Posted on 04/29/2009 2:08:13 AM PDT by marktwain
Richard Hicks, chief steward on the Maersk Alabama (AP Photo)Richard Hicks, chief steward on the Maersk Alabama, filed a lawsuit yesterday charging the Waterman Steamship Corporation and Maersk Line, Ltd with knowingly sending him into pirate-infested waters without adequate protection.
Somali pirates off the coast of Africa hijacked the Maersk Alabama, an American-flagged cargo ship, earlier this month.
The ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage and held in a lifeboat until Easter Sunday, when U.S. Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed three pirates holding him captive. A fourth kidnapper was arrested.
When the pirates boarded the ship on April 8, Hicks – a native of Royal Palm Beach, Florida – was preparing meals for his crewmembers.
When Hicks heard Captain Phillips’ PA announcement that pirates had boarded the vessel, he and fellow crewmembers locked themselves in the ship’s engine/steering room where they remained for the next 12 hours.
“The engine room was dark and hot,” Hicks told the PRNewswire, “We were all cramping up with heat stroke.”
The lawsuit alleges that both Maersk and Waterman Steamship ignored numerous requests to improve safety measures for cargo ships that sail along the Somali coast.
“We have had safety meetings every month for the last three years,” Hicks said in his statement, “and made suggestions of what should be done. They have been ignored.”
Houston attorney Terry Bryant is representing Hicks in the case.
“We think [Maersk and Waterman] should be more concerned about the personnel on their ships than the profits the companies make,” Bryant said in a press appearance that accompanied the filing.
The suit asks for $75,000 in damages, and seeks to force the two companies into implementing measures such as arming crews, providing security guards or using alternate shipping routes to protect other sailors.
Hicks, who has worked for more than thirty years as a merchant seamen, also told PR that he still suffers from injuries as a result of the incident and is afraid to return to his work as a chief steward.
“My family is not looking forward to me going back out to sea,” he said. “I'm still nervous… leery. I might find something else to do.”
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I have never heard of a lawsuit *against* a shipping company because they allowed arms aboard their ship. Now we have a lawsuit against them because they refused to allow arms to protect the crew.
Maybe this will put to rest the excuse that ships are not allowed arms because they are afraid of liability lawsuits.
Give him back to the pirates.
I agree with this lawsuit. I don’t think any employer has the right to demand their employees be defenseless. Either defend them or allow them to defend themselves.
It is no big secret this area of the world is dangerous place to work.
He’s been a seaman for 30 years. Time to retire dude.
I saw Hicks and his attorney on television. I wasn’t impressed. He’s been a cook for many years. I’m sure he knew there are pirates around. Mostly he was whining in the interview about how hot it was in the room the crew had locked themselves in.
Reads kind of Soviet in response. Off to the gulag with dissenters. I believe that the crew, collectively or severally, should be sueing the shipping line, just as a believe that students who are harmed on a university campus which denies students the ability to defend themselves should be sued.
The usual line is, “I’m against the abuse of the judicial system, BUT IN THIS CASE...”, and, in the end, that’s how we get ourselves the craziness of American courts.
I agree, send the cook and his trial shyster to the courts of Somalia.
The ship was not unarmed ! They were equipped with the socailist-value-set. All you do is offer this to the pirates instead of violence and they throw down their arms and give you a hug. Surely no one was contemplating Imperialist violence in the age of Obama ?
Ambulance chasing lawyers aside, the Government are going to have to decide which one of the socialist-value-set is trumps here. Either the poor noble peasant victims of capitalism, the undocumented cargo transferers, or those wage slavery victims of capitalist oppression, the workers who crew the boat. I suppose it is obvious: The villains must be the capitalist exploiter shipping line owners. They will have to pay out to the crew and to the undocumented cargo transferers.
Why did not I think of that before ?
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