Towing Vessel Mate — $1,250,000.00

A licensed tugboat mate suffered a devastating leg injury when he became trapped between the stern of his towing vessel and a floating surge tank during an offshore operation near Jacksonville, Florida.

The accident caused an open tibial crush fracture, serious knee damage, a post-operative blood clot, chronic pain, and four surgeries. The employer argued that the mate should never have stepped onto the floating equipment. Our investigation focused on a different question:

Why did the employer place its crew in a position where retrieving routine running lights required working beside a maneuvering tugboat and an unstable floating structure without a safe access system or escape route?

The case involved Jones Act negligence, vessel unseaworthiness, unsafe task design, failures in vessel control, and the injured seaman’s right to maintenance and cure.

Case Snapshot

• Client: Towing Vessel Mate
• Worksite: Federal navigable waters offshore of Jacksonville, Florida
• Location: Near the Jacksonville sea buoy and St. Johns River entrance
• Incident: Caught-between crush injury during offshore running-light retrieval
• Equipment involved: Tugboat stern and a low-freeboard floating surge tank or pontoon
• Primary injury: Open crush fracture of the left tibia
• Complications: Deep vein thrombosis, cartilage damage, joint effusion, popliteal cyst, developing meniscus damage, chronic knee pain, and stiffness
• Surgeries: Four
• Legal claims: Jones Act negligence, vessel unseaworthiness, and maintenance and cure
• Case result: $1,250,000.00

What Happened During the Offshore Tugboat Operation?

The accident occurred on January 22, 2016, after the tugboat crew completed the transfer of approximately 2,000 feet of dredge pipe to another towing vessel offshore of Jacksonville.

The remaining task was to retrieve portable magnetic running lights that had been attached to a floating surge tank to mark the tow.

A towing-vessel mate does not perform ordinary dockside work. He lives aboard the vessel, stands watch, supervises crewmembers, handles lines, monitors equipment, and helps control heavy floating structures in changing weather and sea conditions.

That morning, the crew was working near the Jacksonville sea buoy in offshore waters. The dredge-pipe tow had been transferred, but the running lights still had to be removed before the tugboat could return to port.

Retrieving those lights placed a crewmember at the interface between two moving objects: the stern of a maneuvering tugboat and a rounded floating surge tank sitting low in the water.

During the operation, the gap between the tug and the surge tank closed around the mate’s left leg.

A deckhand grabbed him and pulled him back aboard as the floating structure moved. The captain then operated the vessel inbound to Jacksonville, where emergency medical personnel met the crew at the dock.

The mate had suffered an open tibial crush fracture. The injury would eventually require four operations and years of treatment.

The Vessel-to-Pontoon Pinch Point

The central safety issue was not simply whether the mate stepped onto the surge tank. It was whether the employer had created a reasonably safe way to complete a recurring offshore task.

The surge tank was not designed as a stable work platform.

Photographs showed a low-profile, rounded, rusted structure floating close to the waterline. It had:

• No guardrails
• No safe boarding point
• No stable deck
• No top-surface handholds
• No engineered retrieval system
• No protected path for moving between the tug and the floating equipment

This was not a flat-deck barge with rails and designated access. It was a buoy-like structure moving near the stern of an operating tugboat in open water.

The offshore conditions reportedly included seas of approximately one to three feet and winds of roughly 10 to 15 knots. Even relatively modest vessel movement could change the distance between the tugboat and the surge tank.

That created a foreseeable caught-between hazard.

Whether the surge tank moved toward the tug, the vessel moved toward the surge tank, or the gap closed while the mate attempted to return aboard, the essential event was documented in the Coast Guard casualty materials: his lower leg was caught between the stern of the vessel and the floating pontoon.

The Employer’s Defense

The employer argued that the mate acted on his own.

According to the defense, the magnetic lights had handles and could have been removed without anyone stepping onto the surge tank. The company claimed that the mate boarded the floating structure without informing the captain or deckhand and unnecessarily placed himself in danger.

The employer also relied on his experience.

He was a licensed mate with years of towing-vessel work. The defense argued that he should have recognized the risk and chosen a safer method.

The company further disputed the offshore conditions and questioned the long-term effect of the injury on his ability to work. Its medical and vocational positions included the suggestion that he might be able to move into a shoreside or port-captain role rather than return to physically demanding vessel work.

