Offshore Rig Injury & Death: Your Rights Under Federal Maritime Law
If someone you love was hurt or killed on an offshore rig, you are standing at a legal crossroads most people never know exists — and the road you pick in the first days will determine whether your family is taken care of or left fighting an insurance company alone for years. Federal maritime law, not the ordinary injury law of your state, governs what happens on the water and on the platforms beyond it. That law is older, different, and in some ways more powerful than anything a land-based case can offer. But it is also full of traps: deadlines that expire fast, evidence that vanishes on the rig, and an insurance machine that starts building its defense file the same day your family is still in shock.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle offshore injury and accident cases from our Houston offices, in the heart of the Gulf Coast offshore industry. Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. Now he sits on your side of the table. If you are reading this at 2 a.m. trying to understand what happened to your family, here is what the law actually says, what the company is already doing, and what to do next.
The Three-Door Problem: Which Law Applies to Your Offshore Case
The single most important fact in any offshore injury or death case is which legal box the injured worker falls into — because the boxes are mutually exclusive, and picking the wrong one forfeits the case. Federal maritime law runs on three separate doors:
Door 1 — The Jones Act (seaman): If the worker was a crew member of a vessel — a supply boat, a drillship, a tug, a lay-barge, or in some cases a jack-up rig or semi-submersible that qualifies as a “vessel” — the Jones Act gives them the right to sue their employer in front of a jury. This is the most powerful door, and it borrows the railroad-worker rulebook, which means the employer can be on the hook even if the worker’s own carelessness played a part.
Door 2 — The LHWCA (longshore/harbor worker): If the worker was not crew but was loading, unloading, repairing, or building on the waterfront or on a vessel, they fall under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act — a no-fault compensation system from the employer, plus a separate negligence suit against the vessel if the vessel’s owner was careless.
Door 3 — DOHSA (death beyond three miles): If the death occurred on the high seas, more than three nautical miles from shore, the Death on the High Seas Act takes over and narrows what the family can recover — stripping away grief, loss of companionship, and other human losses, leaving only financial damages.
“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 a civil action at law, with the right of trial by jury, against the employer. Laws of the United States regulating recovery for personal injury to, or death of, a railway employee apply to an action under this section.”
— 46 U.S.C. § 30104 (the Jones Act)
That last sentence is the load-bearing one. By importing the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) framework, the Jones Act gives a seaman the featherweight causation standard — the employer is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury. Comparative fault reduces but never bars recovery. The old “he knew the job was dangerous” defense is abolished. Any waiver or company device designed to let the employer off the hook is void. These are the most worker-friendly rules in American injury law, and they exist because Congress decided a century ago that the sea is dangerous enough that the companies who profit from it should bear the risk.
Who Is a “Seaman” on an Offshore Rig?
This is the gatekeeper question, and the defense fights it harder than any other. The Supreme Court’s test from Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis (1995) has two parts: (1) the worker’s duties must contribute to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of its mission, and (2) the worker must have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or an identifiable fleet) that is substantial in terms of both duration and nature. The Court endorsed a rule of thumb: a worker who spends less than about 30% of their time in the service of a vessel in navigation ordinarily is not a seaman.
Here is why this matters on an offshore rig. The question of whether the platform itself is a “vessel” can decide the entire case. The Supreme Court held in Stewart v. Dutra Construction Co. (2005) that a “vessel” under 1 U.S.C. § 3 is “any watercraft practically capable of maritime transportation” — used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water. The Court ruled that even a dredge with limited self-propulsion was a vessel because it had not been permanently rendered incapable of maritime transport.
For offshore workers, the implications are enormous:
A drillship is obviously a vessel — it is a ship that drills. A semi-submersible that moves from location to location under its own power or by tow may be a vessel. A jack-up rig that is towed to location and raised on its legs is in a gray zone — it can be a vessel when in transit and arguably not a vessel when jacked up and fixed to the seabed. A fixed platform bolted to the ocean floor is generally not a vessel. Each of these distinctions changes who your loved one was in the eyes of the law, and the defense will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to push the worker out of “seaman” status and into the LHWCA — where there is no jury, no featherweight causation, and no pain-and-suffering recovery.
