BANGOR – A graduate of Maine Maritime Academy is seeking more than $3 million in damages from his former employer for injuries that left him a paraplegic.

Bruce Falconer, 43, of Waterville was the first witness in a jury trial that began Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He sat in his wheelchair in front of the witness box as a court clerk clipped a portable microphone to his shirt before the jury of seven women and three men.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock is presiding over the civil trial that is scheduled to last three weeks.

Falconer suffered a spinal cord injury on July 30, 2000, while working on the tugboat Valiant, owned by Penn Maritime, Inc. The tugboat was in dry dock for repairs in Tampa, Fla., when the accident occurred.

The marine engineer fell backward through an open hatch while he was carrying a large box that contained an engine part. He dropped about 14 feet, striking a railing on the way down. Falconer suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the midchest down.

Falconer claims that the New York-based firm that owned the tugboat was negligent because the boat’s captain did not install the safety rails around the hatch opening. Falconer is seeking lost and future wages, past and future medical bills, and compensation for pain and suffering.

“The captain of the vessel failed to take charge of the situation,” Falconer’s attorney, David Anderson of Boston, told the jury in his opening statement. “He failed to execute a plan [for the repairs to be performed] and failed to communicate it to the people who were working that day.”

Anderson also told the jury that working conditions on the tugboat at the time of the accident violated Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations.

Penn Maritime claims that the company was not negligent because Falconer, rather than the captain or the other employee who was on board that Sunday, was responsible for installing the safety rails around the hatch.

Falconer, who graduated from the maritime academy in Castine in 1984, spent most of his career working on the Valiant, defense attorney Joseph Stearns of New York, said in his opening statement. Although the tug changed owners several times, Falconer continued to work on the vessel.

“Bruce Falconer was entirely familiar with every nook and cranny” of the tugboat, especially the engine room, Stearns said. The attorney also told the jury that Falconer was in charge of the other two employees.

Stearns also said that although Falconer has remained active in sporting events for wheelchair bound athletes and drives a specially equipped van, he does not have a job.

“If he can work, and he can, he should,” Stearns told the jury, “but he’s made no effort to find a job.”

In his preliminary instructions, Woodcock told the jury that to win his case Falconer must prove that:

. Penn Maritime was negligent.

. His former employer was the legal cause of his injury.

. The tugboat was unseaworthy.

. The unseaworthy condition was the legal cause of the accident.

In this case, “unseaworthy” means that Penn Maritime did not fulfill its legal duty to keep the Valiant reasonably suitable for its intended use, Woodcock said.

Members of Falconer’s family broke down in tears as Anderson described the former merchant marine’s injuries and the resulting medical problems.

Falconer’s father, Paul Falconer, 71, of Winslow, is a retired Maine state trooper who knows many of the court security officers who work at the federal building in Bangor where the trial is being held.