NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has granted a motion from Cenac Marine Services to dismiss claims it faced from a relief captain who alleged he suffered injuries while working on vessels owned by the company.
The plaintiff, Ricky Giroir, claimed that on two separate occasions he suffered injuries to his lower back and his right knee. In the later incident, he claimed the flat boat he was working on rocked and caused him to fall. In 2018, Giroir sued Cenac, “alleging that the defendant’s negligence under the Jones Act and the unseaworthiness of its vessels under the general maritime law caused his injuries in 2015 and 2017.”
Cenac then moved for summary judgment, dismissing all of the plaintiffs’ claims and arguing that “he has reached maximum medical improvement, relieving CMS of any further obligations.”
The court agreed, and in a decision filed on May 23, Judge Martin L.C. Feldman dismissed all of Giroir’s claims against the company with prejudice. The judge decided the company had already “satisfied its maintenance and cure obligation to Mr. Giroir respecting his right knee injury” by paying his medical expenses from those injuries.
Giroir had argued, based on a deposition from his orthopedic surgeon, that he “never officially concluded that [he] has reached maximum medical improvement,” and that Cenac was still liable, However, Feldman found that his surgeon’s testimony clearly reveals that he, in fact, had reached maximal medical improvement on or around Dec. 11, 2018, a year after his final surgery.
Cenac had called for a motion to strike the plaintiff’s call for jury, which was dismissed as a result of the granted summary judgment.