Third-Party Maritime Claims: When Someone Other Than Your Employer May Be Liable

When Someone Other Than Your Employer May Be Liable: What a Third-Party Maritime Claim Is

A third-party claim is a damages action against a person or company other than the injured worker's direct employer. In maritime work, that third party may be the owner of another vessel, the maker of a crane or winch, a contractor working the same job, or a terminal operator. The employer-based routes are different: a seaman's claim against the employer under the Jones Act, or compensation from the employer under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (the Longshore Act).

The Longshore Act pays benefits to covered workers, defined in 33 U.S.C. § 902 to include longshoremen and harbor workers such as ship repairmen, shipbuilders and ship-breakers, but not a master or member of a crew of any vessel, along with other listed exclusions. Under 33 U.S.C. § 904(b), that compensation is payable irrespective of fault.

The key rule for third-party claims sits in 33 U.S.C. § 933(a). If the person entitled to compensation for a disability or death determines that someone other than the employer, or the employer's own employees, is liable in damages, "he need not elect whether to receive such compensation or to recover damages against such third person."

In plain terms, receiving Longshore Act compensation does not by itself close the door on a separate damages claim. If you are receiving benefits, what is at stake is a possible second source of recovery that compensation alone would not reach. What a worker may weigh is whether anyone besides the employer had a hand in what happened.

Which law applies depends on where the injury happened, the vessel involved, the waters, and the injured person's status. Not every offshore worker is a Jones Act seaman, and not every injury on the water falls under the Longshore Act. Sorting out which category fits is one of the first things a conversation with an attorney can help with.

Vessel Negligence and the Right to Sue the Ship

Under 33 U.S.C. § 905(b), a person covered by the Longshore Act who is injured by the negligence of a vessel may bring an action against that vessel as a third party under section 933. The statute adds limits in the same breath. The employer is not liable to the vessel for those damages, directly or indirectly. A worker employed by the vessel to provide stevedoring services cannot sue if the injury was caused by people providing stevedoring services to the vessel. A worker employed in shipbuilding, repair or breaking cannot sue their own employer, even in its role as the vessel's owner, operator or charterer, or the employer's employees. The vessel's liability is not based on the warranty of seaworthiness, and this remedy is exclusive of all other remedies against the vessel except those under the Longshore Act.

For a longshore worker, this means the ship itself may answer for its own negligence, but not on the stricter seaworthiness theory available to seamen. A worker may consider who employed them and what work they were doing, because those facts decide whether the action exists at all.

Admiralty jurisdiction is the federal authority over maritime cases. Under 46 U.S.C. § 30101(a), it extends to injury caused by a vessel on navigable waters, "even though the injury or damage is done or consummated on land." A worker hurt on a dock by a vessel's act may still fall within admiralty jurisdiction; our page on dock accidents at the vessel edge covers that setting.

Under 46 U.S.C. § 30103, a person may bring a civil action against a master, mate, engineer or pilot of a vessel for injury caused by that person's negligence or willful misconduct, or by neglect or refusal to obey the laws governing the navigation of vessels.

These routes matter because a negligence action may allow categories of damages that compensation does not include, discussed further below.

When Defective Equipment Points Beyond Your Employer: Products Liability Under General Maritime Law

If a piece of equipment failed when you were hurt, the law may look past your employer to whoever made or supplied it. The Supreme Court stated in East River Steamship Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U.S. 858 (1986), that products liability, including strict liability, is part of the general maritime law. For an injured worker, strict liability means the claim turns on whether the product was defective and caused harm, rather than on proving that someone was careless.

Depending on the facts, the parties answerable for a defective product may include the manufacturer, a distributor or others in the product's chain. When a line parts, a hatch fails or a machine starts without warning, who designed, built or supplied it can become as important as who was running the job. What is at stake is a claim that can exist even when the employer did nothing wrong.

Whether such a claim is available turns on the specific equipment and circumstances. A worker or family may weigh whether the equipment involved still exists, who owns it now, and where it came from, and an attorney can help trace that chain. The site's page on maritime equipment failure injuries looks at those failures in more detail.

