If you live in the Shreveport area and travel to the coast for your hitch, whether it starts at a coastal port or a heliport, an injury on a rig, a supply boat, or a vessel can happen hundreds of miles from home. The first question after it is not how bad the injury is. It is which body of law measures it. Federal maritime law reaches your claim only when the facts put you on a vessel or on navigable water, and seaman status turns on your connection to that vessel, not on the job title printed on your paycheck. Our office at 509 Milam Street, across the street from the Caddo Parish Courthouse, starts a Shreveport file with that vessel connection, because once an adjuster applies an ordinary workers’ compensation deadline to a seaman, the wrong clock is already running.
Results for Louisiana Clients
- $32,195,000Industrial / Workplace
Failure to maintain proper safety protocols led to an explosion at an industrial plant causing a series of catastrophic injuries from broken bones, burns, spinal injury, and mental anguish.
- $31.5 MillionIndustrial / Workplace
Brain and spinal injuries followed an oil-field company failing to maintain equipment and provide a safe work site.
- $1.65 MillionIndustrial / Workplace
At a worksite, an excavator operator dropped a crane mat onto our client.
- $1,315,000Industrial / Workplace
An oil-field safety violation injured our client.
- $975,000Industrial / Workplace
The other vehicle failed to yield the right of way and collided with our client, who suffered back injuries.
- $740,000Industrial / Workplace
The at-fault driver failed to yield the right of way and collided with our client, who suffered neck injuries.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts.
What Is a Maritime Lawyer in Shreveport, Louisiana?
A maritime lawyer works inside the federal body of law that reaches injuries and deaths connected to the water and to the vessels that run on it. That is a different set of rules from the state negligence law that decides a wreck on I-20 or a fall in a store on Texas Street. A land injury runs on Louisiana deadlines and Louisiana fault rules. A water-connected injury can run on a different deadline, a different fault standard, and remedies built for people who work on the water.
Two questions decide whether maritime law governs: was the injury on or over the water, and did it arise from work with a maritime connection? A body of water being nearby is not enough on its own; a plant beside the river is still a plant. But the same fall that would be a state workers’ compensation matter on a factory floor becomes a federal maritime case when it happens aboard a vessel on navigable water. The answers set the filing deadline, the fault standard, the damages available, and often the court where the case belongs.
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Cases resolved over $1 million
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Does Maritime Law Cover You If You Live in Shreveport and Work Offshore?
Yes, when the facts fit. If you live in Shreveport, Bossier City, or Minden in north Louisiana, commute to the Gulf, and get hurt on a rig, a supply boat, or a platform, you can bring a maritime claim even though home is far inland. An injury on Gulf waters stays a maritime matter regardless of where you sleep between hitches. The water, the vessel, and your connection to that vessel decide it, not the address on your driver license.
Vessel-Based Work vs. Land-Based Work
The line that most often decides coverage is whether your work was vessel-based or land-based. A job that connects you to a vessel in navigation, with meaningful time spent aboard, generally sits inside maritime law. A job fixed to land, a manufacturing floor or a warehouse yard, generally does not, even when the building sits on the riverbank. Split your shifts between a dock and a vessel, or load and unload vessels from shore, and you may land in a different framework than the crew member who eats and sleeps aboard.
The vessel generally needs to be in navigation, meaning afloat, in operation, capable of moving, and on navigable waters. A vessel does not necessarily lose that character because it is moored, anchored, or between voyages, but a structure permanently fixed to the bottom, or pulled out of service for major reconstruction, may not count.
Offshore Rigs, Platforms, and Supply Boats
Offshore, your remedy depends on whether you were hurt aboard a vessel, on a fixed platform, or on a mobile drilling unit, and on what your assigned duties were. Crew serving aboard drillships, jack-up rigs, and supply and crew boats commonly pursue Jones Act claims, while platform workers and service-company personnel may fall under other frameworks, which our oil rig accident page explains. Which law governs decides both the damages available and the party who answers for them.
Who Qualifies as a Jones Act Seaman in Louisiana?
The Jones Act is the federal law that lets a qualifying seaman pursue a negligence claim against an employer for an injury suffered in the course of employment. Seaman status comes down to two questions: whether your duties contribute to the function of a vessel or the accomplishment of its mission, and whether you have a connection to a vessel in navigation that is substantial in both duration and nature.
