Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Is $9.6 mil a record award?

Willie David Williams has been awarded a unanimous $9.6 million jury verdict against Diamond Offshore Services. Mr. Williams was employed by Diamond Offshore on a semi-submersible drilling vessel, OCEAN LEXINGTON, as a drilling worker in January 2008 when he was injured while offshore Egypt (Williams v. Diamond Offshore Services Limited, et al.; in the 164th District Court of Harris County, Texas; No. 2011-31922).

According to court documents, the plaintiff is a Mississippi resident and was working for the Houston-based Diamond Offshore Services as a mechanical supervisor. Mr. Williams claimed that he was ordered to unsafely repair a set of elevators, used to lift pipe into the drilling operations, to avoid a shutdown of the drilling operations being conducted for BP. Mr. Williams claimed that Diamond Offshore’s failure to have sufficient elevator spares onboard, as well as its failure to properly maintain its equipment in a safe and seaworthy manner, created an unnecessary emergency situation and directly led to his career-ending back injury. The jury found that Diamond Offshore’s vessel was unseaworthy and its operational negligence was also responsible for Mr. Williams’ injuries (Williams v. Diamond Offshore Services Limited, et al.; in the 164th District Court of Harris County, Texas; No. 2011-31922).

Monday, September 30, 2013

MEL IN ALASKA -- URGENT

If you write business in Alaska, you have probably received a notice from the Alaska DOI regarding a hearing regarding the AK export list.  Details can be found at http://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=169486

The hearing is Thursday October 3rd and the deadline for written comments is Tuesday, October at 4:30 ADT

As you may be aware there have been significant issues recently on exporting Maritime Employers liability (MEL)  coverage, particularly to London, and yet there are almost no licensed markets writing this coverage in Alaska for most operations.

As such I would urge you to send your request to have Maritime Employers Liability added to the export list for Alaska urgently to Sarah.mcnair@alaska.gov before the deadline!