Offshore Rig & Drillship Injury Lawyers

The Young Firm handles Jones Act and maritime injury cases from New Orleans, representing injured workers across Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. A rig or drillship injury review starts with the facts a worker actually knows: the name of the unit, who signed the paychecks, what the task was, how the injury happened and what has happened since. The legal label comes later, after the facts are in hand.

An offshore rig injury review begins with the drilling unit, your work assignments and how the injury happened. It does not begin by requiring you to know whether you are a "seaman," a "longshore worker" or something else. That classification is part of the legal analysis, not a prerequisite for asking.

This page is for workers who need an oil rig injury lawyer for an accident on an offshore drilling unit: a drillship, a jack-up drilling rig or a semisubmersible drilling rig. Onshore drilling claims are outside its scope. If your injury happened on a fixed production platform, a liftboat, a supply vessel or a crewboat, the analysis is different in ways that matter, and we have pointed you to the right place below. For a broader view of how offshore claims work generally, start with our page on offshore injury claims.

To ask for a review now, use the contact details on The Young Firm homepage. You do not need to read the rest of this page first.

Drillship, Jack-Up or Semisubmersible: Which Unit Were You Working On?

Coast Guard regulations use the term "mobile offshore drilling unit," or MODU, for a unit capable of drilling for subsea resources, and they distinguish several physical designs (46 CFR § 107.111). Knowing which one you were on helps the investigation, because each design generates different records, involves different hazards and raises different questions about how the unit was being used. The characteristics below are typical, not universal.

Two things this table does not do. First, it does not tell you your legal status. A unit's regulatory classification is evidence courts may consider, but the Coast Guard uses "vessel" as a regulatory term, and whether a unit is a vessel for Jones Act purposes, and whether you had the required connection to it, are separate legal questions addressed below. Second, it does not cover every offshore structure that has legs or floats.

A jack-up drilling rig is not a liftboat. Liftboats are also self-elevating, but they are self-propelled work platforms used to support construction, maintenance and well intervention, not drilling units. If you were hurt on a liftboat, supply vessel or crewboat, see our page on offshore support-vessel injuries.

A mobile drilling unit is not a fixed platform. Fixed platforms are permanently attached to the seabed and are not designed to be moved from location to location, whatever operations they support. That difference in design and attachment often changes the legal framework for a platform injury, and it is worth reading our page on injuries on fixed offshore platforms if that is where you worked.

If all you know is the unit's name, that is enough to start. Drilling units are registered and documented, and a name will usually allow the type, the owner and the operator it was working for to be identified.

Does a Jack-Up Rig Stop Being a Vessel When Its Legs Are Down?

Injured jack-up workers are sometimes told that the rig "wasn't a boat" because it was sitting on the bottom when the accident happened. Here is the direct answer.

Lowered legs and stationary drilling, by themselves, should not be used to decide a jack-up rig injury claim. Whether a unit is a "vessel" turns on its design, its activities and its operational history as a whole, not on whether it was moving at the moment of injury (Stewart v. Dutra Construction Co., 543 U.S. 481 (2005)). Not every floating structure qualifies, however; courts ask whether a reasonable observer would consider the structure designed to a practical degree for carrying people or things over water (Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 568 U.S. 115 (2013)). Whether the worker qualifies as a seaman is a separate question that depends on the worker's own connection to the unit.

Stewart held that a watercraft used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water does not lose its vessel character because it is stationary while doing the job it was built to do; what removes a structure from the category is being permanently moored or otherwise withdrawn from navigation. Lozman cautions from the other direction that physical characteristics and activities control, so a structure with no practical capacity to carry people or things over water is not a vessel simply because it floats.

A jack-up drilling rig is designed to be moved from well to well. It carries a crew, equipment and supplies, and it is regularly relocated. Those facts matter far more than the position of the legs on the day you were hurt. But no one should tell a worker that "every jack-up is a vessel," because the analysis is fact-specific. If a particular unit had been cold-stacked for years, stripped of equipment, or converted to a role that no longer involved relocation, the answer could change. Facts that bear on the question include when the unit last moved and how, how many locations it has worked recently, and whether it was still registered, classed and crewed as a drilling unit.