Unseaworthiness: The Owner’s Absolute Warranty
Beyond the Jones Act negligence claim, a seaman has a second, independent weapon — the general maritime law warranty of unseaworthiness. The vessel owner owes the crew an absolute, non-delegable warranty that the vessel and its appurtenances are reasonably fit for their intended use. Liability is without fault — the owner is liable even if it did everything carefully, if any part of the vessel, its gear, its crew, or its work methods was not reasonably safe.
Model sentence: A frayed cable, a missing guard, a crew too small for the work, a slippery deck — any of these can make a vessel unseaworthy. The owner cannot escape by saying it hired a contractor or exercised care. The warranty is absolute.
This is powerful because it gives the seaman two shots, not one. Even if you cannot prove the company was negligent, you can win by proving the vessel itself was not reasonably safe. But there is a ceiling: the Supreme Court held in The Dutra Group v. Batterton (2019) that a plaintiff may not recover punitive damages on a claim of unseaworthiness. Unseaworthiness is compensatory damages only — real money, but no punishment.
Maintenance and Cure: What You’re Owed Right Now
This is the fastest cash in any maritime case, and the company hopes you never learn about it. From the moment a seaman is injured or falls ill in the service of the vessel, the employer owes two things regardless of fault: maintenance — a daily living allowance covering food and lodging ashore — and cure — all medical expenses — until the seaman reaches maximum medical improvement (MMI). Even the seaman’s own negligence does not defeat this right.
And here is the teeth: the Supreme Court held in Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend (2009) that a seaman may recover punitive damages for the employer’s willful and wanton failure to pay maintenance and cure. So if the company stonewalls your medical bills or daily living money out of bad faith, it can be made to pay punishing damages on top. The day a crew member is hurt, these obligations start running — and the first thing we do when we take an offshore case is demand that the company start paying maintenance and cure immediately, retroactive to the date of injury.
The clock on maintenance and cure runs until a doctor declares MMI — which makes the treating physician’s MMI determination a record to preserve immediately. A premature MMI call by a company doctor legally terminates the benefit, and that is one of the most common tactics in the offshore insurance playbook.
DOHSA: The Three-Mile Guillotine
When a death happens more than three nautical miles from shore, the Death on the High Seas Act takes over — and it is narrow. Only the spouse, parents, children, or a dependent relative can bring the claim. And the recovery is limited to pecuniary losses — lost financial support, lost services, funeral costs. The family cannot recover for grief, loss of society, or loss of companionship under DOHSA.
“When the death of an individual is caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas beyond 3 nautical miles from the shore of the United States, the personal representative of the decedent may bring a civil action in admiralty against the person or vessel responsible. The action shall be for the exclusive benefit of the decedent’s spouse, parent, child, or dependent relative.”
— 46 U.S.C. § 30302
This is why the three-mile line is called a guillotine. A death at 2.9 miles may allow broader damages under state wrongful-death law; a death at 3.1 miles strips non-economic recovery entirely. The location of the rig, the distance from shore, and whether the death occurred on a vessel versus a fixed platform all feed into which law controls — and the defense will argue for the framework that pays your family the least.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Miles v. Apex Marine Corp. (1990) extended this limitation to general maritime wrongful-death claims for seamen, holding that courts will not grant broader remedies than Congress allowed. So even outside the DOHSA statute itself, a seaman’s wrongful-death recovery under general maritime law is similarly restricted to pecuniary loss. This is the ceiling, and it is the reason why establishing every dollar of financial loss — through a forensic economist, a life-care planner, and the full employment record — is the entire case in a death beyond three miles.
If the Incident Happened Outside US Waters
This is the question that matters if the incident you are searching about happened in foreign waters — for example, off the coast of Malaysia, in the North Sea, off West Africa, or anywhere beyond the reach of US territorial waters. The first analysis is jurisdictional: can US law reach this case at all?
The answer depends on several factors:
US-citizen workers: If the injured or killed worker was a US citizen employed by a US-based company, the Jones Act may apply regardless of where the incident occurred. The Jones Act covers seamen employed by US employers in interstate or foreign commerce, and courts have applied it to foreign-situs injuries when the employer-employee relationship has sufficient US contacts.
