Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
Attorneys Kurt Arnold , Caj Boatright , Roland Christensen , Joseph McGowin , and Claire Traver are currently representing an Alabama man who was severely injured while working offshore. Our client was aboard a drillship in the Gulf of Mexico when he suffered debilitating harm because his employer failed to provide a safe workplace. Offshore work is inherently dangerous, and no worker should ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
According to a recent report from NOLA.com , offshore oil and gas accidents and deaths have spiked after the Trump administration rolled back regulations on the industry. Many were worried about the safety of offshore workers since the day the administration announced the rollbacks. Last year, we reported that safety advocate groups were concerned that that the administration was rolling back ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
Arnold & Itkin is proud to represent a man from Midlothian, Texas who was severely injured while working offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The man was ordered to test some lifeboats on the defendants’ drilling rig. While the defendants were pulling the man and his crew back into the rig, the boat dropped, jarring the man’s body and injuring his back. The man has already undergone back surgery. Back ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon erupted into flames after repeated neglect caused the offshore oil rig to explode. The disaster claimed the lives of 11 workers and injured 17 more. The well beneath the rig leaked for months and polluted the Gulf of Mexico with over 4.9 million barrels of oil. It was the worst oil spill in history—at least it was at the time. The Taylor oil spill, which started 6 ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
In August, the Bureau of Transportation Safety released its annual Blowout Prevention System Safety (BPSS) report . The report is a component of the SafeOCS program, a joint effort by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. SafeOCS enables workers to report information on the offshore industry. As a result, the program gathers, aggregates, ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
Last Thursday, the White House eased safety rules for offshore drilling rigs created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The administration claimed that loosening regulations will provide a boost in energy production. The initial regulations were originally put in place by the Obama administration in 2016. The reversal to the rules will be effective on December 27, 2018. The regulations ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
After Years of Fighting, Injured Worker Sees Hope Our firm celebrates with an offshore worker who received justice as a result of an appeal. Earlier this week, a Texas appellate panel reinstated our client's $1,700,000 award against his employer. Our client was stripped of his rightful compensation when a lower court wrongfully categorized him as a "borrowed worker," barring his claims. In a 2-1 ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
Royal Dutch Shell has begun production of its deepwater Kaikias well about 100 miles off the coast of New Orleans. They originally were to begin initial production in 2019 but have reached production-ready status a year early. The Kaikias development is in the Mars-Ursa basin and is owned jointly by Shell (80%) and MOEX North America LLC (20%). It's located in 4,500 feet of water and is drilled to ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
Our blog has previously talked about the difference between the UK's approach to offshore safety and our country's approach. In essence, the difference is in what our industry's value. In Britain, offshore companies are willing to invest in safety before failure occurs. Safety officials create a list of dire risks and prepare for them, regardless of precedent. In the US, however, we only fix ...
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Kurt Arnold, Cory Itkin and Kyle Findley recently represented a seaman who had sustained serious head injury while working overseas. The client was working on an offshore drilling vessel when he, through no fault of his own, was hit in the head by heavy equipment. Through meticulous investigation, the team at Arnold & Itkin discovered that their clients’ coworkers were at fault for this ...
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Posted By Arnold & Itkin LLP
The dangers of offshore drilling only exponentially increase as rigs drill deeper than they ever have before. In the frenetic search for new resources to relieve the scarcity of oil deposits, boundaries are being pushed, tested, and occasionally crossed altogether. As technology strives to keep up with the demand, offshore oil companies invest millions, even billions, into their rigs in order to ...
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On March 4, an incident occurred on an offshore drilling rig where a roughneck suffered from serious crush injuries . The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has since announced that they intend to launch an investigation into the incident. In their announcement, the PSA noted specifically that they are seeking to clarify the course of events, as well as identify the causes of it—both direct ...
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Arnold & Itkin Attorneys Kurt Arnold, and Kyle Findley filed suit on behalf of a Jones Act seaman who was injured aboard the American Phoenix, a self-described Jones Act tanker. The plaintiff suffered injury when a drill twisted and broke his hand. He required surgery and the implementation of pins and screws in his hand. When he reached out to our firm, we moved quickly to build a case on his ...
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After an offshore rigger was injured while working on a platform off the Louisiana coast, he sought Arnold & Itkin's help with his case. The man, from Thibodaux, Louisiana, suffered serious back and knee injuries after falling down a dangerous set of steps on the platform. Though there is always some assumed risk in offshore jobs, employers are still required to maintain a safe workplace for all ...
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