In Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, LLC, 970 F.3d 550, a three-judge panel of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal held on August 14, 2020, that seaman status under the Jones Act may apply to an injured welder on a jack-up oil rig adjacent to an inland pier. Maintaining that the plaintiff qualified as a seaman under controlling Fifth Circuit precedent but questioning that precedent in light of Supreme Court case law, the panel urged the Fifth Circuit to review the case en banc.
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Lance C. Bullock
U.S. Fifth Circuit Clarifies “Substantial Nexus” Test for LHWCA
By Devin C. Reid, Lance C. Bullock & Liskow & Lewis on
In Mays v. Chevron Pipe Line Co., 2020 WL 4432025, a three-judge panel of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal held on August 3, 2020, that the Longshore Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act may apply to an injury in state territorial waters if there is a substantial nexus between an employee’s injury and his employer’s, both direct and statutory, extractive operations on the Outer Continental Shelf.
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