Commercial fishing, especially in the icy and windswept waters of the North Pacific, is dangerous and deadly business.  As maritime lawyers representing injured seamen, Anderson Connell & Carey has worked with hundreds of fishermen injured aboard crabbers, trawlers, longliners, scallop boats, and gillnetters, as well as factory ships. We have seen virtually every kind of injury resulting from every sort of predicament.
Typically, the maritime employer will offer to make some payment to an injured seaman, but deny any fault on the part of the vessel. The earnest and hard working crewmember will accept that his injury was "just one of those things" that happens on a fishing boat.
A commercial fisherman who is injured should never release his claim against his s employer without advice from a maritime lawyer.  Experienced employers in the commercial fishing industry don't pay appropriate amounts to those injured seamen who do not retain counsel.  Two examples are instructive:
1.    A deck hand aboard a trawler came to Anderson Connell & Carey after being offered and tentatively accepting an offer to settle for a sum in excess of $30,000 for an injury to his leg. Fortunately, before settling he sought our opinion. After aggressively litigating the matter, a settlement for $300,000 was obtained for his injury.
2.    Anderson, Connell & Carey tried a case in Federal Court in Seattle involving a cervical injury to an engineer aboard a longliner. The defendant never offered more than $50,000.  After trial, the court awarded $232,000.

The lesson should be clear. Maritime employers need to be forced to fairly compensate crewmembers for shipboard injury. It is our practice to do whatever is required to secure full and fair compensation for our clients.