The second half of the analysis, whether you had a substantial connection to the unit, is introduced in the next section and covered in detail on our page explaining how Jones Act seaman status is determined.

Your Rig Assignment Matters More Than Your Job Title

Roustabout, floorhand, derrickhand, driller, motorman, crane operator, mud engineer, directional driller, casing hand, wireline operator, cook, medic. On a drilling unit, dozens of job titles share the same deck. The title tells us something, but the legal question turns on what you actually did, for whom, for how long and on which units.

Working offshore or aboard a drilling unit does not automatically make someone a Jones Act seaman. Under 46 U.S.C. § 30104, a seaman injured in the course of employment may sue the employer for negligence. Whether a worker is a "seaman" depends on whether the work contributed to the vessel's function or mission and whether the worker had a connection to a vessel (or an identifiable fleet) that was substantial in both duration and nature (Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347 (1995)). A worker who does not qualify may instead have compensation coverage under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, including through the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1333(b), where the injury has a substantial nexus to extractive operations on the shelf.

The service-contractor question. Many rig workers are not employed by the drilling contractor at all. They work for a service company that sends them to whatever rig needs them this month. Some people assume that means they cannot be seamen; others assume that anyone who eats and sleeps on a rig for two weeks qualifies. Neither assumption is right.

In Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, L.L.C., 997 F.3d 564 (5th Cir. 2021) (en banc), the Fifth Circuit held that a contractor's welder assigned to jack-up rigs was not a seaman, looking beyond time percentages to the nature of the connection: whether the worker owed allegiance to the vessel rather than a shoreside employer, whether the work was sea-based, and whether the assignment was a discrete task after which the vessel connection ended. That decision did not shut the door on contractor personnel. A contractor employee who repeatedly works aboard the same unit or fleet as part of a continuing seagoing assignment presents a very different case from one dispatched for a short repair job. The facts that drive the answer are your hitch and rotation history, whether you moved between units controlled by the same company or unrelated rigs, what your duties actually were, and how your employer described the assignment in its own records.

OCSLA coverage is not the same as governing law. Section 1333(b) can extend LHWCA compensation to a rig worker whose injury has a substantial nexus to the employer's operations on the outer Continental Shelf (Pacific Operators Offshore, LLP v. Valladolid, 565 U.S. 207 (2012)), but it excludes masters and members of a vessel's crew. Separately, OCSLA can make the adjacent state's law apply as surrogate federal law to certain claims on the shelf. Which law governs a negligence claim against a third party, and which compensation scheme applies to your benefits, are different questions and can have different answers for the same injury.

For the full framework, see Jones Act claims against an employer, how Jones Act seaman status is determined and LHWCA benefits and coverage. If you would rather start from your job, our page on offshore worker injuries by occupation is organized that way.

Who Controlled the Drilling Task, Equipment and Safety Instructions?

On a drillship or jack-up, the company on your paycheck is often not the company that owned the unit, not the company whose well was being drilled, and not the company that maintained the equipment that failed. Sorting that out is a large part of what a rig injury investigation does.

A drilling injury investigation separates the payroll employer, the drilling contractor, the rig owner, the operator and any service companies, then examines what each one controlled. A company's presence on the rig does not by itself establish liability. Whether any party owed you a duty, breached it and caused your injury, and whether a statute limits claims against it, has to be evaluated before anyone is named as a defendant.

