The maritime law is fashioned mostly by stare decisis – case law.  I’ve spent my 40-year career trying to shape that law in favor of seamen.  I’m 70 now and there are still several areas of the law in [...]

Your Content Goes Here It is beyond question that the value of board and lodging furnished on board ship to fishermen while engaged in the vessel’s fishing operations is considered a valuable part of their earnings and, to the [...]

Several years ago on these pages the question was asked: “When Setting Rates of Maintenance for Seamen with a House and Family, Should the Entire Mortgage Payment be Taken into Account?” (Trial News, April 2014). The article discussed a [...]

(This is a true story. Names have been changed for obvious reasons.) It irritates me that so many vessel owners think they can get away with cheating their employees on small amounts of wages. The employers assume, usually correctly, [...]

It is generally assumed that seamen are not entitled to be paid maintenance when they get thrown in jail. This article suggests that this is not, and should not always be, the rule. Marco Ramirez is a professional deckhand. [...]

There are no federal law penalties for cheating commercial fishermen on their wages. I’ve devoted much of my 38-year career attempting to correct this inequity. After many thwarted efforts, I thought I’d finally found the perfect case to set [...]