But the defense raised several important unanswered questions:

• How were crewmembers expected to retrieve the lights during actual offshore operations?
• Was there a written procedure for completing the task without boarding the surge tank?
• Had the company conducted a job-hazard analysis for the retrieval operation?
• Why were the lights placed where they would be difficult to reach safely?
• How had crews performed the same task in the past?
• Why had the mate not previously been disciplined for using the method the company later criticized?

The statement that a worker “should not have been there” is a defense theory. It does not establish how the task was actually performed aboard the vessel.

Investigating the Unsafe Work Practice

Our investigation focused on the difference between the company’s description of the operation and the way the work was performed offshore.

We reviewed the vessel records, photographs, Coast Guard casualty materials, medical evidence, and deposition testimony. The evidence supported a broader inquiry into who designed the task, controlled the tugboat, selected the equipment, and determined how running lights would be retrieved after an offshore tow transfer.

The investigation indicated that the mate had raised concerns about placing the lights on the surge tank before the accident. Retrieving them offshore would be difficult because of the shape and position of the floating structure.

The lights were still placed there.

That evidence was important because it suggested that the danger was not an unpredictable emergency created solely by the injured worker. It arose from the way the operation had been planned and performed.

We developed the case around two related failures.

The first was the unsafe running-light retrieval method. The employer had not established a reliable system that allowed the lights to be recovered without exposing a crewmember to the vessel-to-pontoon pinch point.

The second was vessel control. When a worker is near or crossing between a tugboat and floating equipment, the captain must account for vessel movement, sea conditions, current, wind, and the movement of the other structure.

Maintaining safe separation is critical because a small change in position can create enough force to crush a person caught in the gap.

Jones Act Negligence

The Jones Act provides legal protection to qualifying seamen injured because of employer negligence.

An injured seaman does not have to prove that the employer intended to cause harm. The worker must show that the employer’s negligence played a part, even a slight part, in producing the injury.

Potential Jones Act negligence in a tugboat crush case may include:

• Failing to establish a safe procedure
• Inadequate job planning
• Failing to conduct a hazard analysis
• Requiring work near an unprotected pinch point
• Providing unsafe equipment
• Failing to train or supervise the crew
• Inadequate communication
• Poor vessel positioning or control
• Failing to respond to earlier safety concerns

The mate’s experience did not eliminate the company’s responsibility.

Experienced seamen remain entitled to a reasonably safe place to work. A maritime employer cannot transfer all responsibility to the worker merely because the worker understood that the task was dangerous.

In fact, when an experienced crewmember is injured performing a recurring operation, his experience may support the conclusion that the problem was embedded in the work method rather than caused by unfamiliarity.

Vessel Unseaworthiness

Unseaworthiness is a separate maritime claim from Jones Act negligence.

A vessel owner must provide a vessel, crew, equipment, and method of work that are reasonably fit for their intended purposes. The vessel does not need to be perfect, but it must be reasonably suitable and safe for the work being performed.

The unseaworthiness issues in this case included the use of a rounded, low-freeboard surge tank without a safe access point or retrieval system and a work method that placed crewmembers beside that structure during offshore operations.

An unsafe method of performing a vessel’s work may support an unseaworthiness claim even when no single piece of equipment is broken.

The question is not limited to whether a regulation specifically required a handrail or boarding ladder. Maritime safety also depends on basic seamanship, reasonable task design, and recognition of foreseeable hazards.

A company should not need a regulation to understand that a worker can be crushed when positioned between a tugboat stern and moving floating equipment.

Maintenance and Cure

Maintenance and cure was also part of the case.

Maintenance generally refers to an injured seaman’s basic daily living allowance while he is recovering. Cure refers to reasonable and necessary medical treatment related to the vessel injury.

These benefits are generally owed until the seaman reaches maximum medical improvement, meaning the point at which additional treatment is no longer expected to materially improve his condition.

That obligation was especially important here because the mate’s treatment continued through multiple procedures and a prolonged recovery.

Disputes arose concerning the extent of his treatment, the timing of maximum medical improvement, and the benefits owed while he remained unable to return to his former work.

Four Surgeries and a Difficult Recovery

The injury was far more serious than a routine broken leg.

