator’s decision to idle the unit was prudent, contractually required, or in breach of any supply or off-take agreement is a different question, and is a question for an attorney with access to the contracts.
What happens if I lose my job in a refinery shutdown and I cannot find comparable work?
That is a layoff-related economic injury claim, not a personal injury claim, and it is outside the scope of this page. It is a question for an employment attorney, not a plaintiffs’-side personal injury firm. We are not the right firm for a pure economic-loss layoff case, and we will say so directly. If a refinery worker is injured during the shutdown, during the layoff, or during the restart, that is a personal injury case and we are the right firm. If the case is purely economic loss without a physical injury, we will tell you the firm that is right for that question.
What is OFAC, and why should I care about it as a Texas worker?
OFAC is the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury that administers and enforces economic sanctions. The Iranian Transactions Regulations, 31 CFR Part 560, broadly prohibit U.S. persons from transacting with the Government of Iran and with designated entities including IRISL and NITC. A Texas worker or company that is directed to facilitate a transaction involving an SDN entity is, in most circumstances, committing a sanctions violation, and the consequences can include civil penalties, criminal penalties, and asset freezes. If you are being directed to handle paperwork, sign off on shipments, or otherwise facilitate any transaction with IRISL, NITC, or any vessel owned by them, do not do it, and contact counsel immediately. We do not handle OFAC compliance defense as a practice, but we will not let a Texas worker walk into a sanctions violation without saying so.
What about the ships that turned off their AIS systems — does that affect anything?
AIS is a safety-of-navigation system. Turning off AIS in a contested waterway is, in the abstract, a violation of international navigation safety rules, and it can support inferences about intent in subsequent litigation. In the context of a maritime injury case, the moment a vessel goes dark is a fact a skilled maritime attorney can build from — combined with the open-source tracking data, the Navy’s operational records (if obtainable), and the vessel’s ownership and sanction status. The same preservation principles apply: capture the public data now, before it is overwritten or withdrawn.
My husband is a Jones Act mariner. How do I know if he qualifies for Jones Act coverage?
The Supreme Court set the two-part test in Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 1 (1995): the worker must (1) contribute to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission, and (2) have a substantial connection to the vessel in terms of duration and nature of work. The lower courts have built out a multi-factor test from there. It is not a self-executing label. A worker who spends 30% of his time on a vessel and 70% on a platform may or may not qualify, depending on the specific facts. The classification is a question for a maritime attorney to evaluate with the worker’s actual employment records, vessel logs, and job duties.
What if I am a Texas refinery worker who is also a part-time commercial fisherman in the Gulf?
That is a fact pattern where Jones Act seaman status may attach to the fishing work, while Texas state workers’ comp covers the refinery work. The two regimes coexist. If the injury happens on the boat, the Jones Act is the relevant framework. If the injury happens at the refinery, Texas state law is the relevant framework. The same person can have two different legal regimes governing two different work activities, and an experienced maritime attorney will evaluate the worker’s full employment picture rather than the most recent paycheck.
What about punitive damages — can I recover those in a maritime case?
Yes, in both Jones Act and general maritime law. Punitive damages are available where the employer’s conduct rises to gross negligence, willful misconduct, or wanton disregard. A refinery operator who ignored a known safety hazard, or a vessel operator who ordered a seaman into a known war-risk zone without insurance or security, is the kind of conduct that supports punitive exposure. The standard is high, but the conduct in many catastrophic-injury cases meets it. Punitive damages are awarded to punish the defendant and to deter similar conduct in the future, not to compensate the plaintiff.
What is the firm’s experience with maritime and refinery cases?
Ralph Manginello has 27+ years of trial experience, including federal-court practice. The firm has been involved in the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation, a case that established much of the modern Texas refinery-accident precedent, and has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families across a range of catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death matters. Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who now fights for plaintiffs after years inside a national defense firm, and he serves families fully in Spanish. Ralph’s full background and Lupe’s full background are on the firm site. We will say directly that past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We are not the right firm for every case, and we will tell you when we are not.
How do I get in touch, and what does the first conversation cost?
The consultation is free, 24/7, and confidential. There is no fee unless we win. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. You can also reach us through the firm’s contact page. We will listen to your fact pattern, tell you honestly whether we are the right firm for it, and explain the framework that would govern. If we are not the right firm, we will tell you who is. If you are a Spanish speaker, ask for Lupe. We are ready when you are.
How We Help, and How We Do Not
Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — is a Texas trial firm. We represent injured workers and the families of workers killed in industrial and maritime settings. Our practice areas most directly relevant to the fact patterns described on this page are offshore and maritime injury, refinery and industrial accidents, wrongful death, and workplace injury in the broader Texas industrial economy. The full practice area overview is on the firm site, as is our educational video on offshore accidents and our video on when to call a lawyer after a refinery accident.
The firm’s record is real and verifiable. Ralph Manginello has been admitted to the State Bar of Texas since 1998, has been admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and has tried cases in Texas state and federal courts for 27+ years. The firm has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families across its practice. The firm has been involved in the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation, one of the defining industrial cases in modern Texas practice. Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who now represents plaintiffs, and he is fully bilingual in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
We will say plainly what we are not. We are not a mass-tort firm running advertising on geopolitical news. We are not an OFAC compliance defense practice. We are not a London market insurance arbitration practice. We are not the right firm for every case. If your fact pattern does not fit our practice — if it is a pure layoff-related economic loss, if it is an OFAC compliance question, if it is a war-risk insurance arbitration against a London market syndicate, if it is a class action against a foreign sovereign — we will tell you so directly, and we will point you to the firm that is right. We would rather lose a case to the right firm than win a case we should not have taken.
The Closing Read: What You Should Do Tonight
If you are a Texas Gulf Coast worker or the family of one, and you are watching the news this week and wondering what it means for you, here is the answer we would give at 2 a.m. if you called the office.
First, do your job safely. The Hormuz situation has not changed OSHA’s PSM standard, has not changed the Jones Act, has not changed your employer’s duty of reasonable care. Go to work, follow the procedures, document the deviations, and report the unsafe conditions through whatever internal channel the operator maintains. Document in real time. If something is wrong, write it down before the next shift change erases it.
Second, do not transact with sanctioned entities. If your employer asks you to facilitate any paperwork, shipment, or financial transaction involving IRISL, NITC, or any vessel flagged as theirs, that is a sanctions violation, and the consequences are not hypothetical. Refuse, document the refusal, and contact counsel.
Third, if you or someone in your family is injured in any of the fact patterns described on this page — Jones Act, refinery, offshore, supply-chain — get medical care first, then call a lawyer. The call is free, it is confidential, and there is no fee unless we win. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. We are ready when you are.
The news cycle will move on. The legal frameworks will not. The deadlines will not. The federal court will not. The adjuster’s playbook will not. The only question, when the news becomes an injury, is whether the family on the wrong end of it called a lawyer in time. We are that lawyer, for the people of the Texas Gulf Coast. The call is free, the conversation is honest, and we serve families in English and in Spanish.
This page is legal information, not legal advice for a specific case. The scenarios described are clearly framed as hypothetical and are intended to teach the legal frameworks that would govern a fact pattern if one arose. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page. If you have a specific fact pattern, contact a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The firm does not represent clients in OFAC compliance defense, war-risk insurance arbitration, or class actions against foreign sovereigns, and will refer such matters to qualified counsel. The information on this page reflects federal law, Texas state law, and the published guidance of OFAC and the U.S. Navy as of the date of publication, and may not reflect later developments.