Dr. Craig Butz, 52, of Altamonte Springs was operating a personal watercraft with his 4-year-old daughter as a passenger when his jet ski collided with a center console boat operated by Thomas Carey, 67, of Clearwater. The collission happened near 941 Bay Esplanade near Clearwater Beach around 4:45 p.m. on Sunday. Dr. Butz was taken to Morton Plant Hospital in critical condition where he died upon arrival. His 4-year-old daughter was airlfited to Bayfront Health Hospital where she remains in critical condition. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is currently investigating the incident.
An injured tug boat captain has been awarded over 3 Million dollars due to a slip and fall accident. In August of 2015, the plaintiff was a tug boat captain. His job duties included steering the vessel and supervising the crew. On the morning of the accident, the tug was pushing two loaded chemical barges towards a fleeting area. At approximately 5:00 a.m. the captain was awakened by the sound of the tug’s engines backing down. He left his bunk in his athletic shoes and went to the helm to assist the pilot who was struggling to align the barges in the fleeting area. He took over the controls and radioed for another tug in the fleet to assist. With help from the assisted tug, the plaintiff was able to straighten the barges. As the captain was about to return to his cabin to prepare for his upcoming shift, a deckhand reported that diesel or some other fluid was spraying from a generator in the engine room. The captain determined that the safest approach to handle the situation was to simply switch generators rather than using the emergency kill switch as that would cause the entire tug to lose power. In order to switch generators, the captain was required to manually shut off the leaking generator which was accessible only from the engine room floor. The captain proceeded down the ladder followed by the deckhand. Upon reaching the engine room deck both the captain and deckhand slipped and fell on accumulated diesel sprayed from the generator. From this fall, the captain sustained a severe hip injury including a fracture to the right femoral head. The injured captain required emergency surgery where four screws were placed in his hip to stabilize and reduce the femoral fracture. The captain also injured his lower back.
Two tourists are reported dead after the 10-foot Yamaha Waverunner they were riding on slammed into a concrete bridge support in the area of the Bridge Road Causeway, north of the MacArthur Causeway.
When bringing a lawsuit dealing with an injured Jones Act seaman claim, much thought must be given to what court system, federal or state, the lawsuit should be filed and whether it is preferable to have a judge or jury decide the facts of the case. Maritime law affords injured seaman several options each of which has its pros and cons. In the case of Bell v. Westbank Fishing LLC, the decision was made to file the seaman’s injury claim in federal court without asking for a jury. Once filed in the federal court, Westbank, the defendant employer, filed formal demand seeking a jury, not the federal judge, decide the facts of the case, if it was liable for the accident, and if so, how much compensation the injured seaman is entitled to receive.
