Insight and Information on Louisiana Law, Litigation, and Legal Culture
by the Admiralty and Maritime Team
It is now well settled in the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that a seaman cannot recover punitive damages on an unseaworthiness claim. McBride v. Estis Well Service, 768 F.3d 382 (5th Cir. 2014) (en banc). Specifically, the U.S. Fifth Circuit has held that…
Recently, the US Fifth Circuit addressed three maritime tenets in the same case: McCorpen defense, unseaworthiness, and regulatory governance. While these issues can be rather straightforward in the typical case, the facts in Thomas v. Hercules Offshore Services, LLC (5th Cir. March 2, 2018) provided an interesting review of each. The specific issues addressed in…
By the Admiralty and Maritime Team
In Voces v. Energy Resource Technology, GOM, LLC, et al. the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the longstanding general rule in Louisiana known as the independent contractor defense, which provides that a principal is not liable for the negligent acts of an independent…
The Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (“COGSA”) provides that it shall “apply to all contracts for carriage of goods by sea to or from ports of the United States in foreign trade.” In matters involving international trade, contracts for carriage – involving goods shipped to or from the United States via a foreign seaport…
For nearly 30 years, district courts within the US 5th Circuit have evaluated whether maritime or state law applies to oil and gas service contracts using the 6-factor test from Davis & Sons, Inc. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 919 F.2d 313 (5th Cir. 1990). The Davis factors focused mainly on the nature of the…
On September 28, 2017, President Trump granted a ten day waiver of the Jones Act for the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, in an effort to facilitate the island’s recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The waiver went into effect immediately and alleviates the Jones Act’s restriction against the transport of passengers and…
By the Admiralty and Maritime Team
Yesterday, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in USA v. Don Moss, et al., 2017 WL 4273427 (5th Cir. 2017) affirming the Eastern District’s ruling that oilfield contractors cannot be held liable for criminal violations of the Outer Continental Shelf’s Lands Act (OCSLA), 43…
In the recent U.S. Fifth Circuit case of In re Larry Doiron, Inc., 849 F.3d 602 (5th Cir. 2017), the Court considered an often pivotal question in many offshore personal injury cases: is the contract governing the relationship of the parties a maritime contract?
While this issue is not new to the offshore oil…
In the recent case of Halle v. Galliano Marine Service, L.L.C., No. 16-30558, 2017 WL 1399697 (5th Cir. Apr. 19, 2017) the U.S. Fifth Circuit addressed for the first time whether ROV technicians, who are traditionally Jones Act seamen, qualify as seamen under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Court found that the…
By the Admiralty and Maritime Team
In the recent case of BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a blatant forum shopping attempt by two railway employees and limited future lawsuits against out-of-state railroads. In BNSF Railway Co., Robert Nelson of North Dakota and Kelli Tyrrell of South Dakota filed…