A plain-language map of who is typically involved:

• Payroll employer. The company that hired you and pays you. This is the starting point for identifying a Jones Act employer, not the end of it. Which company actually directed and controlled your work can matter, and a borrowed-employer relationship can change who is treated as the employer and who is shielded by compensation exclusivity. If you are covered by the LHWCA, your remedy against your employer is generally limited to compensation benefits (33 U.S.C. § 905(a)).
• Drilling contractor. The company that operates the rig and employs the drill crew. Often, but not always, the same company that owns the unit.
• Rig owner. The entity that holds title to the unit. Sometimes a separate corporate affiliate of the drilling contractor, sometimes a financing entity.
• Operator. The oil and gas company that holds the lease and contracted for the well. Its representative aboard, often called the company man, may direct priorities and approve procedures.
• Service contractors. Casing crews, directional drillers, mud loggers, wireline, cementing, catering, and so on. Each brings its own people, procedures and sometimes its own equipment.
• Equipment suppliers and manufacturers. The companies that designed, built, sold or serviced the iron roughneck, the pipe-handling system, the crane, the top drive or the hoses involved.

Consider a hypothetical. A floorhand employed by a service company is injured when a joint of drill pipe swings out of the pipe-handling system and pins him against the drawworks housing. The instructions to run pipe at that pace came from the driller, who works for the drilling contractor. The pipe-handling system had been throwing intermittent faults for two weeks, according to the maintenance log kept by the rig's mechanics. The company man had asked the crew to make up time after a weather delay. The manufacturer had issued a service bulletin about the fault code months earlier.

None of those facts, standing alone, proves fault by anyone. Together they raise questions: Who decided the equipment was safe to run? Who had authority to stop the job? Was the bulletin received and acted on? Did the pressure to make up time change the procedure? Whether any of those questions leads to a claim depends on the duties each party owed, the causal chain and the statutory framework that applies to you.

Depending on your status and the facts, routes worth investigating can include employer negligence, a claim that the unit was unseaworthy (available only to seamen against the vessel owner), a vessel-negligence claim under Section 905(b) for LHWCA-covered workers, negligence by another contractor, or a defect in equipment. Those theories are developed on their own pages: claims involving an unseaworthy vessel, potential third-party maritime claims, contractor and premises negligence and maritime product and equipment liability. Here, the point is simpler: the investigation has to find out who controlled what before anyone can say who is responsible.

The Drilling Records That May Explain What Went Wrong

A drilling unit generates a great deal of paper and data. Some of it disappears quickly if no one asks for it. Which records matter depends on the task you were doing when you were hurt.

Relevant evidence after a rig injury may include daily drilling reports, job safety analyses, work permits, equipment maintenance histories, witness accounts, CCTV footage and electronic data from rig systems. Which records exist, and which matter, depends on the unit and the task involved. A lawyer can seek preservation of records the company holds; a worker should keep the records already lawfully in hand and should not attempt to remove or copy company files without authorization.

How the evidence tends to pair with the task:

Pipe-handling and drill-floor incidents. The daily drilling report records what the rig was doing hour by hour, including trips, connections and delays. The job safety analysis or task risk assessment for the operation shows what hazards were identified and what controls were supposed to be in place. Pre-tour safety meeting records show what the crew was told. Inspection and maintenance records for the pipe-handling equipment, iron roughneck, elevators and top drive show whether known problems existed. Drill-floor CCTV, where installed and retained, can show the sequence directly. The witnesses are the driller, assistant driller, the other floorhands and the derrickhand.

Maintenance and repair incidents. The permit-to-work system documents authorization for the task and the conditions attached to it. Isolation and lock-out records show whether energy sources were controlled. The computerized maintenance system history for the equipment shows prior faults, deferred work orders and parts on order. Manufacturer service bulletins and the company's response to them can matter.

Lifting operations. Lift plans, crane inspection and load-test certificates, rigging inspection records, the crane's own load-moment data where the system records it, and the pre-lift toolbox talk. Witnesses include the crane operator, banksman or signalman and the deck crew.

Any serious incident. The company's own incident investigation report and root-cause analysis. Certain offshore incidents are reportable to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and certain marine casualties on vessels are reportable to the Coast Guard. Agency files can include statements, photographs and findings. Those findings are relevant, but they are not a determination of private liability; they answer regulatory questions, and the standards in a civil claim can differ.