The nature side looks at whether the work exposes you to the perils of the sea. The duration side looks at how much of your working time you spend aboard, and a rough figure of around 30 percent of work time in service of a vessel is sometimes cited as a general guide rather than a precise rule. If you split time between the shore and a vessel, the whole employment gets examined, not the single day you were hurt.
The connection does not have to run to one named boat. A worker assigned to a fleet of vessels under common ownership or control can generally build the duration side by adding up time across those vessels, which matters if you rotate among several rigs, barges, or boats run by the same company. Our page on seaman legal rights walks through the test in full.
What Are Jones Act Seaman Injury Claims?
A seaman’s claim usually runs three remedies side by side: a no-fault benefit that covers living costs and treatment, a negligence claim against your employer, and a claim aimed at the condition of the vessel itself. Together they are what let an injured seaman pursue broader damages than a shore-based system pays.
Maintenance and Cure: The Baseline Entitlement
Maintenance and cure is the seaman’s no-fault benefit. Because it does not depend on proving negligence, it typically starts well before any lawsuit is resolved. Maintenance is a daily living allowance for food and lodging ashore while you heal. Cure covers the reasonable cost of medical treatment for the injury or illness. The employer owes both regardless of who was at fault, and they continue until you reach maximum medical improvement, the point where further treatment will not improve the condition. You can pursue maintenance and cure at the same time as a negligence claim, and the two are not offset against each other.
The friction usually comes from the daily maintenance rate, which employers try to fix at an outdated or inadequate figure, and from disputes over whether maximum medical improvement has actually been reached. When an employer stops paying maintenance and cure it owes, you can pursue the withheld benefits along with the cost of forcing the employer to pay.
Jones Act Negligence and Unseaworthiness
The Jones Act lets a seaman sue the employer for negligence when the employer’s carelessness plays a part in causing the injury. In general terms, you show that the employer’s fault contributed to the harm. That contributing-cause framing is usually described as a lighter causation showing than the standard used in most land-based injury cases, and the claim opens the door to lost wages, lost future earning capacity, and pain and suffering.
An unseaworthiness claim, brought under general maritime law, targets the vessel owner rather than the employer. In general, the owner is expected to provide a vessel reasonably fit for its intended use. When some part of the vessel is not fit, whether the hull, the gear, the crew, or the working conditions, the vessel can be treated as unseaworthy. Because the vessel owner and the employer are sometimes different companies, this theory can reach a defendant the negligence claim cannot.
Maritime law generally follows a pure comparative fault approach. If you are partly responsible for the injury, your damages are reduced by that percentage, but you are not barred from compensation. That differs from fault rules that cut a claim off entirely once the injured person crosses a threshold; under the pure comparative approach there is generally no such cutoff, and a fault finding does not touch the maintenance and cure the employer owes.
What Are Longshore and Harbor Worker (LHWCA) Claims Near Shreveport?
The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) is a federal benefits program for maritime workers who are not seamen. It often governs the injury of someone who loads, unloads, builds, or repairs vessels and works on navigable water or on the adjoining docks, piers, terminals, and marine-related areas. If you work the docks, a shipyard, or barge loading on inland water out of the Shreveport area, this is often your framework. A master or member of a crew of a vessel sits outside LHWCA coverage, which is why the two categories stay separate instead of overlapping.
The LHWCA is a no-fault system. A covered worker collects statutory medical and wage-replacement benefits without proving employer negligence, and without the worker’s own carelessness defeating the claim. The trade is that the benefits are set by statute and capped, they do not include an award for pain and suffering, and you give up the ability to sue your employer over the injury. Benefits are generally the exclusive remedy against your employer, but when someone other than the employer caused or contributed to the injury, you can pursue a separate lawsuit against that party for damages the benefit schedule does not provide, including pain and suffering. A Shreveport-area worker hurt on the job may fall under the federal LHWCA, under the Louisiana workers’ compensation system, or, in some situations, under both, and filing in the wrong system can cost you benefits. Our Longshore Act page covers coverage, benefits, and third-party claims in detail.
How Long Do I Have to File After an Offshore or Vessel Injury?
Your deadline depends on which body of maritime law governs the injury. Jones Act and general maritime personal injury claims carry a three-year limitations period, while Longshore Act claims require written injury notice within 30 days and a claim filed within one year. Miss the one that applies to you and the court or the compensation system can bar the claim no matter how strong the facts are.
