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U.S. District Judge Helen Ginger Berrigan of the Eastern District of Louisiana recently granted summary judgment in favor of an employer, and dismissed a seaman’s Jones Act negligence claims.  Plaintiff was a tankerman aboard a tank barge which was being loaded at the Valero Norco facility.  As the senior tankerman, he was in charge of the loading operations.  While concluding the loading of a tank barge, he and another tankerman commenced disconnecting a hydraulic loading arm.  Unbeknownst to plaintiff or the other tankerman, however, a Valero employee prematurely lifted the loading arm, which allegedly pinned plaintiff between the arm and a barge winch.  Plaintiff did not report his injuries until the following day, and eventually filed suit against his Jones Act employer.

The employer filed for summary judgment based upon a lack of evidence that it was in any way negligent.  plaintiff contended that all communication between himself and the Valero employee should have been either by radio or hand signal.  However, plaintiff did not even know where his personal radio was at the time of the accident, nor could he explain why he, as the person incharge, failed to use hand signals before the accident.  Plaintiff testified in his deposition that none of his co-employees did anything to cause or contribute to his accident and he admitted that there were no problems with the barge at all.  His negligence claim revolved solely around his contention that the Valero employee should not have lifted the loading arm when he did.  Based upon these facts, the court found that there was simply no negligence on the part of the employer, and dismissed the Jones Act negligence claims, with prejudce.

Brown v. Cenac Towing Co., Inc., 2010 WL 520492 (E.D. La. 2010).