Not every unit generates or keeps the same records, and retention practices vary. That is exactly why early preservation requests matter: the goal is to have the company hold what exists before routine overwriting or disposal takes it. This is work a lawyer does through lawful demand and, once suit is filed, through discovery. It is not something a worker should try to do by photographing restricted areas, downloading files or taking documents off the unit.

For a broader discussion of accident types and injury mechanisms offshore, see our page on offshore accident and injury scenarios.

After a Rig Injury: Get Care, Report Accurately and Keep Your Records

Nothing on this list should delay emergency treatment, and none of it requires you to put yourself at risk.

If you are still offshore

• Use the unit's medic and the emergency and medical channels available to you. If you believe you need to be evaluated onshore and that is not happening, say so clearly and, where you can, note when and to whom you made the request.
• Report the injury through the required channel. Be accurate and complete about how it happened. Do not minimize the injury or guess at facts you do not know.
• Write down, when you are able, the names of people who saw the incident or were on the floor at the time.

When you are onshore

• Get the treatment you need, and do not let a legal question delay it. For nonemergency care, your ability to choose or change doctors, and who pays for that care, can depend on which benefits framework applies to you, so get advice before assuming a company-arranged physician is your only option or that any provider will be covered. If your rights arise under maintenance and cure, see our page on medical treatment and choice-of-doctor questions. Keep every medical record, prescription and referral you receive.
• Keep copies of everything the company gives you or asks you to sign: incident reports, statements, benefit paperwork, correspondence, return-to-work forms.
• Build a simple timeline while your memory is fresh: dates, times, tasks, instructions, equipment involved, who was present, what was said afterward.
• If you are asked to sign a release, a settlement, a "final" payment acknowledgment, or any document you do not understand, ask for an explanation and have a lawyer review it before signing. That does not mean refusing to cooperate with legitimate reporting or delaying your own treatment; it means not signing away rights you have not had explained.
• If you are asked to give a recorded statement, find out who is asking and for what purpose, and seek legal advice before giving it where you can. Reporting and cooperation obligations differ by employer and framework, so the goal is to meet legitimate requirements without volunteering conclusions you are not in a position to make.

What not to do

• Do not remove company records or take photographs in areas where that is prohibited or unsafe.
• Do not assume that filing an incident report satisfies every legal notice requirement. It may not.
• Do not wait for the company's investigation to finish before getting your own advice. Its conclusions are its own, and evidence does not wait.

On deadlines

Deadlines vary by claim. Maritime personal-injury actions are generally subject to a three-year period under 46 U.S.C. § 30106, but LHWCA claims carry much shorter notice and filing requirements, and other periods and exceptions can apply depending on the parties and the governing law. Rather than rely on a single number, treat a prompt legal review as part of protecting the claim. For LHWCA-specific timing, see LHWCA filing deadlines. For Jones Act representation generally, see Jones Act claims against an employer, and for a wider discussion of your options, offshore injury rights and compensation.

Who May Pay for Medical Treatment and Time Away From the Rig?

For most injured workers, the first questions are not about lawsuits. They are about the mortgage and the medical bills.

Treatment and income support after a rig injury depend on which legal framework applies. A qualifying seaman injured or fallen ill while in the service of the vessel is generally entitled to maintenance and cure from the employer, which is a daily living allowance and payment of medical care until maximum medical improvement, owed regardless of fault (Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U.S. 724 (1943); Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511 (1949)). A qualifying worker under the LHWCA may receive medical benefits (33 U.S.C. § 907) and disability compensation, which can include compensation for permanent disability (33 U.S.C. § 908), through the employer's insurer. A damages claim for negligence or unseaworthiness is a separate matter that requires its own analysis, and receiving benefits does not by itself resolve whether such a claim exists.

Two points matter here.

