BRS Secures Dismissal in Maritime Employment Contract Case

Daphne McNutt Barry and Stephen Barry, working with colleagues from New York, recently successfully secured the dismissal of all claims by a foreign seaman against a foreign ship operator filed in Orleans Parish.  The Civil District Court Judge granted the defense’s motion to enforce a forum selection clause in the seaman’s employment contract.  Applying the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Great Lakes vs Raiders, which held that the laws and policies of any one state cannot disrupt the unity of federal maritime law in enforcing choice of law provisions, the court ruled that the analogous maritime presumption in favor of forum selection clauses warranted dismissal in this case as well.  The court further looked to the provisions of the international Maritime Labour Convention to find that the ship operator was a party entitled to enforce the forum selection clause of the employment contract with the ship owner.