US-parent corporations: If the operating company is a subsidiary of a US-domiciled corporation, there may be a jurisdictional hook — though piercing the corporate veil to reach the parent is its own fight, and the defense will argue the foreign subsidiary is a separate entity.
Flag-state law: If the vessel or platform flew a foreign flag, the law of the flag state may govern some aspects of the claim, and a US court may decline to hear the case under forum non conveniens.
Choice of law: Even if a US court takes the case, it may apply foreign substantive law to some or all claims — which can change everything about damages, deadlines, and available remedies.
What this means in practice: if the incident happened outside US waters, the very first question is not “how much is the case worth” — it is “is there a US jurisdictional basis at all.” That requires confirming the worker’s citizenship, employment status, the identity of the operating company, the flag of the vessel or platform, and the chain of corporate ownership. Without a US nexus, a US plaintiff firm may not be able to pursue the case, and the family may need to work with counsel in the country where the incident occurred.
If you are reading this because you lost someone on a rig outside the United States, the most important thing you can do right now is gather the employment records, the employment contract, the company’s corporate registration, and any insurance information — and have a lawyer determine whether a US court can reach the case before the foreign statute of limitations expires.
The Defendant Structure: Who Really Operates the Rig
An offshore rig is never one company. It is a stack of entities, each with its own insurance, each ready to point at the others when something goes wrong:
- The operator — the oil company that holds the lease and controls the operation (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, etc.). This company may not employ the injured worker but may control the site and the safety program.
- The drilling contractor — the company that owns and operates the rig (Transocean, Nabors, Helmerich & Payne, etc.). This company typically employs the drilling crew and may be the Jones Act employer.
- The service companies — cementing, wireline, completions, maintenance contractors, each a separate employer with its own workers’ compensation coverage and its own liability profile.
- The vessel owners — the crew boats, supply boats, and tugs that service the platform, each with its own corporate structure and insurance.
- The equipment manufacturers — the maker of a failed drawworks, a faulty BOP (blowout preventer), a defective crane — a product-liability track separate from the negligence claims.
The defense’s primary tool is separation: each entity points at the others. The drilling contractor says the operator controlled the site. The operator says the service company employed the worker. The service company says the equipment manufacturer made a defective product. The manufacturer says the operator modified the equipment. Cutting through this maze — identifying who actually controlled the hazard, who employed the worker, and where the insurance actually sits — is the first investigative work in any offshore case.
For the crew of a vessel, the Jones Act employer is the company that employed the seaman — and that company cannot hide behind the contractor label. If the vessel owner has exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease, and assumes complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment, federal law makes that company responsible — regardless of what the contract says about independent-contractor status.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Disappear
Offshore cases live or die on evidence that the company controls and that can legally vanish faster than most families realize. Here is the clock — system by system:
The rig’s data monitoring systems. Modern offshore rigs are instrumented to a degree most people do not understand — real-time data on drilling parameters, equipment status, weather, gas detection, and personnel tracking. This data may be stored on the rig, transmitted to shore, or both. Retention windows are set by company policy, not by statute. Without a preservation demand, it can be overwritten on the next drilling cycle.
The Coast Guard investigation. If the Coast Guard investigates (as it does for serious marine casualties involving US-flag vessels), it will create an investigation file — witness statements, photographs, vessel examination reports. But the Coast Guard’s “probable cause” findings are inadmissible in a civil damages trial under federal law (49 U.S.C. § 1154(b), for aviation; the parallel maritime provision is at 46 U.S.C. Chapter 61). The raw facts the investigation surfaces — the position of equipment, the condition of safety gear, the statements of witnesses — are usable, but the conclusion is not.
The company’s internal investigation. The operator and the drilling contractor will both open internal investigations within hours. These reports are protected by attorney-client privilege in many cases, but the underlying documents — photographs, measurements, witness statements taken before the privilege attached — may be discoverable.
