A deckhand slips on a wet stair between watches, hits a bulkhead, and can’t put weight on his knee by morning. The vessel is still 200 miles out. Someone in the wheelhouse pulls up the crew manual and starts asking questions the deckhand may not have thought about.
Who pays for the ER visit at the next port? What about groceries and rent while he’s laid up at home? Does any of it depend on whose fault it was?
The answers have existed, in some form, since the 12th century. In American courts, they’ve existed since 1823. And injured mariners still spend months fighting for them.
What Is Maintenance and Cure?
Maintenance and cure is the shipowner’s duty to support a seaman who gets hurt or sick in the service of the vessel. It has two halves that do very different jobs.
- Maintenance. A daily living allowance meant to cover room and board while the seaman recovers ashore. Rent, groceries, utilities, basic transportation. It isn’t lost wages and it isn’t pain and suffering. It’s the cost of keeping a roof over the injured worker’s head.
- Cure. Reasonable medical expenses tied to the injury or illness: doctor visits, hospital bills, imaging, physical therapy, prescriptions, and travel to appointments. The seaman generally gets to choose the treating doctor.
Both benefits run until the seaman is fit for duty or hits maximum medical improvement, the point where more treatment won’t meaningfully help. Cornell’s legal encyclopedia frames the obligation as a bedrock feature of maritime common law that shipowners and unions cannot contract around.
Do You Have to Prove the Employer Did Something Wrong?
You do not have to prove they did something wrong – and that’s the piece most injured mariners don’t realize until a lawyer explains it. Maintenance and cure is a no-fault benefit. It doesn’t matter whether the vessel owner was negligent, whether a coworker caused the accident, or whether the seaman himself was partly to blame.
If the injury or illness happened in the service of the vessel and the worker qualifies as a seaman, the duty attaches. That’s a very different animal from a Jones Act negligence claim, which requires proving the employer failed some duty of care. Maintenance and cure is closer to a promise built into the job itself. Show up hurt, and the benefit is owed.
Why Are Injured Mariners Fighting for It?
The problem is that “owed” and “paid promptly and in full” aren’t the same sentence. A few recurring pressure points show up in almost every disputed claim:
- Low daily rates. Some employers still cut maintenance checks at rates that haven’t moved in decades, on the theory that this reflects the bare cost of a bunk and meals aboard ship. Actual rent and groceries ashore cost more than that almost everywhere.
- Early cutoffs. Insurance adjusters lean on a company doctor’s opinion that the seaman has reached maximum medical improvement, then stop paying. If a second opinion says treatment could still help, maritime law generally resolves that doubt in favor of the worker, but only if the worker pushes back.
- Pre-existing condition fights. Employers argue the injury is really an old problem the worker brought aboard. Aggravation of a prior condition during service is usually still covered, but this is a favorite basis for a denial letter.
- Slow-walked medical bills. Cure gets paid late, in pieces, or only after repeated demands. The seaman ends up fielding collections calls for treatment the employer was supposed to cover.
What Happens If an Employer Refuses to Pay?
The law has teeth here, and they’ve gotten sharper. A shipowner who unreasonably withholds maintenance and cure can be liable for the unpaid benefits, the seaman’s attorney’s fees, and consequential damages from the delay itself, like a worsening medical condition. If the refusal is willful or arbitrary, punitive damages are on the table too.
In Atlantic Sounding v. Townsend, the Supreme Court held in 2009 that general maritime law allows punitive damages when a vessel owner willfully disregards this duty, and that the Jones Act doesn’t preempt them. That ruling changed the math for insurance carriers.
Denying a modest daily maintenance claim to save money starts to look expensive when a jury can add a punitive number on top. The fights haven’t stopped, but seamen now have a real hammer they didn’t have a generation ago.
What Should an Injured Seaman Do?
A few practical moves matter early, before the paperwork hardens:
- Report the injury in writing. A verbal report to a captain is easy to lose later. A written incident report, with a copy for the worker, is much harder to argue with.
- Keep every receipt. Rent, utilities, groceries, mileage to appointments. Maintenance rates are contestable, and receipts are what raise them from a token daily figure to actual living costs.
- See your own doctor. A company-selected physician’s opinion tends to line up with the company’s interests. Independent treatment records carry more weight when there’s a dispute about maximum medical improvement.
- Don’t sign broad releases. A quick payment in exchange for a release of “all claims” can end the case for a fraction of its value. Consulting a maritime attorney before signing anything often pays for itself many times over.
The doctrine is 800 years old. The playbook employers use to shrink it is much newer, and it works on workers who don’t know what they’re entitled to. Knowing the rules is most of the fight.