That three-year period generally governs unseaworthiness claims brought under general maritime law against a vessel owner as well. The clock usually starts the day of the injury, though in occupational or latent-injury situations it can run from the date you knew or should have known the injury was connected to the work. The longshore claim period is likewise measured from the injury or, for a condition that develops over time, from becoming aware of its connection to the work.
The 30-day written notice is the trap. A worker who told a supervisor about the incident assumes that was enough, but spoken word to a foreman is not the written notice the system requires, and a missed notice step can undercut a claim long before the filing deadline arrives. Exceptions and tolling situations can extend or excuse a deadline, but leaning on one is far riskier than meeting the deadline.
One incident can also implicate more than one deadline, and wrongful death claims can carry their own framework and their own timing. When more than one could apply, the shortest applicable deadline controls, so assume the earliest date on the calendar. A commuting offshore worker, a barge deckhand on inland water, and a dockside worker can each face a different clock for the same calendar date.
The filing deadline is the outer limit, not the day work should begin. Vessel logs, maintenance records, crew statements, safety-meeting minutes, and the physical condition of the equipment can all be altered, repaired, or overwritten within weeks. When the facts show a real claim, we send the employer and the vessel owner a preservation letter directing them to hold the deck logs, maintenance records, crew statements, incident reports, vessel-inspection records, and the failed equipment itself.
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What Should You Do After an Offshore or Vessel Injury Far From Home?
If you were hurt on the coast or offshore and are back in Shreveport, a few pieces of paper protect more of your claim than anything else you can do right now.
Put your injury report in writing to your employer, date it, and keep a copy, then write the date of the injury on a calendar you look at. If maintenance payments have started, write down the daily rate and the date of the first check. If they have not, put your request to the employer in writing and keep a copy.
Get seen and keep the appointment after that one. If the injury is severe, the Level I trauma center at Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport on Kings Highway is where you want to be; Willis-Knighton and CHRISTUS Highland handle the rest. Tell the intake nurse exactly what you were doing on the vessel when it happened, and make sure that sentence lands in the chart. Back, neck, shoulder, and knee injuries are the ones people try to work through, and the employer or its insurer will argue that a herniated disc is degenerative or that a shoulder tear predated the job; prompt imaging and an accurate report of how it happened are the answer.
Name the boat. Write down the vessel name, its owner, the operator, and every company whose crew was working near you that day, and photograph every logo you can find on the equipment, the hard hats, the trailers, and the dock signage. Those names are how a one-defendant case turns into a case against everyone whose conduct put you in the hospital.
List every vessel you set foot on in the past year, who owned it, and roughly how many days you spent aboard each one. Ask your employer in writing for your job description and for your assignment records and timesheets covering the last two years, and pull your last twelve months of pay stubs and hitch schedules. Those records show where you worked and how long you were aboard, and they are easier to get before anyone knows a claim is coming.
Keep every medical bill, explanation of benefits, maintenance check stub, and letter from the employer or its adjuster in one folder, in date order. That folder is the damages case, and it is far easier to build as it happens than to reconstruct a year from now.
How Does a Maritime Injury Claim Work With a Shreveport Attorney?
The first step is a close read of what you did and where you did it: how much of your time was spent aboard a vessel, what the job actually involved, and whether the vessel was in navigation. We read the actual assignment records, timesheets, and job descriptions rather than the label on a paycheck, because that analysis sets which claims are available, who the defendants are, and which deadline controls.
Investigation then fixes the physical facts: photographing the scene and the equipment, finding the witnesses among the crew, and pulling records on the vessel’s condition and maintenance history, which often carry a case built on unsafe equipment or an unseaworthy vessel. It also identifies every party who may answer: the employer, a vessel owner or operator that may be a different company, a contractor or staffing company whose crew created the hazard, a manufacturer that put an unreasonably dangerous piece of equipment into service, and the company running the dock or terminal. Our offshore accident page covers who can be liable offshore.
An early recorded statement and a quick, low offer are the adjuster’s standard opening moves, and both can undercut a claim before anyone knows what it is worth. We take those calls so you are not negotiating against a professional adjuster alone, and when an insurer cuts off or underpays a seaman’s ongoing benefits, a documented written demand is the first response.
