If you’ve been hurt on a crewboat, tugboat, offshore rig, or pleasure boat of any kind, you need an attorney with expertise in maritime law. The law applying to maritime injuries is federal and has major differences from the state law that applies to land-based injuries. You also want an attorney who understands the industry enough to foresee and counter the arguments you will face in your case about what caused your injury.
I’m Jeremy Hanna, the founder of Hanna Law Firm. I grew up around and worked in the crewboat and tugboat industry before going to law school. Before founding Hanna Law Firm, I worked for a famed maritime plaintiff’s attorney who has now been appointed as a federal judge, and I worked for a maritime defense firm. I can’t profess to know everything about each and every maritime trade, but I do think that when you talk to me about what happened leading up to your injury, I’ll understand the dangers you were facing better than most attorneys without working experience in a maritime industry would.
If you come to Hanna Law Firm after your injury, our first focus will always be on your health. We can help to get you started treating with qualified medical professionals. If you’re a Jones Act worker, we’ll demand maintenance and cure from your employer. Under most circumstances, your employer is required under maritime law to pay for your medical expenses and a minimal cost of living stipend. Your employer’s maintenance and cure obligation applies in most circumstances even when it was another company that caused your injury. If your employer refuses to pay maintenance and cure that they owe to you, we will seek punitive damages against them.
We will then begin collecting the evidence we need to prove your case in the event that the company that caused your injury is unreasonable in settlement negotiations. We will send preservation of evidence letters to all of the companies or parties involved and seek to perform vessel inspections and crewmember interviews.
When your treatment course and path to recovery start to become clear, we will begin negotiations to try to settle your case.
If the insurance companies involved are refusing to negotiate reasonably, we will file suit. In many circumstances, maritime law gives you three years from the date of your injury to file suit. We generally recommend filing suit before the one year prescriptive period applicable under Louisiana law, however.
Once we file suit, the other side will get attorneys involved if they have not up to that point. In some cases, we can convince the opposing attorneys of weaknesses in their case that the adjusters were having trouble seeing. That’s not always the situation though. If the defendants fail to offer you a reasonable settlement, we will take your case to trial and fight to have a jury award you every dollar you deserve for the losses you suffered due to the their negligence.