According to official statistics, about 50-55 Ukrainian seafarers die abroad every year. So, in other words, once a week the deadweight is being sent to Ukraine.
And it’s only the official statistics. According to my data, the number of Ukrainian seafarers deaths is much bigger, as the deaths of the seafarers on arrival to Ukraine are not taken into account. From my practice only, I can at once recollect about 10 recent cases, when the seafarers, having received very hard injury or disease aboard, have died within a month after returning to the Motherland.
A question arises in this course, whether all the died seafarers’ families have right to compensation payments by the contract, and how many families urgently need the legal aid.
Let’s consider in what cases the died/killed seafarers’ families are subjected to compensation.
I want to draw your attention, that in this article we will not touch the sums and amount of compensation issue.
So, let’s start. In what cases the families of the died seafarer are subjected to be compensated.
- In the case of the work – related injury resulting in death.
- In the case of the injury resulting in death in the period of the seafarer delivery aboard a ship and ex ship.
- In the case of natural death, if it is directly provided in the provisions of the Employment Contact (as a rule, these are ITF covered agreements).
- In the case of the seafarer death ashore during 3-4 months after the signing off for the health reason, if there is a causal connection between the death and injury/disease aboard.
But again, this paragraph goes with a very big stipulation.
In what cases the ship owners refuse in compensation payments to the seafarer family in connection with the death thereof and, subsequently in what cases the seafarers and the members of their families need compensation.
- In the case of the natural death of the seafarer
- In the case of discovery alcohol or drug substance in the blood of the dead/killed person
- In the case of the drug or alcohol intoxication.
- In the case of suicide
- If the death was provoked by the illness hidden by the seafarer in time of employment.
- In the case of the death ashore after signing off if there is no causal connection between injury/illness and the death.
As you can see, the reason to refuse in payment is rather wide and almost in all these cases, the dead seafarer’s family needs help in receiving compensation payments.
However, I can assure you, that the ship owner’s refusal of payment doesn’t mean the case loss and even the most no-win cases are possible to succeed. But they just need more time, documents and patience.
In my practice, I twice succeeded in getting compensations for the family of the seafarer died of AIDS. And believe me, it’s probably, the most difficult case category possible. Apart of this, the families received payments by suicidal cases, which also belongs to no-win category. Cancer, Hepatitis, Insult and many other diseases.
Unfortunately, the percentage of such cases is not that large as in comparison with the other cases, but still, it’s success, when the families appealing for the legal aid, received compensations in no-win cases.