First, benefits and a damages recovery are different things. Maintenance and cure is meant to keep you treated and afloat until you reach maximum medical improvement. LHWCA compensation can run longer and may address ongoing or permanent disability, but it is calculated by statutory formula and does not necessarily replace your full earnings. Neither compensates for pain and suffering or for the full measure of a career lost offshore. Those belong to a damages claim, if one exists. Receiving benefits does not waive a damages claim, and signing a release or settlement can; if you are not sure which you did, bring the paperwork. How benefits and damages interact, including credits, liens and coordination between payors, needs review in your specific case.

Second, what you are being paid tells us something. Details that matter: who is paying you and what they call the payment ("maintenance," "comp," "salary continuation" and "advances" are not interchangeable); the daily or weekly amount; whether any treatment, referral, surgery or test has been denied or delayed; whether you have been told the payments will stop or that you have reached maximum medical improvement; and whether you have been asked to sign anything in exchange for payment.

For detail on the seaman's remedy, see maintenance and cure. For the compensation framework that may apply to non-seamen, see LHWCA benefits and coverage. For how claims against companies other than your employer fit alongside benefits, see third-party claims alongside Jones Act and LHWCA rights. This page does not provide settlement ranges or predict your ability to return to work; those questions depend on facts we do not have yet and require an individual assessment.

Rig Injury Questions That Should Not Stop You From Asking for Help

The company says the accident was my fault. Is that the end of it?

No. The company's assessment is its own conclusion, often written by people with an interest in the outcome, and it is not the legal determination. Whether and how a worker's own conduct affects a claim depends on the claim. Under the Jones Act, which gives seamen the remedies available to railway employees under federal law (46 U.S.C. § 30104), a seaman's own negligence generally reduces a recovery in proportion to fault rather than barring it. LHWCA compensation benefits are generally payable without regard to fault. Whether the "fault" the company identified was actually yours, or the product of inadequate training, equipment, staffing or pressure, is precisely what an investigation examines.

I don't have my records. Can I still call?

Yes. Tell us what you know: the name of the unit, your employer, roughly when it happened and what you were doing. A great deal can be identified from a unit name and a company name. Documents you have are helpful; documents you do not have are the company's, and there are lawful ways to obtain them.

You are in New Orleans. Does that mean Louisiana law applies to my case?

Not necessarily, and it should not be assumed either way. Where your lawyer sits does not determine which law governs your claim or where it can be brought. Gulf rig injuries can involve general maritime law, the Jones Act, OCSLA (which may borrow the adjacent state's law for some issues), and questions about where the responsible companies can be sued. Our location is about accessibility for workers who live and work along the Gulf Coast; the governing law is a legal question we answer from your facts.

My family member was killed on a rig. Is this the right page?

This page addresses injuries. A death offshore raises separate questions about which family members may bring a claim, under which statute, and for what losses, and those answers depend on where the death occurred and the worker's status. We have a dedicated page for families seeking help after a fatal offshore accident. You are welcome to contact us directly instead; you do not need to read anything first.

Will my employer find out I called a lawyer?

Asking a lawyer a question is not the same as asserting a claim, and how and when an employer is contacted is something to discuss with counsel before anything is sent. No one can promise that an employer will never learn a claim has been made; once a claim is asserted, the employer and its insurer will know. Retaliation for asserting maritime injury rights raises its own legal issues, and that concern deserves an honest conversation rather than an assurance that it cannot happen.

Ask The Young Firm to Review Your Rig or Drillship Injury

You do not need a complete file, a legal theory or a named defendant to ask for a review. You need to be willing to tell us what happened.

To start a review, share the unit's name, your payroll employer, the date and location of the accident, your assignment and rotation history, the task you were doing, your current treatment and any documents you have already received. Missing records and uncertainty about legal coverage are normal at this stage and should not stop you from asking.

What helps most at the first conversation

• Name of the drillship, jack-up or semisubmersible, and the operator it was working for if you know it.
• Your employer, your position and how long you had been assigned to this unit or fleet.
• The date, the approximate location (block or field name is fine) and whether the unit was drilling, moving or standing by.
• What you were doing, what equipment was involved and who was directing the work.
• Any incident report, statement, benefit letter, release or other paperwork you have been given.

