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Punitive Damages for failing to pay maintenance or cure

If you have suffered a maritime injury in the service of a marine vessel, under the Jones Act you are entitled to receive maintenance and cure benefits. If your employer has “willfully and wantonly” disregarded their maintenance and cure obligations, and has failed to provide you with the benefits to which you are entitled, you may additionally be permitted to recover “punitive” or “exemplary” damages from your employer. These damages are designed to discipline employers for improperly failing to provide maintenance and cure to injured seamen, as well as to deter other employers from doing the same.

In the recent 2009 Supreme Court decision of Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend [click here to read case], the Court recognized the availability of punitive damages under the Jones Act. In Atlantic Sounding, a seaman sustained injuries to his arm and shoulder after falling and landing on the deck of a tugboat. Although the seaman was injured while in the service of the vessel, the tugboat’s owner advised him that he would not be provided with maintenance and cure benefits. As a result of the shipowner’s improper withholding of maintenance and cure, the Supreme Court allowed the injured employee to seek punitive damages in addition to the benefits withheld.

If you have been injured while in the service of a vessel, and an employer/shipowner has refused to provide you with the maintenance and cure benefits to which you are entitled under the Jones Act, you may be able to obtain additional punitive damages based on your employer’s misconduct.