Roy Ex Rel. Charlot v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.

OPINION

COBB, District Judge.

I. BACKGROUND

Dairol Mark Chariot, Sr. burned to death in a steel chamber at the bottom of a drilling vessel. Chariot was employed by the defendant Bethlehem Steel Corporation as a boilermaker. The 33-year-old resident of Port Arthur, Texas, worked seven-day-a-week shifts at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard.

On May 16, 1992 Chariot was working aboard the STORM DRILL V drilling vessel. The vessel was berthed approximately twenty feet from shore with its movable legs jacked deep in the mud of the Sabine-Neehes Canal. Chariot and his co-worker, Jackie Minnich, were assigned…