Where Your Case Can Be Filed From Shreveport
A maritime injury does not lock the case into one type of courtroom, and the seaman remedies and fault standards travel with the case whichever building it lands in. Hurt offshore or on the Red River, you may be able to file in a Caddo Parish courtroom at 501 Texas Street rather than travel for every hearing. Federal maritime cases for this area are heard in the Western District of Louisiana. Whether state court or federal court serves your claim better turns on the defendants, the remedies at stake, and where the incident happened.
Bring us the date of the injury, the name of the vessel, and the name of your employer. That is enough to start the status analysis.
What Compensation Can a Shreveport Maritime Injury Victim Recover?
The common injuries from vessel and offshore work are spine and joint injuries from lifting on decks that pitch and roll, crush injuries and traumatic amputation from lines and machinery, falls that cause a traumatic brain injury or a spinal fracture, severe burns and lung damage from engine-room fires and explosions, and drownings. Our page on common maritime accidents covers how each happens. Many of these injuries end in surgery and permanent work restrictions, which is why lost earning capacity, not just this month’s wages, drives the value of the claim.
A Shreveport maritime worker can collect past and future medical costs, lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, and maintenance and cure. The mix depends on which framework covers you, because a seaman, a longshore worker, and a general maritime claimant do not draw from the same set of damages. Pain and suffering, and disability damages for permanent limits such as a fused spine or a lost limb, are non-economic damages available to a seaman pursuing a negligence claim against the employer.
Loss of earning capacity is the bigger and more contested category: the difference between what you could have earned over a full career and what the injury now allows. A deckhand who can no longer lift, climb, or work offshore may be looking at lower-paying land work for the next thirty years. Maritime pay usually runs above shore wages because it includes overtime, hitch pay, and found, the value of room and board aboard the vessel, and a correct earning-capacity figure captures all of it. We work with your treating physicians, vocational experts, and economists to build the wage base, project the career you would have had, and reduce the loss to present value.
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How Do Maritime Wrongful Death and Survival Claims Work?
When a maritime worker dies, two separate claims can come out of the same incident. A wrongful death claim addresses what the surviving family lost. A survival action belongs to the estate, and survival damages can include the conscious pain and suffering before death, medical expenses incurred in that period, and wages lost between injury and death; when a worker dies after a period of suffering, the estate may pursue it alongside the family’s wrongful death claim.
Which body of federal maritime law applies often turns on where the fatal incident happened, measured from shore, and on the worker’s status. Deaths caused by wrongful conduct well out at sea, beyond a few nautical miles from the United States shoreline, are generally handled under a distinct federal framework for high-seas deaths, and damages there focus on financial loss. For deaths closer to land, in state territorial waters reaching a few nautical miles out, general maritime law is understood to provide its own wrongful death remedy. That claim can reach deaths on inland navigable waters and in the near-shore zone, which takes in the Gulf-connected waters where workers from around Shreveport earn their living and the Red River corridor, and its damages can be broader. When the worker was a Jones Act seaman, the Jones Act carries a wrongful death remedy that runs to the surviving spouse, children, or dependent next of kin.
Do this week: if you lost someone, open the succession and get a personal representative appointed. The claim belongs to the estate, and until someone holds that appointment there is nobody with authority to file it.
What Types of Cases Do Shreveport Maritime Lawyers Handle?
A Shreveport maritime practice sees Jones Act seaman claims, Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act claims, offshore platform and oilfield injuries, claims that reach vessel owners, and vessel accidents on inland rivers and tows, including the Red River here at home.
Towboat, Barge, and Dredge Work on the Red River
The Red River is a working river. It carries barge traffic and ties into the broader inland waterway system, and barges, tows, and the crews who run them move commercial cargo through Shreveport, Bossier City, and the Port of Caddo-Bossier every week. A towboat crew member, a barge worker, or a dredge hand hurt aboard a vessel there often has more on the table than a state workers’ compensation claim pays. A crew member hurt on a working tow usually brings a Jones Act claim as a seaman, while a shore-based worker hurt while a barge is moored may fall under the longshore act, and a barge worker who spends most shifts loading from a fixed dock, with only occasional time aboard, can fall short on the duration side. A dredge that moves under its own power, or gets repositioned as it works, can be treated as a vessel in the right circumstances.
Commercial divers on inland rivers and lakes raise the same status question. A diver tied to a vessel and contributing to its operation can fit the seaman framework on the right facts, while a diver sent to a fixed platform or a bridge pier with no real vessel connection may fall under a different set of rules, so the same diver can qualify on one project and not the next.