The Jones Act’s Foreign-Seaman Provision (46 U.S.C. § 30105): A Choice-of-Law Switch, Not a Bar

A seaman from one country, injured in the waters of a second country, working for an employer organized in a third — and a lawsuit filed in the United States. The defense moves to dismiss, pointing to a provision of the Jones Act that, read quickly, seems to slam the courthouse door on foreign seamen hurt offshore. It does not slam shut as easily as the motion suggests.

This page explains what 46 U.S.C. § 30105 actually says, how courts have read it as a choice-of-law mechanism rather than a jurisdictional bar, and how foreign law gets proved in a U.S. courtroom when it applies.

What the statute says

Section 30105 restricts when a non-citizen can recover under U.S. maritime law for an offshore incident in another country's waters. Its operative subsections read this way:

Subsection (b) — Restriction. Except as provided in subsection (c), a civil action for maintenance and cure or for damages for personal injury or death may not be brought under a maritime law of the United States if all three of the following are true:

1. the injured or deceased individual was not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien at the time of the incident;
2. the incident occurred in the territorial waters or over the continental shelf of a country other than the United States; and
3. the individual was employed at the time by a person engaged in the exploration, development, or production of offshore mineral or energy resources (with a narrow carve-out for oil-tanker transport).

Subsection (c) — Nonapplication. Subsection (b) does not apply if the individual establishes that a remedy is not available under the laws of either the country asserting jurisdiction over the area where the incident occurred, or the country of the individual's citizenship or residency.

Two features of that text do the work. First, the restriction is aimed at claims brought under a maritime law of the United States — it speaks to which body of law supplies the claim, not to whether a U.S. court may hear the dispute at all. Second, subsection (c) is an escape hatch: where no foreign remedy exists, the U.S. restriction simply does not apply.

How courts have read it: a switch, not a wall

Federal and state courts that have looked closely at § 30105 have consistently read it as a choice-of-law provision rather than a bar to the courthouse. The Texas First Court of Appeals put it cleanly in Nazareth v. McDermott International, Inc., 569 S.W.3d 205 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018): the section "operates as a choice-of-law provision that determines the type of claim a foreign seaman can assert" in a U.S. court. If a foreign-law remedy exists, the seaman asserts the claim under that country's law; if none exists, subsection (c) lifts the restriction and U.S. maritime law applies. Either way, the U.S. court keeps jurisdiction to hear and decide the case.

The Fifth Circuit and its district courts had reached the same conclusion in a line of decisions:

• Jackson v. North Bank Towing Corp., 201 F.3d 415 (5th Cir. 2000) — the provision bars only actions brought under U.S. maritime law and does not bar claims brought under foreign law; the statute says nothing about foreign-law claims.
• Oyuela v. Seacor Marine (Nigeria), Inc., 290 F. Supp. 2d 713 (E.D. La. 2003) — the section "says nothing about a court's jurisdiction"; it denies a U.S. cause of action, it does not strip the federal court of jurisdiction to consider foreign-law claims.
• Bodden v. Tidewater, Inc. (E.D. La. 2006) — court retained jurisdiction to consider a foreign seaman's claims under foreign law; summary judgment denied.
• Perez v. Gulf Coast Marine & Associates (E.D. Tex. 2010) — the plain meaning of § 30105 does not bar claims based on foreign law and international maritime law.

The strategic consequence is counterintuitive but powerful: a defendant who invokes § 30105 is not closing the case. It is selecting the body of law that will govern the trial. Often the foreign law it points toward recognizes the same negligence, the same vessel-fitness duty, and the same categories of damages that U.S. maritime law does — which is why a § 30105 motion can end up doing the plaintiff's choice-of-law briefing for it. That is exactly what happened in the cross-border choice-of-law case, where the foreign-seaman motion became the road map to the New Zealand law that preserved the claim.

Proving foreign law: Rule 44.1

When foreign law applies, it has to be put before the court. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 44.1 is the vehicle. A party gives notice — by pleading or other writing — that an issue about a foreign country's law will be raised. The court may then consider any relevant material or source, including expert declarations, treatises, and the foreign statutes and cases themselves, whether or not admissible under the rules of evidence. Critically, the court treats the content of foreign law as a question of law, not fact, and is not bound by either party's submission.

In practice this usually means a sworn declaration from a qualified lawyer admitted in the foreign jurisdiction, certified copies of the relevant statutes, and the leading appellate decisions — assembled into a package the U.S. judge can use to apply the foreign law to the facts.

Why a foreign seaman might still want a U.S. forum

If foreign substantive law is going to govern, why litigate in the United States at all? The answer is that substance and forum are separate questions. A U.S. forum can offer broad pretrial discovery, the right to a civil jury, and procedural rules that many foreign systems do not provide — while the foreign law supplies the standards of liability and damages. For many injured workers, that combination is more favorable than litigating the whole case abroad.

What this provision does *not* resolve

Section 30105 answers the choice-of-law question. It does not, by itself, resolve two other fights that foreign-employer cases commonly raise:

• Personal jurisdiction and venue. A foreign employer may argue that no U.S. court has personal jurisdiction over it at all. That is a separate inquiry — and one with its own answers, including Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2)'s federal long-arm, which can reach a foreign defendant that has disclaimed contacts with any single U.S. state. See our foreign-employer jurisdiction case.
• Forum-selection clauses. A foreign employment contract may contain a clause designating a foreign court. Whether such a clause is enforceable — and whether a defendant can manufacture standing to invoke one — is its own battle. See the Bermuda forum-maneuver case.

A foreign seaman's case often requires winning all three: jurisdiction, forum, and the § 30105 choice-of-law question.

Why this matters for an injured worker

The single most important takeaway is that being a foreign national hurt in foreign waters does not automatically mean you have no U.S. remedy. The Jones Act's foreign-seaman provision is frequently presented as a dead end. Read together with the case law and Rule 44.1, it is better understood as a fork in the road — and a U.S. court can take either branch.

If a defendant or its insurer is telling you that § 30105 ends your case, that representation is worth a second look from a lawyer who handles cross-border maritime matters. You can read how the provision worked in a real case in the cross-border choice-of-law case, see the related Jones Act and Death on the High Seas Act pages, or browse the firm's maritime case studies.

In practice

In practice, § 30105 is the switch that decides whether a foreign worker injured on a foreign rig can recover under U.S. law at all. The firm has litigated that exact choice-of-law fight across three countries — a New Zealand mechanic, a rig in Nigerian waters, and a U.S. courtroom — where the company's own concessions about its operations supplied the answer.

Related case studies

• A Choice-of-Law Fight Across Three Countries — the § 30105 analysis that decided whether a foreign seaman could recover here.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. See all case studies.