Boat on the sea
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Alaska Troopers have cited two crewmembers of the F/V ALASKA OCEAN for failure to obtain crewmember licenses. The citations were issued in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and bail of $260 was set for each of the crewmembers. The citations are pending in Unalaska District Court. One crewmember resides in Washington and the other crewmember is from Massachusetts. In most instances, crewmembers who are not strictly processors and are working as deckhands must get a crewmember license.

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The BRITTANEY MOE, a 143 foot barge, is adrift in 12 foot seas and 50 mile an hour winds southwest of Kodiak in the Shelikof Strait. The barge had been under tow by the tug SEAHAWK when it was reportedly lost early Tuesday morning. The barge is not in danger of going aground and recovery efforts are underway.

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A 620-foot cargo ship has collided with a 51-foot aluminum hulled fishing vessel off the coast of Massachusetts. The three crewmen on gillnet boat MICHAEL BRANDON were rescued by the Coast Guard and the vessel towed back to Scituate. The fishing vessel suffered extensive damage and later sank at the pier. The MICHAEL BRANDON was reportedly fishing near the shipping lanes when the collision occurred. The cargo ship involved in the collision, West Bay, was sailing for New Orleans with a load of salt. It has been ordered to return to Boston for purposes of a Coast Guard casualty investigation into the cause of the sinking.

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An engineer aboard the tug BARBARA McALLISTER injured his leg and became stuck in the vessel’s engine room. The tug was working the Hudson River near Kingston N.Y. when the accident happened. With the aid of the United States Coast Guard and local emergency services, the crewman was freed and transported for emergency medical services. The cause of the accident is unknown at this time and is under investigation.

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A diver who was a crewman on the 68-foot sea cucumber boat ISLAND DANCER has died in an accident in Alaska’s Chester Bay near Metlakatla. Crew from the vessel reported that the diver surfaced from a dive, removed his mask and immediately sank beneath the water. The crew of the vessel pulled the man up utilizing his air hose and attempted CPR; however those efforts failed to revive the accident victim. The accident is under investigation by the United States Coast Guard and Metlakatla police.

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A Washington State King County Court Judge has entered a 1.12 million dollar verdict in favor of an injured Bristol Bay fisherman. The 50-year old fisherman, Ronald Lanphere, injured his knee in 2008 when his rain gear became entangled in a rotating shaft of the vessel’s engine room. Lanphere had two knee surgeries as a result of the accident and may require a knee replacement in the future.
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Sunday the 30-foot fishing vessel ELLA ANN sank at the mouth of Willapa Bay while fishing for dungeness crab. One of two crewmen aboard the vessel was lost in the accident. 34 year old Luis Perez was tragically lost in the accident. It is unknown at this time what caused the vessel to capsize and sink, but the matter will be investigated by the Coast Guard. The captain of the vessel, Eric Petit, narrowly escaped death when he was revived with CPR by a helicopter crew after he was rescued.

Crewmen working aboard small crab boats on the coast of Washington are Jones Act seamen protected by Federal Maritime law. However, there are few Federal safety regulations that protect the crewmen who do one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The dungeness crab fishery is recognized as a job with extremely high fatality rates. The small crab boats that work in the dungeness fishery are often exposed to severe weather and sea conditions. It is imperative that all safety equipment aboard these boats be kept regularly maintained and that crews be drilled in vessel safety. Accidents in the crab fleet are frequently caused by overloading the boat with crab pots, poor maintenance, and working in too heavy weather.

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Five crewmen from the 34-foot fishing vessel SANDY M have been rescued from their sinking boat by the Coast Guard. The crew issued a mayday call saying they were abandoning ship at about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Coast Guard helicopters were able to reach the men within 40 minutes, and began lifting them to safety. Three of the crewmen were able to get into the vessel’s life raft, but the other two crewmen were rescued from the water. All five crewmen were taken to Sitka for emergency medical treatment. Weather at the time of the accident was reported at 40 miles per hour winds with seas in the 6 to 8 foot range. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

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A vessel with two men aboard capsized Saturday at the mouth of Willapa Harbor. The body of one man has been recovered, and the other man remains missing. The Coast Guard has suspended the search for the missing man. Few facts are currently known about the accident. After the vessel capsized, one of the men was able to send a 911 call via a cell phone reporting the accident. He reported that both of them were in the water and not wearing life jackets. Search of the area turned up a debris field, but the missing man was not located.

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In many cases involving injured fishermen, during litigation to obtain compensation for the crewman under the Jones Act, the fishing company attempts to block and obstruct the crewman from getting information necessary to prepare his case for trial.

A Washington State Superior Court Judge in King County has recently ordered an Alaska fishing company to designate a witness to testify regarding their comparative fault defense. The fishing company had refused to designate a witness for the corporation, claiming the evidence on which they based their comparative fault argument was attorney work product. In essence what the fishing company was attempting to do was hide behind the corporate structure – refusing to articulate a position on comparative fault in discovery, only to have its lawyer make the argument at trial. In ordering the company to produce the witness, the Court rejected the fishing company’s argument, noting that it would defeat the discovery process. Requiring a witness to be produced under Rule 30(b)(6) is not necessarily objectionable merely because the identified subjects about which the witness is to testify involve an opinion or contention that relates to fact or application of law to fact. Beard Stacey & Jacobsen, PLLC represented the injured crewman in this case, Masterson v. Unimak Vessel, LLC, Superior Court for King County Cause No. 09-2-30167-SEA. This case is set for jury trial in January, 2011.

Contact Information
Stacey & Jacobsen, PLLC Seattle, Washington
4039 21st Ave W. #401
Seattle, WA 98199
Phone: 206-282-3100 Toll Free: 877-332-5529 Fax: 206-282-1149
Stacey & Jacobsen, PLLC Anchorage, Alaska
205 E Benson Blvd #321
Anchorage, AK 99503
Phone: 907-751-2588 Toll Free: 877-332-5529

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