Bouchard Transportation Pays Whistleblower in Port Aransas Barge Explosion –

The seamen, who was also an employee of Bouchard Transportation, was the brother of one of two seamen killed in the barge explosion. He alleged the company fired him for cooperating with investigators and reporting safety concerns to the U.S. Coast Guard.

seems like a paltry some. not sure if the industry will get the message, seems rather insignificant.

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The lawyers will get a pretty hefty percentage, at that.

Lawyers will take 40%, then the person will be responsible for the tax on the total Gross amount received. Just because the amount goes to the lawyer and they deduct their fees, you are still responsible for the total amount for taxes. Roughly take home on that for the Whistleblower is $110,000, not including state, only estimated for federal tax.

It all depends In some cases The judge can also rule the Company to also pay the claimant’s attorneys fees. At such time the Judge will decide how much, So the Attorneys might not get as much as they are charging.

I would not have characterized the plaintiff as a “whistleblower.” It confuses the facts here. The award is not a reward for being a whistleblower, it’s the award for prevailing as a plaintiff in a civil action. He’s not getting compensation for coming forward to Federal investigators, he’s being compensated for damages a Court determined were caused by Bouchard. Noting that the firing may have been punitive, and that the plaintiff had cooperated with investigators is relevant and notable, but calling the plaintiff a whistleblower gives a misleading impression of why he is being compensated.

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I was thumbing through the March 2021 edition of Workboat and Bouchard has an ad saying they are hiring. I thought they went out of business.

I’m confused about your definition of whistleblower. He brought fourth unfavorable information about the company to federal authorities, aka blowing the whistle on them, and was then fired as a result of it, in violation of whistleblower protection laws. The case was investigated by the Office of Whistleblower Protection. He was absolutely a whistleblower under the law. I’m curious which facts you would consider confused.

This fellow lost his brother due to poor maintainence practices that were well known in that particular company/ industry.Some of my former well respected shipmates worked there, told me to stay away, it is a toxic environment. Call this guy what you want, he told the truth when asked very important questions about how Morty operated his equipment. It is a small world in the tug industry. We do talk amongst ourselves, regardless who we work for. Morty paid well, I was offered a job on the Robert many moons ago as a new build. Glad I didn’t take it and that my brother or son does not have to testify on my behalf. My hat is off to the brother, after all the shit Morty and his lawyers threw at him. He possibly saved other peoples lives going forward.

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March 31 They terminated and laid off a bunch of people .

Why am I not surprised.

Actually it’s not Bouchard. It’s the management company put in place for the reorganization. Very few “Bouchard “ employees have any say.

They never did have any say.