Bollinger Shipyards Longshore Claim

If you needed brain surgery, you would not hand the job to someone who has only ever treated patients for colds and sprained ankles. He is still a doctor. He still went to medical school. He has just never been inside a skull. The TV lawyer on the billboard is that doctor. He has practiced law for years. He has never handled a federal LHWCA claim. He has certainly never represented a Bollinger Shipyards worker in front of a federal Administrative Law Judge. He does not know the Covington district office. He does not know the judges. He does not know the Bollinger claims operation. And when a Bollinger worker who got hurt calls his number, the TV lawyer takes the case, fumbles the federal system, and settles for whatever Bollinger’s carrier puts on the table. Bollinger’s carrier knows exactly what that number is. It is the number a TV settlement mill will accept.

Who Bollinger Shipyards Is And Why Their Workers Need Federal Representation

Bollinger Shipyards is a major Gulf Coast shipbuilder and repair facility operating across multiple locations in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bollinger builds and repairs commercial vessels, government vessels, and workboats. The company operates facilities along the Gulf Coast waterfront with workers across a range of trades — welders, pipefitters, riggers, painters, electricians, machinists, and production workers doing the same physically demanding shipyard work that produces LHWCA claims at Ingalls.

Bollinger workers in the waterfront production areas — working on vessels under construction or repair on or adjacent to navigable waters — are covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Not Mississippi state workers’ compensation. Not general negligence. A federal workers’ compensation system with its own forms, its own procedures, its own judges, and its own benefit structure. The same system Ingalls workers are covered by. The same system the TV lawyer has never entered. For a review of exactly how the coverage determination works for shipyard production workers — which classifications fall under the LHWCA and which fall under Mississippi state law — the Ingalls workers compensation vs longshore claim page walks through that analysis. The tests are identical for Bollinger workers.

What Bollinger Workers Face When They File A Longshore Claim

Bollinger’s insurance carrier processes LHWCA claims routinely. The adjuster assigned to a Bollinger worker’s file has seen this situation before. Many times. He knows the federal system cold. He knows which lawyers on the Gulf Coast will take a Bollinger LHWCA case to hearing before an Administrative Law Judge and which ones will fold before the case ever gets that far.

The recorded statement request comes immediately. The adjuster frames it as standard documentation. It is not documentation for your benefit. It is evidence collection for the carrier’s defense. The full picture of what that statement is actually building against you is on the recorded statement warning page. Do not give it before you have a lawyer who has actually tried a federal LHWCA case.

The carrier’s doctor follows. Bollinger will direct you to a physician in their occupational health network. That physician’s job is to produce records that serve Bollinger’s litigation position — minimal impairment ratings, early return to full duty, attribution of your condition to pre-existing degeneration rather than the work that actually caused it. You have the right to your own treating physician under the LHWCA. Exercising that right correctly is one of the most consequential strategic decisions in your case. How to do it is covered on the choose your own doctor under the Longshore Act Mississippi page.

The settlement offer arrives when the carrier believes you are most vulnerable. The number they put in front of you is built on their average weekly wage calculation — which understates your actual earnings — and their impairment rating — which understates your actual disability. Two wrong numbers multiplied together produce a settlement figure that is wrong from the foundation. The Pascagoula longshore average weekly wage page explains exactly how carriers understate the AWW and how to correct it. The Mississippi longshore permanent disability schedule page shows what your injury is actually worth when the correct numbers are used.

The Injury Patterns Bollinger Workers Bring To Federal Hearings

Bollinger workers face the same injury patterns as Ingalls workers because the work is structurally similar. Welders, pipefitters, and painters working on vessels in confined spaces accumulate the same spinal degeneration, shoulder damage, and occupational disease conditions that produce the largest LHWCA claims. The Ingalls repetitive injury longshore claim page explains the cumulative trauma legal framework that applies equally to Bollinger workers — the discovery rule, the pre-existing condition defense, the coverage question for fabrication shop workers.

Hearing loss from years of shipyard noise exposure is one of the most undercompensated conditions at every Gulf Coast shipyard. Bollinger workers who have spent careers in production areas with inadequate hearing protection have compensable claims worth up to 200 weeks under the LHWCA schedule. Most of them never file. They do not know the claim exists. They do not know the statute of limitations runs from when they knew the cause, not when the hearing first deteriorated. The full analysis is on the Ingalls hearing loss longshore claim page — the legal framework applies identically to Bollinger workers even though the page carries the Ingalls name.

Traumatic injuries from crane accidents, equipment failures, and industrial accidents at Bollinger facilities produce the most catastrophic claims. A Bollinger worker seriously injured in a crane accident has both the LHWCA workers’ compensation claim and potentially a third-party negligence claim under 33 U.S.C. Section 905(b) if the vessel owner’s negligence contributed to the accident. That third-party claim — the one the TV lawyer would never find — is explained on the Pascagoula maritime injury lawyer page. Missing it means leaving the most significant recovery on the table.

What Changes When Bollinger Knows Your Lawyer Has Been In That Hearing Room

Bollinger’s carrier prices every settlement offer based on who is on the other side. A TV settlement mill that has never taken a Bollinger LHWCA case to hearing is a TV settlement mill that will accept whatever number keeps the file moving toward closure. The carrier knows that. The offer reflects it.

A Pascagoula longshore lawyer who has actually been in front of the Administrative Law Judges in the Covington district is a lawyer the carrier has to prepare against. They cannot lowball a lawyer who has beaten them at hearing before because he will do it again. That credible threat of a hearing is the lever that moves settlement offers. The TV lawyer has no lever. He has never pulled it. The carrier knows that too.

My office is in Ocean Springs. I have handled LHWCA claims for Gulf Coast shipyard workers. I know the federal system. I know the judges. And I know what Bollinger’s carrier will and will not do when the lawyer on the other side has actually tried these cases. Get the free book at the bottom of this page before you call anyone about your Bollinger longshore claim.

▼ Get Your FREE Book Right Now ▼
Fill Out The Form Below And I Will Send It Immediately