Pirates vs. Lawyers

Okay, I know the ongoing Internet meme is “Pirates vs. Ninjas,” but the fact is that if there are any ninjas running around in the 21st Century you’re really not likely to find out anything of substance about them in a business blog. Pirates versus lawyers, however, was probably inevitable from the moment an American-flagged vessel was taken and any member of the crew subjected to any inconvenience, let alone harm…

To the surprise of, apparently, absolutely no one, a member of the crew from the Maersk Alabama is suing both the shipping line and the company that provided the crew for subjecting him to an unsafe work environment, not having armed security aboard, not sending the ship on a safer route to its destination, and so on. I call it to your attention not to mock either the companies or the crew, but to point out that this is another one of those cases that is more complicated than it looks…

On the one hand, pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa are not exactly a new occurrence. In fact, the Alabama herself was attacked on at least two prior occasions on the same voyage before the pirates managed to board her successfully. This has prompted several nations to being regular anti-piracy patrols through that part of the shipping lanes, and some companies (notably the Italian cruise line mentioned a few posts ago) to start putting armed security guards aboard their ships. So it’s no stretch to imagine that both companies already knew the situation was a hazard and did nothing about it because of cost considerations. On the other hand, the fact that the crew had been holding safety meetings “every month for the last three years” (according to the crewman bringing the lawsuit) to discuss the situation suggests that they already knew they were going into harm’s way…

So who’s right here? Should the company have made greater efforts to protect the crew of the Alabama before they sent her back into pirate-infested waters? Should the crew have realized that the company was sending them into harm’s way and either demanded hazard pay or just quit and gotten safer jobs? Do we criticize the companies for trying to make more money by not going around the Somali coast and/or paying for armed guards, or do we call the crew on knowing the job was risky and then complaining when the risks actually came home to roost? More to the point, what would you do if it was your company – or a job that you otherwise liked and wanted to keep?

It sounds like some poor jury in Texas is in for a rough time of it. Personally, I’m just grateful that the closest we have to either pirates or lawyers on my current gig is the Law School across the street. And if there are any ninjas lurking around the Upper Midwest these days, I really don’t want to know about them…