Maritime Injury Blog

U.S. Supreme Court upholds injured maritime worker’s rights to punitive damages

An injured sailor whose employer refused to pay for medical care and other expenses when he was injured on-the-job has the right to recover punitive damages, according to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The injured sailor, Edgar L. Townsend, was working on a motor tug when he fell onto the vessel’s steel deck, injuring his arm and shoulder.  The owner of the tugboat, Atlantic Sounding, refused to pay maintenance and cure to Townsend, fired him, and filed an action for declaratory relief.

Townsend in turn sued Atlantic Sounding for negligence, willful failure to pay maintenance and cure, wrongful termination, and a counterclaim to the declaratory judgment action.

Townsend’s case moved from Senior U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger – who ruled that Townsend could seek punitive damages at trial – on to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta when Schlesinger’s decision was appealed by Atlantic Sounding.

The 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Schlesinger’s ruling in 2007, so Atlantic Sounding appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The company claimed that the previous ruling conflicted with other federal circuits and state courts.

In a split 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Townsend, and writing for the majority Justice Clarence Thomas stated “because punitive damages have long been an accepted remedy under general maritime law, and because nothing in the Jones Act altered this understanding, such damages for the willful and wanton disregard of the maintenance and cure obligation should remain available in the appropriate case as a matter of general maritime law,”