Maintenance and inspection records. The rig’s mechanical-integrity records — inspections of the derrick, the drawworks, the cranes, the BOP, the gas-detection system — are the spine of an unseaworthiness claim. If a crane cable failed, the question is whether the company inspected it, when, and what the readings showed. These records live on the rig and at the company’s onshore office, and they are subject to the company’s own retention schedule — which is usually far shorter than the statute of limitations.
Drug and alcohol testing. If a serious injury or death occurred, the company may have been required to test the involved crew. The testing window is tight — hours, not days. If the test was never done, the company must document why, and that documentation is itself evidence.
Witness statements. The crew that saw what happened will be dispersed within days — rotated off the rig, sent to other assignments, moved to different platforms. Their memories fade and their availability vanishes. A preservation letter that identifies witnesses by name and demands their contact information is critical.
The personal representative appointment. On a death case, a court must appoint a personal representative — the one person the law authorizes to bring the family’s case. This is not automatic, and without it, no lawsuit can be filed. We handle that appointment, but it takes time, and the clock is running.
The single most important step in the first 72 hours is a preservation letter — a formal, written demand that the company freeze every record, every data file, every piece of equipment, and every witness statement before they can be legally destroyed. That letter creates a legal duty to preserve. If the company lets evidence die after receiving that letter, the court can instruct the jury to assume the lost evidence was as bad as the plaintiff says — an adverse-inference instruction that can win the case before it starts.
The Medicine of Offshore Rig Injuries
Offshore rig injuries run a brutal gamut. The environment combines height, heavy machinery, explosive and toxic materials, water, and isolation — and the medical reality of each injury type is specific:
Falls from height. The derrick floor on a drilling rig can be 30 to 60 feet above the waterline. A fall from the derrick, the mast, or a platform edge produces the physics of a high-velocity impact — the body reaches roughly 20 miles per hour after a 14-foot fall. A six-foot fall onto steel decking can be fatal. The signature injuries are traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). A TBI can come with a perfectly normal CT scan — that is the standard presentation, not the exception — because the damage is diffuse axonal injury, microscopic tearing of nerve fibers that a standard scan was never built to see. Roughly one in seven people with a “mild” brain injury never fully recovers. A spinal cord injury at the cervical level can mean tetraplegia — lifetime costs that the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center puts at more than $1.4 million for the first year alone, with lifetime costs for a young adult reaching more than $6 million. That figure covers only medical care, not the wages the worker will never earn.
Crush and amputation. The moving parts on a rig — the rotary table, the drawworks, the pipe-handling equipment, the cranes — generate forces that can amputate a limb in an instant or crush a body against steel. The lifetime cost of an amputation runs more than $500,000 in direct health-care costs — roughly three times the cost of saving the limb — because a prosthesis is never bought once; it is bought, broken, and rebought every three to five years for the rest of a person’s life. If the crush injury does not amputate but causes compartment syndrome, the salvage window is about six hours — fasciotomy within that window produces near-complete recovery; past it, the muscle dies and the damage is permanent.
Burns and explosions. A blowout, a gas release, or a flash fire produces thermal injury that can cover a large percentage of the body. The American Burn Association’s referral criteria send every high-voltage electrical injury, every chemical burn, every burn to the face or hands, and every burn over 10% of total body surface area to a specialized burn center — because the care is beyond what a general hospital can provide. Burn resuscitation follows the Parkland formula — half the first day’s IV fluids within eight hours of the burn itself, with the clock starting at the moment of injury, not the moment of arrival at the hospital. Every minute a large burn sits untreated is a minute measured against a clock that started the instant the fire touched skin.
Drowning and man-overboard. If a worker goes overboard, the drowning process is fast and quiet — no splashing, no scream, the airway seals shut the instant water hits it, and from submersion to cardiac arrest is often less than a minute. The brain has no oxygen reserve; within four to ten minutes, irreversible injury concentrates in the hippocampus, basal ganglia, and cerebral cortex. A survivor pulled from the water may look “recovered” while the brain is still dying in a second wave of delayed neuronal death. Cold water can briefly shield the brain through the diving reflex, but that grace period is the exception, not the plan.