What an inquiry does and does not do

An inquiry is not a representation agreement, and it does not commit you to anything. If representation is offered, the terms, including how fees are calculated and how case expenses are handled, should be explained to you and set out in a written agreement before you sign. Ask about fees and expenses directly at the outset; you are entitled to clear answers before deciding.

If you are in the middle of treatment or still offshore, take care of that first. When you are ready, contact The Young Firm through the details on The Young Firm homepage, which also has firm-wide background and credentials.

Legal Sources for Rig Injury Guidance

This page provides general information about injuries on mobile offshore drilling units. It is not legal advice and it does not determine any individual worker's coverage or rights. The legal statements above rest on the following authorities, identified so that you or another lawyer can check them.

Statutes and regulations

• 46 U.S.C. § 30104 (Jones Act). A seaman injured in the course of employment may bring a civil action against the employer, with the remedies available to railway employees under federal law. Supports the statements about employer-negligence claims and the treatment of a seaman's own fault.
• 43 U.S.C. § 1333 (Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act). Subsection (b) extends LHWCA compensation to injuries resulting from operations on the outer Continental Shelf for exploring, developing, removing or transporting natural resources, excluding masters and members of a vessel's crew. Subsection (a) addresses adjacent state law as surrogate federal law. Supports the distinction between compensation coverage and governing law.
• 33 U.S.C. § 905 (LHWCA exclusiveness of liability). Subsection (a) makes the employer's compensation liability exclusive; subsection (b) permits a covered worker to sue a vessel for negligence while barring unseaworthiness claims by such workers.
• 33 U.S.C. §§ 907–908 (LHWCA medical benefits and disability compensation). Section 907 requires the employer to furnish medical, surgical and other treatment for a covered injury; Section 908 sets the compensation payable for disability, including permanent disability. Supports the statements about LHWCA medical benefits and disability compensation.
• 46 U.S.C. § 30106. The general three-year limitation period for maritime personal-injury actions, cited with the qualification that other claims carry different and shorter periods.
• 46 CFR § 107.111 (Coast Guard definitions). Defines "mobile offshore drilling unit" and related unit terms. Supports the technical descriptions; regulatory terminology is distinct from judicial vessel-status analysis.

Court decisions

• Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347 (1995). The two-part seaman-status test: contribution to the vessel's function or mission, and a connection to a vessel or fleet in navigation that is substantial in duration and nature.
• Stewart v. Dutra Construction Co., 543 U.S. 481 (2005). A watercraft used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water is a vessel and need not be in motion; structures permanently moored or withdrawn from navigation are excluded.
• Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 568 U.S. 115 (2013). A reasonable-observer test focused on physical characteristics and activities; not every floating structure is a vessel.
• Pacific Operators Offshore, LLP v. Valladolid, 565 U.S. 207 (2012). Substantial-nexus requirement for OCSLA compensation coverage.
• Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, L.L.C., 997 F.3d 564 (5th Cir. 2021) (en banc). Refines the "nature" element of the Chandris test for contractor personnel assigned to jack-up rigs.
• Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U.S. 724 (1943). The general maritime duty of maintenance and cure extends to a seaman injured or fallen ill while in the service of the ship, without regard to the employer's fault. Supports the statements about entitlement to maintenance and cure.
• Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511 (1949). Maintenance and cure continues until the seaman reaches maximum cure, not for the full duration of a disability. Supports the statement about the duration of maintenance and cure.

Case law in this area continues to develop, particularly on contractor personnel and specialized units, and the current treatment of these authorities has to be confirmed against the facts of any specific claim. The general frameworks summarized here are explained more fully on our pages covering offshore injury claims, how Jones Act seaman status is determined and LHWCA benefits and coverage. How they apply to your unit, your assignments and your injury is a question that can only be answered from your facts.