Third-Party Rights After Accepting Longshore Act Compensation

Timing is where many workers are caught off guard. Under 33 U.S.C. § 933(b), "acceptance of compensation under an award in a compensation order" filed by the deputy commissioner, an administrative law judge or the Benefits Review Board "shall operate as an assignment to the employer" of the worker's rights against the third party, unless the worker commences an action against that third party within six months after the acceptance. An assignment is a legal transfer of the right to sue. The statute defines an "award" here as a formal order issued by the deputy commissioner, an administrative law judge or the Board. If the employer then fails to bring the action within ninety days after the assignment, the right reverts to the person entitled to compensation.

Put plainly, a worker who accepts compensation under a formal award has a six-month window under § 933(b) to file a third-party action before those rights pass to the employer. A worker may weigh whether their payments came under a formal award or without one, because the statute's trigger is acceptance under an award.

Settlements carry their own rule. Under § 933(g)(1), if the worker or the worker's representative settles with a third person for less than the compensation due under the Act, the employer remains liable for compensation only if written approval of the settlement is obtained from the employer and the employer's carrier before the settlement is executed, and by the person entitled to compensation. The approval goes on a form provided by the Secretary of Labor and is filed with the deputy commissioner within thirty days after the settlement. Under § 933(g)(2), if that approval is not obtained and filed, or if the employee fails to notify the employer of any settlement or judgment against a third person, "all rights to compensation and medical benefits under this chapter shall be terminated," whether or not the employer has already paid or acknowledged benefits.

Settling with a third party without the required approval can therefore end continued compensation and the medical care that 33 U.S.C. § 907(a) otherwise requires the employer to furnish. If the order of accepting benefits, filing suit and settling is unclear in your situation, you may want to consider requesting a case evaluation to talk through the sequence and what the statute requires.

How the Compensation Route and a Third-Party Claim Can Sit Side by Side

Because § 933(a) does not force a choice, both routes can run at once: compensation from the employer and a damages action against the third party. They do not run in isolation. An employer or insurer that has paid compensation may have a lien or subrogation interest in a third-party recovery, meaning a right to be repaid from it. The statute itself names two such repayment claims. If the Act's special fund or certain trust funds have made payments, § 933(g)(3) and (4) make those payments liens on the proceeds of a third-party settlement or judgment, and the trust fund is repaid ahead of the special fund.

For a family, this means a third-party recovery is not simply added on top of benefits. What they may weigh is how much compensation has been paid, by whom, and who may claim a share.

The two routes also differ in what they can provide. Compensation follows the Act's schedule regardless of fault. A third-party negligence or products action may allow categories the Act does not include, such as pain and suffering and loss of consortium, depending on the facts and the law that applies.

A Jones Act seaman stands in a different place. The Jones Act provides a negligence remedy against the seaman's own employer, and maintenance and cure are separate employer obligations. A seaman's third-party claim arises when someone other than the employer, such as another vessel's owner or an equipment maker, contributed to the injury. Our page on Jones Act negligence explains the employer side, and the page on cargo ship accidents shows how crew and longshore status split the routes on one vessel.

What a Third-Party Claim Has to Show

If you are considering a claim against a vessel, contractor or other outsider, the claim generally has to answer four questions: did that party owe you a duty of care, did it fall short of that duty, did that shortfall cause your injury, and what harm resulted. A products claim under the general maritime law, as East River recognizes, asks whether the product was defective and whether the defect caused the injury. An injury alone does not prove anyone's fault, and an equipment failure alone does not prove a defect. What is at stake is whether the evidence can connect what happened to someone outside the employment relationship.

When a worker is still recovering, the evidence question can feel far away. Yet the elements explain why certain records come up again and again. If you were hurt, the records that usually matter include incident and accident reports, vessel logs, maintenance and inspection records, equipment manuals and service history, medical records, photographs and video of the scene or equipment, and the names of coworkers and others who saw what happened. Families after a death often gather the same materials, along with records showing dependency.

For Longshore Act benefits running alongside, 33 U.S.C. § 912(a) generally requires written notice of an injury within thirty days after the injury or after the worker becomes aware of its relationship to the employment, with a one-year period for certain occupational diseases and exceptions in § 912(d). Under 33 U.S.C. § 913(a), a compensation claim is generally barred unless filed within one year after the injury or death, or within one year after the last payment made without an award, with the time not starting until the worker is aware of the relationship to the employment. Coverage itself, under 33 U.S.C. § 903(a), reaches injuries on navigable waters and adjoining areas such as piers, wharves, dry docks and terminals.

Seeing what a claim has to show can help a worker or family recognize which pieces of their own account are already documented and which are not, and an attorney can help identify where the gaps lie.