Toxic exposure. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is the classic offshore killer — a gas that knocks workers down at concentrations that can be reached during drilling or completion operations. Benzene, a known cause of leukemia (IARC Group 1), permeates the oil and gas stream, and the law forces employers to keep exposure records for 30 years because these cancers can take decades to surface. If your loved one worked offshore and later developed a blood cancer, the exposure records the company was required to keep may still exist — if someone demands them before the retention floor lets them die.
For a deeper look at what happens when someone falls from an oil rig, our guide to what happens if you fall off an oil rig walks through the mechanics and the legal rights.
What an Offshore Death Case Is Worth
An offshore death case is built from two streams of loss, and the law that governs which streams are recoverable depends on which door the case goes through:
Economic damages — the money the family will go without: lost future earnings, lost employer-paid benefits (roughly 30% of total compensation for a private-sector worker, on top of the wage), lost household services (the childcare, cooking, repairs, and management a parent or spouse did for free, valued at the market replacement rate using federal time-use data), funeral costs, and medical expenses incurred before death. These are objectively calculable, provable with records and expert math, and they are recoverable under all three doors.
Non-economic damages — the human losses no receipt can measure: the pain the victim endured before death, the grief, the lost companionship, the lost guidance, the life the family no longer gets to live. These are recoverable under the Jones Act and general maritime law for injuries that occur within territorial waters, but DOHSA strips them for deaths beyond three miles. This is the single biggest reason why the location of the death — measured to the nautical mile — can change the value of a case by millions.
Punitive damages — available in narrow circumstances. For willful and wanton failure to pay maintenance and cure, the Supreme Court confirmed in Townsend (2009) that punitives are available. For unseaworthiness, the Supreme Court barred them in Batterton (2019). The availability of punitive damages in a Jones Act negligence claim is an open and contested question that depends on the jurisdiction.
A forensic economist builds the lifetime number from worklife expectancy tables (how many years the person was statistically expected to work), personal-consumption deductions (in a death case, the part of income the person would have spent on themselves is subtracted, because the family’s claim is for the support they would have received), and present-value reduction (because money paid today earns interest over time). Every dollar figure we assert in a demand is built by a named expert on a named methodology — not pulled from the air.
For catastrophic injuries, a life-care plan — a formal document built to a published professional standard — prices out, year by year, every surgery, therapy, wheelchair, medication, and caregiver hour the injured person will need for the rest of their life. The annual cost of a high-level spinal cord injury runs roughly $245,000 per year after the first year, with first-year costs exceeding $1.4 million. That is not a settlement target — it is an arithmetic problem, and the answer is the floor, not the ceiling.
For wrongful death cases, our wrongful death practice page walks through the two-claim structure (wrongful death for the family’s loss, survival action for the victim’s pre-death suffering) that doubles the avenues of recovery.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The firm has recovered $50,000,000+ in aggregate, including a $2M+ maritime back-injury settlement. Those figures are context, not a promise — your case will be valued on its own facts, its own injuries, and its own evidence.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook
Within hours of an offshore incident, the company’s insurance machine starts running. Here are the plays and how to counter each one:
Play 1 — The friendly “welfare check” call. Someone from the company or its insurer will call the family — sometimes within the first day. The tone is warm, concerned, sympathetic. The purpose is to get a recorded statement from the family while they are in shock, to lock in a narrative that benefits the company, and to discourage the family from calling a lawyer. Counter: Do not give a recorded statement. You are not required to. Say “I need to speak with an attorney first” and end the call. Nothing you say in grief will help your case, and everything you say can be quoted against you.
Play 2 — The fast settlement check. A check may arrive with a release attached — sometimes before the medical results are in, sometimes before the family even knows how bad the injuries are. The amount is designed to look significant to a family in crisis and to look like a rounding error to the company. Counter: Never sign a release from an offshore injury or death without a lawyer reading it. The Jones Act voids any contract or device designed to exempt the employer from liability, but the company counts on the family not knowing that and signing anyway. A release signed in the hospital can be challenged — but it is far easier to never sign it.
