Gulf Oil Spill: Death on High Seas Act Makes Killed Rig Workers' Wives Ineligible to File Wrongful Death Suits

Testifying before congress this week, killed oil workers' wives Natalie Rushto and Courtney Kemp importune Congress to repeal the Death on the High Seas Act of 1927, which prohibits families from suing corporations responsible for deaths that occur on vessels more than three miles from shore.

BP continues to pay the eleven killed workers' salaries to the workers' surviving families but, in likely acts of legal tactical manoeuvering , has not released to the workers families reports of how the workers were killed, or by what chain of events.

Unlike the surviving families of coal miners killed this year in West Virginia, killed oil workers' families can't sue for negligence or wrongful death. The Deepwater Horizon crew members' deaths occurred more than three miles offshore. Oil rigs are classified as vessels, which places them under the Death on the High Seas Act.

In this case, the Deepwater Horizon rig was registered as a vessel in the Marshall Islands.