Emergency surgeons treated the open tibial fracture with intramedullary nailing and wound VAC placement. The mate later required removal of the tibial hardware.

He also developed deep vein thrombosis, a potentially serious blood-clot complication.

Persistent knee pain and dysfunction led to additional testing and treatment. The medical evidence identified cartilage damage involving the lateral femoral condyle, joint effusion, a popliteal cyst, and developing meniscal problems.

The mate ultimately underwent:

• Emergency intramedullary nailing of the open tibial fracture with wound VAC placement
• Removal of tibial hardware
• Left-knee arthroscopy, synovectomy, and open popliteal cyst excision
• An OATS osteochondral allograft procedure to treat the cartilage defect

The OATS procedure involved replacing damaged cartilage and underlying bone with donor tissue.

The complete medical history was essential to understanding the damages. Describing the injury only as a broken leg would not account for the blood clot, repeated surgeries, cartilage loss, chronic stiffness, knee instability, pain, and difficulty performing physically demanding maritime work.

A tugboat mate must be able to climb, balance, move across wet or uneven surfaces, handle lines, respond during emergencies, and work around heavy equipment. Even when a person can walk or perform some daily activities, lasting knee and leg limitations may prevent a safe return to offshore vessel duties.

Why Jacksonville and New Orleans Both Mattered

The accident occurred in federal navigable waters offshore of Jacksonville, Florida. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans.

Those locations mattered because maritime cases are shaped by more than the place where the worker first receives medical treatment.

The legal team had to understand:

• Federal maritime law
• Jones Act seaman status
• Offshore tow-transfer operations
• Tugboat and surge-tank movement
• The relationships among the employer, vessel, and equipment owners
• Coast Guard casualty reporting
• Federal maritime litigation in Louisiana

The Young Firm represents maritime workers in cases involving tugboats, towing vessels, dredges, barges, offshore equipment, and other commercial vessels.

Understanding the operation is essential. A lawyer handling a tugboat injury case must be able to explain how vessel movement created the hazard, why the retrieval method was unsafe, and how the company’s operational decisions contributed to the accident.

Lessons for Injured Tugboat Workers

A familiar task can still be unsafe

The fact that a procedure has been performed many times does not make it reasonably safe. Repetition may instead show that the employer knew how the task was actually being completed.

The absence of a written procedure can matter

When a recurring offshore task has no written procedure or job-safety analysis, that gap may support the argument that the company never adequately evaluated the hazard.

Experience does not eliminate Jones Act rights

A licensed mate, captain, tankerman, or experienced deckhand remains protected by maritime law. Skill and experience do not excuse unsafe equipment, poor planning, or failures in vessel control.

Prior safety complaints should be preserved

A worker who raised concerns before an accident should tell his attorney. Emails, text messages, vessel logs, safety meeting records, and testimony from other crewmembers may help prove that the employer knew about the danger.

The complete medical timeline is important

Initial hospital records may not reveal the full impact of a crush injury. Complications, additional surgeries, physical restrictions, chronic pain, and future treatment should all be documented.

Lost earning capacity may extend for years

When a maritime worker cannot return to offshore duties, the financial loss may include more than wages missed during recovery. The injury can reduce future earning capacity and limit opportunities for advancement within the towing industry.

Speak With a Jones Act Tugboat Injury Lawyer

Tugboat and towing-vessel accidents often involve disputed accounts of what happened. The company may argue that the injured worker violated instructions, chose an unsafe method, or should have recognized the danger.

A complete investigation should examine the entire operation—not just the worker’s final movement before the injury.

That includes the vessel’s position, the captain’s actions, the design of the equipment, the employer’s procedures, prior practices, crew communications, safety complaints, Coast Guard records, photographs, medical evidence, and testimony from everyone involved.

The Young Firm represents injured deckhands, mates, tankermen, engineers, and other offshore crewmembers in Jones Act negligence, unseaworthiness, and maintenance and cure claims.

If you were injured aboard a tugboat, towing vessel, dredge, barge, or another commercial vessel, the company may already have attorneys, insurers, and investigators working on its behalf.

You deserve a legal team that understands the vessel, the operation, the medical evidence, and the maritime law that applies to your claim.

Call us today. We can help you take the next step.

Your case. Your rights. Our fight.