Selected Legal Articles To Request a Complete Article Contact: Merriam Law Officemailto:john@merriam-maritimelaw.com?subject=Merriam%20Law%20Officeshapeimage_1_link_0
1.    Do Seamen and Fishermen Injured in the Service of the Ship Have a Right to Medical Care for Life? (Trial News, publication of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, January 1994).
 
2.    State or Federal Court? (Trial News, March 1994):
Discussion of which maritime cases are better suited to be filed in which court system.
 
3.    Early Use of Statutory Offers of Settlement Helps Accomplish Legislative Intent (Trial News, October 1994):  Suggested use of RCW 4.84.250 et seq.
 
4.    Private Investigators: Deposition Witness Fees Paid as Experts or Fact Witnesses? (unpublished).
 
5.    Litigation or War of Attrition? (Trial News, February 1998):  A description of the trial and appeals in Miller v. Arctic Alaska Fisheries, 83 Wash.App. 255, reversed, 133 Wn.2d 250 (1997).
 
6.    Discovering the Blacklist, "This will go on your permanent record" (Trial News, 1998): A description of the Marine Index Bureau.
 
7.    Rates of Maintenance in Contracts of Employment Not Enforced When Too Low To Reimburse Reasonable Expenses for Recuperating Seamen (Trial News, December 1999).
 
8.    Dancing to the Jailhouse Rock (Trial News, March 2000):  Trying a case while one’s client is in prison.
 
9.    Are Surveillance Films Discoverable? (Trial News July/August, 2000).
 
10.    Maria (Wash. Free Press May/June 2009): The story of how a processor was treated by her employer after she was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease aboard a factory ship in the Bering Sea.
 
11.    Working Sixteen Hours a Day for No Pay (Trial News, March 2001):  Discussion of whether processors aboard factory trawler fishing vessels are entitled to minimum and overtime wage protection under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
 
12.    Shelby (Real Change newspaper, April 2001):  The story of what befell a fisherman after getting injured.
 
13.    Should Contingent Fees be Taken from Maintenance and Cure Recoveries? (Trial News, July/August 2001).
 
14.    Enhanced Injury Doctrine Adopted Into the General Maritime Law (Trial News, June 2003): Discussion of Van Valkenburg v. Puget Sound Inflatables, et al., 2002 A.M.C. 2673 (W.D. Wash. 2002).
 
15.    Local Federal Courts More Protective Than State Supreme Court of Fishermen’s Right to Unearned Wages (Trial News May 2005):  Two federal judges refuse to enforce artificially-short, 30-day contracts of employment after seamen are injured.
 
16.    The Effect of Intentional Concealment of a Prior Injury Upon a Seaman’s Claim for Jones Act Injury (Trial News July/August 2005):  Maintenance and cure might be forfeited but the same is not necessarily true for liability claims.
 
17.    Are Punitive Damages Available When a Master Assaults a Deckhand?  (Trial News, November 2005).
 
18.    The Aborted Voyage of The Nanea (Washington Free Press, January/February 2006):  What is it worth to a yacht owner to apologize to his injured deckhand?
 
19.    Fishing Company Makes Home Invasion Motion (Trial News, July/August 2006):  Fishing company claims an injured seaman is not entitled to maintenance sufficient to keep up his mortgage payments on a house in the suburbs.
 
20.    Millions for Defense but Not One Dime for Tribute
(Trial News March 2008):  The case of Gruver v. Lesman, 2007 A.M.C. 1559, 489 F.3d 978 (9th Cir. 2007), on remand.
 
21.    The Effect of Maintenance Payments on:  1) Unemployment Compensation; and  2) Child Support Obligations (Trial News May 2008).
 
22.    Are Punitive Damages Available for the Failure to Pay Maintenance and Cure? (Trial News October 2008):  Until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the issue, punitive damages are theoretically available in the state courts of Washington, even though the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit prohibits punitive damages for the unreasonable failure to pay maintenance and cure.  State courts are not bound by interpretations by federal courts of the federal maritime law until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the law in question.
 
23.    A Maritime Employment Contract (Washington Free Press Nov./Dec. 2008):  The story of a paralegal taking a job as cook on a fishing boat.
 
24.    The Status of Maintenance (for seamen) and Child Support in Washington after Aguilera v. F/T Alaska Juris, 2008 A.M.C. 1845, 535 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2008) (Trial News October 2009):  The Ninth Circuit approved withholding of child support from maintenance in Texas.  This article outlines a strategy to prevent that result for a child support order issued by a Washington child support agency.
 
25.    The One-Armed Lawyer (Wash. Free Press July/Aug. 2009):  The story of a crooked maritime lawyer from New York.