Seafarers Rights International (SRI) spoke out in favour of allowing mariners to pursue punitive damages in personal injury cases.
The group filed papers with the US Supreme Court requesting permission to support Saul Touchet, a crewman for offshore contractor Estis Well Services who has filed a petition to the Supreme Court in an effort to appeal a decision that prevented him from seeking punitive damages against his employer.
“SRI is concerned with the confusion regarding the availability of punitive damages under the Jones Act, because the trend in favour of disallowing punitive damages limits the remedies available to seafarers,” said the non-profit group’s lawyers led by Erin Glenn Busby in a filing with the court.
Touchet unsuccessfully asked the Supreme Court to weigh in the case after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he could not seek punitive damages, which would be in addition to damages aimed at compensating him for his injuries.
He was injured after the derrick on the Estis Rig 23 collapsed in 2011 in an incident that also killed a co-worker.
Global Maritime Ministries, a religious organisation that serves seafarers, also voiced its support for Touchet’s appeal.
“Holding the owner of a vessel accountable for providing a seaworthy ship is a requirement worthy of enforcing,” the group’s lawyers, Richard Dodson and Kenneth Hooks, said in a brief to the court. “Punitive damages help further that goal.”
