‘Deadliest Catch’ boat owner sues production company over former deckhand’s medical care

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The owners of a fishing vessel featured in “Deadliest Catch” are suing the reality TV show’s production company and a contractor after a former crew member blamed a lack of prompt care during the pandemic for leaving him with serious medical problems.

The civil lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alaska by attorneys for the F/V Northwestern, centers on 58-year-old former deckhand Nick Mavar Jr., a longtime cast member of the show that debuted in 2005 on the Discovery Channel.

The suit references a separate complaint Mavar filed in December in Washington’s King County Superior Court seeking more than $1 million in damages from the Northwestern’s owners, listed by Washington state records as Sig Hansen, the boat’s captain, and his wife, June. F/V Northwestern LLC is licensed in Alaska.

Both lawsuits cite the “failure to have an adequate plan in place” to get outside medical help during a time when COVID-19 protocols were in place to protect cast members from infection.

Mavar was working on the Northwestern at the height of the pandemic in late December 2020 and January 2021, they say.

His complaint claims that a “delay in competent and adequate examination, testing, and diagnosis” led to a ruptured appendix as well as the discovery of a cancerous tumor.

The lawsuit was filed by Seattle law firm LeGros Buchanan and Paul. An attorney on the case did not return a call for comment.

An Original Productions spokesman did not respond to a request for information Monday. A representative of Trifecta Solutions said the company had no comment when reached by phone.