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 The family of a crew member who was aboard the sunken El Faro cargo ship has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the owners of the vessel. 
 
 The attorney for the family of Lonnie Jordan, one of the 33 crew members on the El Faro, announced the lawsuit against TOTE Services, Inc, and TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico at a news conference on Wednesday morning. 
 
 The Coast Guard says the ship sank off the coast of the Bahamas two weeks ago during Hurricane Joaquin. 
 
 Attorney Willie E. Gary was surrounded by Jordan’s relatives outside of the Duval County courthouse on Wednesday morning. Gary alleged that the company was negligent, and that it placed more emphasis on making profits instead of protecting the lives of the crew. 
 
 “The ship should have never left the docks,” Gary said at the press conference. “The ship was not seaworthy.” 
 
 The attorney also claimed that TOTE Services could have used another ship instead of El Faro, or taken a safer alternative route around the storm. 
 
 “These families are seeking justice,” Gary said. “They don’t want this shoved under the rug and it won’t be. We are going to do everything within our power to make sure that all the facts of this case [are] exposed.” 
 
 TOTE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. TOTE has previously said the captain understood the weather conditions and that he had a “sound plan.” 
 
 The NTSB’s investigation of the incident is underway. 
 
 The lawsuit on behalf of Jordan’s family is the first to be filed in the cargo ship tragedy. ||||| The ill-fated El Faro was a dilapidated ship that should never have left Jacksonville, the attorney for the family of a mariner lost on board the cargo carrier said in announcing a $100 million lawsuit against the company Wednesday. 
 
 The negligence lawsuit on the behalf of Lonnie Jordan is just the first in what Willie Gary said will be a number of cases against TOTE Maritime, the owner of the El Faro which sank in 15,000 feet of water in the Bahamas Oct. 1. 
 
 Jordan, 33, of Jacksonville, worked on the ship for 13 years as a cook and at other jobs, his family told the Times-Union after it was reported the ship sank. 
 
 Gary said another ship could have sailed with the cargo but that TOTE was more interested in profit than the safety of the 33 crew members on board and who lost their lives when the 790-foot ship went down during Hurricane Joaquin. 
 
 “We are at war now,” Gary said, flanked by Jordan family members outside the Duval County Courthouse, where the lawsuit was filed. “We understand they could have gotten a different ship, they could have sailed a different route.” 
 
 Mike Hanson, a crisis-management consultant working with TOTE, said Wednesday morning prior to the lawsuit being filed that the company has a policy of not responding to pending lawsuits but is supportive of the families of the El Faro crew. 
 
 “The company remains fully focused on supporting the families and their loved ones,” he said in a statement on behalf of TOTE. 
 
 Gary said the lawsuit also names ship captain Michael Davidson but that it does not seek damages against his family. 
 
 He said the court action aims to force changes in the industry, and that TOTE was negligent letting the El Faro leave Sept. 29. 
 
 “You could have waited,” he said in reference to the company. “The ship was not seaworthy.” 
 
 In response to the $100 million figure, Gary said he wanted to hit the shipping company where it hurt. 
 
 “That may not be enough,” he said. “That’s what big business understands, when you hit them in the pocket.” 
 
 He said the lawsuit’s timing less than two weeks after the sinking was quick so an investigation by the law firm could commence and staff could begin requesting documents and other information from the company. 
 
 “Our lawsuit is the first of a number that will be filed,” he said. 
 
 Maritime lawsuits are usually filed in the federal courts. Gary said he preferred state court for strategic reasons, but wouldn’t say what maritime laws TOTE had violated. 
 
 “It’s probably going to get transferred to federal court,” he said. “I’m going to fight that, but in the meantime we’re going to get work done.” 
 
 Gary said while he is speaking with other possible clients, he was not discussing action with families in Maine, which several mariners called home. 
 
 Gary, a South Florida attorney and sharecropper’s son who said he won his first million-dollar lawsuit in Jacksonville, has won a number of high-dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies and others. 
 
 In 2014 Gary was one of the attorneys representing a widow and son who won $23.6 billion in punitive damages and $16.9 million in compensatory damages in a lawsuit against a tobacco company. Cynthia Robinson was married to a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996. The amount was reduced this year. He has won more than 150 cases valued in excess of $1 million, according to a biography on his law firm web page. 
 
 Gary said he will hire safety experts and others to work on the El Faro case. He said the 33 crew members worked hard for TOTE. 
 
 “They were looking out for the company,” he said. 
 
 He declined to allow the family to speak, saying that they should remain silent now that the lawsuit has been filed. 
 
 A graduate of First Coast High School, Jordan went to seaman’s school in Baltimore. He was the oldest of four siblings and grew up in a deeply religious family. He attended Philippian Community Church, the family said in an earlier interview with the Times-Union. 
 
 They wished the El Faro had waited to set sail. 
 
 “It’s in God’s hands, but we feel like they made the wrong decision,” his maternal grandmother, Faye Cummings, said at the time. 
 
 The ship left Jacksonville on a routine run to Puerto Rico carrying vehicles and container cargo on Sept. 29. On Oct. 1 the captain radioed that the El Faro had taken on water, was listing at 15 degrees and lost power. It was the last communication from the ship as it headed into the hurricane. 
 
 Coast Guard searchers flew into the storm and for days sent aircraft and rescue boats into the area where the ship was last located but found only one person, who was dead in a survival suit. 
 
 The search was suspended Oct. 7. A National Transportation Safety Board team was still in Jacksonville Tuesday doing the initial part of its investigation into the sinking. 
 
 Times-Union writer Andrew Pantazi contributed to this report. 
 
 Dana Treen: (904) 359-4091
– The cargo ship that sank with 33 crew members aboard during Hurricane Joaquin should never have been at sea, according to a lawyer who says a $100 million suit against the owners of the El Faro is just the beginning. Attorney Willie E. Gary is representing the family of missing crew member Lonnie Jordan in their negligence and wrongful death lawsuit against TOTE Maritime Services and he plans more lawsuits on behalf of other families, NBC News reports. He accuses the ship's owners of putting profits before safety. "The ship should have never left the docks," he told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. "The ship was not seaworthy." "We are at war now," Gary said after filing the lawsuit in Jacksonville, Fla., per the Florida Times-Union. "We understand they could have gotten a different ship, they could have sailed a different route." The attorney, who has won some huge cases against tobacco companies and others, tells Reuters that he has heard the ship was having mechanical problems the day it departed Jacksonville bound for Puerto Rico and that he'll be seeking maintenance records. The ship's captain has also been named in the lawsuit, the Times-Union notes, but Gary says he won't be seeking damages from the missing man's family. The search for survivors was called off last week.