Phone: 313-961-3234
Fax: 313-961-6184
Paul D. Galea is a shareholder practicing with Foster, Meadows & Ballard, P.C. in Detroit since 1978. He is a graduate of the University of Detroit (BA Cum Laude, 1975) and Michigan State University College of Law (1978, Cum Laude).
Mr. Galea’s practice is devoted principally to the areas of admiralty and maritime law and professional liability. Mr. Galea handles maritime matters, not only in Detroit, where the firm’s office is located, but throughout the Great Lakes, including Toledo and Cleveland Ohio, Grand Rapids, Marquette, Petoskey and St Ignace Michigan. His maritime experience on behalf of commercial shipping companies and private pleasure boat owners/operators includes all forms of maritime personal injury matters involving: the Jones Act; the Death on the High Seas Act; the Longshore and Harbors Workers Compensation Act (LHWCA); and injuries to passengers, longshoreman, seamen, wharehousemen, marina employees and other maritime workers.
Mr. Galea works for and on behalf of marina owners and operators including property and personal injury claims. Mr. Galea, on behalf of National Marine Manufacturers Association and others, authored a proposed amendment to the LHWCA as it relates to marina employees.
As part of his maritime experience, Mr. Galea is involved in a vast array of maritime property disputes including claims arising from collisions, groundings, allisions, dock damage, vessel damage, freight and cargo claims.
He his a member of the Maritime Law Association Pleasure Boat Committee and has handles matters on behalf of pleasure boat owners/operators and their insurers over and above the above mentioned personal injury claims and property damage claims such as such as salvage claims. Mr. Galea speaks regularly on a variety of maritime issues including salvage and towage matters to various insurance companies and private pleasure boat operators.
He represents numerous commercial shipping companies in both federal and state courts and in all aspects of their operations including handling claims by the crew for wages, wrongful discharge, interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement, environmental matters, immigration and custom claims and he has helped develop accident investigation procedures for his maritime clients He has litigated numerous matters involving the Limitation of Liability Act, attempted seizures of a vessel as well as marine salvage disputes.
As part of his transportation practice, Mr. Galea has extensive experience in a wide variety of matters involving freight forwarders and an NVOCC as well as the legal liability of a freight forwarder and/or an NVOCC. Other substantive areas of practice include asbestos litigation, toxic torts general personal injury litigation, matters involving ecclesiastical law, insurance coverage disputes and general transportation law.
Mr. Galea’s practice also entails representing insurance agents, brokers and surveyors in claims of professional liability.. He has spoken at length before professional organizations and insurance companies on the duties and responsibilities of insurance agents/brokers and other professionals (such as surveyors) on error and omission matters.
Mr. Galea serves as mediator, facilitator and arbitrator in various forms of alternative dispute resolution, and is an approved Arbitrator by Boat U.S in their Salvage Arbitration Plan. He has appeared in administrative hearings before the National Labor Relations Board, the United States Coast Guard, and the National Transportation Safety Board. He is also an Associated Editor for American Maritime Cases.
Mr. Galea holds a Pre-eminent AV Peer Review rating. He is admitted to practice law in the State of Michigan, the State of Ohio, the United States District Courts for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Western District of Michigan, the Northern District of Ohio, as well as the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the Detroit Bar Association, the Michigan Bar and the Maritime Law Association of the United States.
Mr. Galea is the author of Runyon v. McCary: Discriminatory Practices in the Private Sector, 401 Detroit College of Law Review, (1977).