One of the best ways our clients can help us to help them is to provide us with as many detailed medical and accident records as possible. Jones Act cases often hinge on mastering the details. We often advise mariners to keep good records of any safety deformities or unseaworthy conditions of the vessel. It's a good policy to have a small notebook and pen in your work pocket to immediately write down things like sea state, weather, lat / lon, witnesses present and specifics of the deformities. This way you won't have to struggle to recall these things down the road or under cross examination pressure in the courtroom.
Being proactive, however, does not mean having your camera phone or a mini cassette recorder constantly at the ready at every moment at sea. Why? Because that mindset crosses over from prudence to obsession. And while there have been vessels where the captain has a hidden microphone on the bridge or another crewmember secretly keys the walkie-talkie microphone in the hopes that a conversation will broadcast throughout the vessel, this is not the route to go. Just be alert and record the facts in a reasonable manner.
Having your medical records available from as far back as possible might seem extreme, but seamen can be sure that insurance companies will send their investigators to dig up as much medical information about them as possible. And they will take even a routine doctor's visit from several years earlier and twist it to make it seem like you were attending to an unreported existing condition. So the more medical information we are given, the better we can anticipate the other side's lowball tactics.
Read "Why it's important for seamen to fully disclose your medical history" in our article library
here.
Category: Company Tricks Exposed
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