Maintenance and cure


Your crewmember sustains a back injury when he slips and falls down a stairwell on the vessel. He is sent home to receive medical treatment. While he is home he develops an abscessed tooth and incurs thousands of dollars in dental surgery and care. Do you have to pay for his teeth as well as his back?


If he is an American seaman and/or you are a US based shipowner, yes you do.


owner paid for the first hernia, but not the second hernia. The court held the shipowner must pay for both hernias as the injuries manifested themselves while he was in the service of the vessel. Causation of the injuries is irrelevant.


Karen C. Hildebrandt Vice-President


The maintenance and cure duty arises when a sea- man becomes ill, injured or incapacitated or whose condition becomes aggravated or enhanced for any reason. A seaman receiving maintenance and cure for an injury or illness is deemed to still be in the service of the vessel until he is found at maximum medical improvement. If he manifests a second injury or illness while receiving maintenance and cure, he is entitled to maintenance and cure for the second condition even if unrelated to the original injury or illness.


Claudia Duarte was a seaman receiving maintenance and cure for a shipboard accident. While undergoing medical treatment she was involved in a car accident and was injured. The courts held that as Duarte was receiving maintenance and cure at the time of the car accident and was not at maximum medical improvement, she was still in the service of the ship and entitled to maintenance and cure for the injuries sustained in the car accident.


Brassea was hired as a fisherman aboard the M/V DAPHNE for the salmon season in Alaska. He suffered a hernia lifting a 12 gallon gas tank. While having surgery to repair the hernia, the surgeon found and repaired a second unrelated hernia caused by surgery Brassea had as an infant fifty years before. The ship-


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In an example of “what can possibly go wrong “, Gauthier injured his groin while working as a seaman. He received maintenance and cure and recovered well enough to go to work for another company. He aggravated the original injury which now needed surgery to repair. While he was in the hospital awaiting the surgery, tests revealed Gauthier had multiple blockages in the arteries to the heart and had to have heart bypass surgery. While he was recovering from the heart surgery, and before he could have the groin surgery, he developed hepatitis. The court found the shipowner was on the hook for maintenance and cure including the costs of all three injuries and illnesses as he was still in the service of the ship.


Seaman Messier hurt his back falling off a shipboard ladder. He went to his primary care physician for treatment. The doctor ordered standard blood tests. Messier’s back problem cleared up in a few days but the results of his blood tests revealed high creatine levels, which continued to rise. He was eventually hospitalized for kidney failure and a stent put in one of his kidneys.


After further testing Messier was discovered to be suffering from B-cell lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments. After ten months he went back to work. He brought suit claiming he was entitled to maintenance and cure for the entire ten months and the cost of the medical care because his illness manifested itself while he was in the service of the vessel. The problem for Messier was he did not put in for maintenance and


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