Play 3 — The “independent” medical exam. The insurer will send the injured worker to a doctor of its choosing — a doctor who earns a significant portion of their income from insurance exams and who is statistically more likely to find that the injury is minor, pre-existing, or unrelated to the incident. Counter: You have the right to treat with your own doctors. The company’s doctor is not your doctor. Every exam by the company’s doctor generates a report that will be used to minimize your claim, and the findings of that doctor must be compared against the findings of the treating physicians who actually care about your recovery.
Play 4 — The maintenance-and-cure stonewall. The company is legally obligated to pay daily living money and all medical bills from the moment of injury — no fault required. But many companies delay, deny, or lowball these payments, hoping the financial pressure forces the injured worker back to work or into a cheap settlement. Counter: Document every denied payment, every delay, every excuse. If the company willfully and wantonly refuses to pay maintenance and cure, the Supreme Court has opened the door to punitive damages — and that threat is leverage the company understands.
Play 5 — The “independent contractor” dodge. The company will argue that the injured worker was an independent contractor, not an employee, to escape Jones Act liability. Counter: The question is not what the contract says — it is who controlled the work. If the company controlled the means and manner of the work — the schedule, the equipment, the safety rules, the supervision — the law looks past the label to the reality. The more the company controlled, the closer the worker is to an employee, and the harder it is for the company to escape.
Play 6 — The surveillance and social-media watch. The insurer will surveil the injured worker and monitor their social media — looking for a photo of the worker smiling, carrying groceries, or doing anything that can be framed as “not really injured.” Counter: Assume you are being watched. Do not post about your injury, your activities, or your case on any platform. A photo of a worker at a family barbecue can be twisted into “he is obviously fine” even if he is in pain the entire time.
The Deadlines: How Long You Have
The federal maritime deadlines are short, and missing them kills the case:
Jones Act — three years from the date the cause of action accrued (45 U.S.C. § 56, borrowed from FELA). For latent injuries or occupational diseases, the clock starts when the worker knew or should have known of the injury and its connection to the employment.
DOHSA — three years from the date of death for deaths occurring beyond three nautical miles.
LHWCA — notice of injury must be given within 30 days (33 U.S.C. § 912), and the claim must be filed within one year (33 U.S.C. § 913). These are the tightest deadlines in the maritime framework, and missing the notice deadline can bar the claim entirely.
General maritime law — for claims not squarely under the Jones Act or DOHSA (such as unseaworthiness or maintenance and cure), the limitations period is borrowed from the forum state’s personal-injury statute of limitations, which varies by state.
Limitation of Liability Act — the vessel owner has six months from receiving written notice of a claim to file a limitation action, which can pull all claims into a single federal admiralty court and strip the jury. The practical consequence for the injured side is that this procedure can change the entire forum — which is why the date written notice was given is a record to preserve.
These deadlines are unforgiving. A family that waits to “see how it goes” can run out the clock without ever knowing it started. The evidence on the rig is dying on its own schedule, and the statute of limitations is running on a separate, parallel schedule. The two clocks converge — and if they meet before a lawyer has frozen the evidence and filed the claim, the case is over.
For a complete walkthrough of the offshore accident legal landscape, our ultimate guide to offshore accidents covers the framework in depth.
The First 72 Hours After an Offshore Accident
Hour 1 — Medical first, always. The symptoms lie. A worker who “feels fine” after a fall may have a brain injury that will not declare itself for hours. A back that “just hurts” may be a spinal cord injury that worsens with every hour of delay. Get to a hospital — not the rig medic, a hospital — and let the scans and the blood work tell the truth the body is hiding. Document every symptom, no matter how small. The first medical record is the foundation of the entire case, and a gap in the early record is a gap the defense will drive a truck through.
Hours 1–24 — Preserve the evidence. This is the most time-critical step. The preservation letter goes out to the operator, the drilling contractor, every service company on the rig, and every equipment manufacturer whose product was involved. The letter demands, by name: the rig’s data monitoring records, the maintenance and inspection logs, the drug and alcohol test results, the Coast Guard investigation file, the internal incident reports, the witness statements, the photographs, the video, the damaged equipment itself, and the employment and training records of every person involved. Every day that passes without that letter is a day the company can legally destroy evidence.
