The Dutra Group v. Batterton, 139 S. Ct. 2275 – Supreme Court 2019
The seaman’s right to recover damages for personal injury on a claim of unseaworthiness originates in the admiralty court decisions of the 19th century. At the time, “seamen led miserable lives.” D. Robertson, S. Friedell, & M. Sturley, Admiralty and Maritime Law in the United States 163 (2d ed. 2008). Maritime law was largely judge-made, and seamen were viewed as “emphatically the wards of the admiralty.” Harden v. