Jones Act Negligence: What Reasonable Care Means Aboard a Working Vessel

There is no shortage of articles explaining what the Jones Act says. Plaintiff firms have written hundreds of them. What gets much less attention is what "reasonable care" looks like on an actual deck at four in the morning, and how anyone proves it was or was not there.

I spent five years as a chief mate before I took command. The chief mate runs the deck. He assigns the work, picks who does it, decides how many hands a job needs, and answers for it when something goes wrong. That job is where most Jones Act cases really live.

The law in two paragraphs

The Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. 30104, lets a seaman injured in the course of employment sue his employer for negligence. The causation standard is relaxed compared with ordinary negligence cases. Courts generally ask whether the employer's negligence played any part, even a small one, in producing the injury. Who counts as a seaman is its own question, set out by the Supreme Court in Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis (1995): the worker must contribute to the vessel's function and have a connection to a vessel in navigation that is substantial in both duration and nature.

Unseaworthiness is a separate claim against the vessel owner. It does not require negligence. The owner owes a vessel, gear, and crew reasonably fit for their intended use. Not a perfect ship, a reasonably fit one. Both claims usually travel together, and they overlap on the facts.

What reasonable care looks like in practice

The law speaks in general terms. A well-run deck is specific. When I review a seaman injury case, these are the questions I am trying to answer.

Was the man trained for this task? Not trained in general. Trained for the thing he was doing when he got hurt. A new deckhand who has watched a job twice has not been trained to do it.

Did anyone look at the hazards first? Many safety management systems call for a job safety analysis before nonroutine or higher-risk work. If the company's own system required one and nobody did it, that is a fact a jury can understand.

Were there enough people? Short manning shows up in injury cases constantly. One man doing a two-man job. A watch stretched because someone got off sick and nobody replaced him.

Was the gear right for the job and in decent condition? A frayed line, a ladder with a loose rung, a deck coated in oil that should have been cleaned. These are unseaworthiness questions, and often negligence questions too.

Was anyone supervising? Unlicensed crew are entitled to direction. If the mate sent two men out and went back inside, the record should show why that was reasonable.

Did the company do what its own manual said? This one decides more cases than people expect.

Where the proof comes from

An expert does not testify from memory or instinct. The opinion has to rest on records. In a typical Jones Act case I want the deck log, crew list and licenses, training records for the injured seaman and his supervisor, the safety management system or company procedures, any job safety analysis or toolbox talk records, safety meeting minutes, the accident report, the Coast Guard CG-2692 if one was filed, photographs, and every statement.

The records rarely tell the whole story on their own. But the gaps tell you where to look. A training file with a signature and no content. A safety meeting log where every entry for six months reads the same. A procedure dated after the accident.

The gap between paper and practice

The most common pattern I see is a good procedure that nobody followed. The company did the hard part. It wrote down how the job should be done. Then it never trained the crew on it, never checked, and let the vessel settle into "the way we have always done it."

From a defense perspective, the same records can cut the other way. A well-documented training program, a completed job safety analysis, and a supervisor on scene make a strong answer to a negligence claim. An expert retained by the defense looks at the identical questions.

What an operations expert does not cover

I give opinions on vessel operations, training, supervision, manning, and the custom and practice of the industry. I do not give opinions on medicine or on what caused a particular injury in the body. Those belong to physicians and other specialists. Keeping those lines clean makes everyone's opinions stronger.

Comparative fault

A seaman's own carelessness can reduce what he recovers. So the expert also looks at what the injured man did, what he was told, and whether he had a real choice. A deckhand ordered to do a job a certain way is in a different position from one who ignored clear instructions. The records usually show which one it was.

About the author

Captain Mitchell S. Stoller is a Master Mariner Unlimited, former Exxon tanker master, and former Los Angeles Harbor pilot. About Captain Stoller