Hours 24–72 — Do not sign, do not record, do not post. Do not sign anything the company puts in front of you. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not post on social media. Do not discuss the incident with anyone except your lawyer and your doctor. If someone from the company shows up at the hospital, they are there for the company, not for you. Say nothing and call a lawyer.
Days 1–7 — Secure representation. The Jones Act and the general maritime law are not self-executing. The rights exist on paper, but turning them into money requires a lawyer who knows the maritime framework, who can identify which door the case goes through, who can build the defendant map, who can send the preservation letter that has legal teeth, and who can file before the clock runs out. If the incident occurred in foreign waters, this is also the window in which a lawyer determines whether a US court can reach the case at all — and if not, refers you to counsel in the right jurisdiction before that country’s deadline expires.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if my family member was killed on an offshore rig?
Yes — if there is a legal basis for the claim. The right to sue depends on which law applies, which in turn depends on whether the worker was a seaman (Jones Act), a longshore worker (LHWCA), or whether the death occurred beyond three nautical miles (DOHSA). If the incident occurred in US waters or the worker was employed by a US company, the Jones Act or DOHSA likely applies. If the incident occurred in foreign waters with no US connection, the analysis is more complex and may require pursuing the claim under the law of the country where the incident occurred. The first step is always confirming the facts: the worker’s employment status, citizenship, the identity of the employer, and the location of the rig.
What is the difference between the Jones Act and workers’ compensation?
The Jones Act is a fault-based tort remedy — the worker (or their family) must prove the employer’s negligence played a part in the injury, but the standard is the lightest in American law (“any part, even the slightest”). In exchange, the worker gets full tort damages: pain and suffering, full lost earnings, future medical care, with no statutory cap. Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system with preset benefit schedules and no pain-and-suffering recovery. A seaman cannot file a workers’-comp claim against the employer — the Jones Act is the exclusive remedy — but the Jones Act pays far more when the employer’s negligence is proven. The trade-off is deliberate: the sea is dangerous, and Congress decided the companies that profit from it should bear the risk.
How long do I have to file an offshore injury or death claim?
The deadlines depend on which law applies: the Jones Act gives you three years from the date the cause of action accrued; DOHSA gives three years from the date of death for deaths beyond three miles; the LHWCA requires notice within 30 days and a claim within one year. For general maritime claims, the limitations period is borrowed from the forum state’s personal-injury statute. These deadlines are unforgiving — missing them kills the case, no matter how strong the facts are. If the incident occurred in foreign waters, the deadline may be governed by the law of that country, which could be shorter.
What is maintenance and cure?
Maintenance and cure is the seaman’s no-fault benefit — the employer owes daily living money (maintenance) and all medical expenses (cure) from the moment of injury until the seaman reaches maximum medical improvement, regardless of who was at fault. Even the seaman’s own negligence does not defeat it. If the employer willfully refuses to pay, the seaman can recover punitive damages — the Supreme Court confirmed this right in 2009. The day a crew member is hurt, these obligations start running, and the first thing a maritime lawyer does is demand the company start paying.
What if the offshore rig was in foreign waters?
If the incident occurred outside US territorial waters, the first question is whether US law can reach the case. This depends on the worker’s citizenship, the employer’s nationality, the flag of the vessel or platform, and the chain of corporate ownership. If the worker was a US citizen employed by a US-based company, the Jones Act may apply even for a foreign-situs injury. If there is no US nexus, the family may need to pursue the claim in the country where the incident occurred, under that country’s law and deadlines. A US maritime lawyer can make this jurisdictional analysis and, if US law does not reach the case, refer you to qualified counsel in the appropriate jurisdiction before the foreign deadline expires.
What is unseaworthiness?
Unseaworthiness is a general maritime law warranty that the vessel owner owes the crew — an absolute, non-delegable promise that the vessel and its appurtenances are reasonably fit for their intended use. Unlike the Jones Act, which requires proof of negligence, unseaworthiness is a no-fault claim: the owner is liable if the vessel was not reasonably safe, even if the owner did everything carefully. A frayed cable, a missing guard, a crew too small for the work, a slippery deck — any of these can make a vessel unseaworthy. The owner cannot escape by blaming a contractor. However, punitive damages are not available for unseaworthiness — the Supreme Court barred them in 2019.
