Subscribe to RSS FeedAlright, hunker down, we're going to talk about punitive damages. I know this topic gets the blood running hot among some of you, but take a couple of breaths and let me unravel things.
The setup is this: a crew member injures his arm and shoulder while aboard a tugboat. The tugboat owner allegedly refuses to pay maintenance and cure, the crew member brings suit seeking punitive damages and the whole thing ends up in the Supreme Court. For the landlubbers among us, maintenance and cure is a vessel owner's general obligation to provide food, lodging ("maintenance") and medical services ("cure") to a crew member injured while serving a vessel.
The issue before the nine justices was whether a refusal to pay maintenance and cure gave rise to a claim for punitive damages. There's a lot of analysis to the ruling, but boiling things down, the Supreme Court first cleared up a split between the circuit courts of appeal and held that punitive damages could be awarded for the willful and wanton disregard of a maintenance and cure obligation. That is, under the right circumstances, a refusal to pay maintenance and cure might allow a crew member to recover punitive damages against a vessel owner.
Not every alleged failure to pay maintenance and cure will trigger an award of punitive damages. Still, our country is enveloped in a health care debate, and maintenance and cure may be the only backstop a maritime worker has when an injury arises making this decision particularly important.
Underway and making way.
--- JKF
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