New Jones Act/maintenance and cure case from the First Circuit Court of Appeals.  The case is Bielunas v. F/V Misty Dawn, Inc., 2010 U.S. APP Lexis 20855, and the original opinion can be found here.

First paragraph gives a bit of a clue as to how the court is going to hold:

This case – according to Wojciech Bielunas – is about life-altering pain. Working as a commercial fisherman aboard the F/V SEA WATCHER I, Bielunas had his right foot crushed in a ghastly accident. An orthopedic surgeon said it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to Bielunas’s foot.
His livelihood lost, Bielunas later sued the vessel’s owner, F/V Misty Dawn, Inc., charging Jones Act negligence, ship unseaworthiness, and a right to maintenance and cure. A jury returned a verdict in Bielunas’s favor, and the district judge entered judgment against Misty Dawn for $2,307,690. In this arena, Misty Dawn criticizes the district judge for admitting certain evidence and denying a motion for new trial or remittitur. Detecting no hint of reversible error, we affirm the judgment below.

“Safety was hardly the watchword” – methinks the ship has a tough road to hoe.  Rocks and shoals ahead?

Something about admiralty cases makes appellate judges wax poetic.  Some choice, not-often heard phrases:

“Boatloads of cases”, counsel “blasting” his opponents, “Neither claim has traction,”  “if a picture speaks a thousand words, this one spoke plenty”, “Misty Dawn talked a good game about how safety was a top concern”, “Also sailing wide of the mark”, “This is where Misty Dawn gets tripped up”, “For starters”, and “As a parting shot.”

Practitioner note:  this case recites the case law on pain and suffering damages and unit of time calculations in closing argument.