How much is an offshore death case worth?
The value depends on the law that applies, the age and earnings of the deceased, the number and relationship of dependents, and whether the death occurred within or beyond three nautical miles. Under the Jones Act and general maritime law, the family can recover economic damages (lost financial support, lost services, funeral costs, pre-death medical expenses) and non-economic damages (pain and suffering, loss of companionship). Under DOHSA, only pecuniary (financial) losses are recoverable — grief and loss of companionship are stripped away. A forensic economist builds the lifetime number from worklife expectancy, personal-consumption deductions, and present-value reduction. Every case is valued on its own facts; there is no formula, and any lawyer who gives you a number in the first conversation without seeing the records is not telling you the truth.
Do I need a lawyer for an offshore injury case?
The Jones Act and the general maritime law are not self-executing. The rights exist on paper, but turning them into recovery requires a lawyer who knows the maritime framework, who can identify which door the case goes through, who can build the defendant map, who can send the preservation letter that freezes the evidence before it disappears, and who can file before the clock runs out. The company has a team of lawyers, adjusters, and investigators working from the moment of the incident. The family needs someone working for them — and the sooner that starts, the more evidence survives and the stronger the case becomes.
Who pays for brain injury treatment in an offshore accident case?
If the injured worker is a seaman, the employer’s cure obligation covers all medical expenses until maximum medical improvement — regardless of fault. For traumatic brain injuries, brain injury treatment can be among the most expensive injuries in medicine, with lifetime costs running into the millions. The cure obligation runs until a doctor declares MMI — and a premature MMI call by a company-chosen doctor is one of the most common tactics in the insurance playbook. The injured worker should treat with their own doctors, not the company’s, and every medical decision should be made by a physician who answers to the patient, not the insurer.
Can the company force me to use their doctor?
No. You have the right to choose your own treating physicians. The company’s doctor is not your doctor — they are a witness for the defense, and their report is built to minimize your claim. The company can request an “independent” medical examination, but the findings of that exam must be compared against the findings of the treating physicians who actually care about your recovery. Never accept a treatment plan from a doctor the company chose without getting a second opinion from a doctor you choose. For more on what an offshore injury lawyer does to protect medical rights, our guide to what an offshore accident lawyer does walks through the full role.
Why Attorney911
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court — the venue where many offshore and maritime cases are filed. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he writes clearly, investigates thoroughly, and understands how to build a story a jury can follow. He is the managing partner of Attorney911, admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and he has tried cases across the spectrum of catastrophic injury and wrongful death. He is lead counsel in the active $10M+ hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston — a case that shows the kind of institutional accountability he pursues.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like the reader. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded statement is engineered, how the IME doctor is selected, and where delay tactics cross into statutory bad faith. Now he sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because a family that prays in Spanish should not have to translate their grief.
We work on contingency — 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The first consultation is free, and our staff is live 24/7 — not an answering service, live people who can take your call at 2 a.m. and start the process that same night. The preservation letter goes out the day you call, not the month after.
We are based in Houston — the center of the Gulf Coast offshore industry, the courthouse where offshore cases are filed, the city where the oil companies have their offices and their lawyers. We serve the Gulf Coast from Beaumont to Galveston, and we take maritime cases nationwide, working with local counsel and pro hac vice where required. We do not claim an office in your state or a bar admission we do not hold. What we claim is 27+ years of trial experience, a former insurance-defense attorney on our team, and a track record of more than $50,000,000 in aggregate recoveries — including a $2M+ maritime back-injury settlement.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we guarantee is this: we will tell you the truth about your case, we will move on the evidence the day you call, and we will not stop until the company answers for what it did.
Hablamos Español. If your family prays in Spanish, call us in Spanish. Lupe conducts full consultations without an interpreter.
The call is free. The consultation is free. The evidence is dying. The clock is running. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911 — or call our direct line at (713) 528-9070. We answer at 2 a.m. because that is when these calls come.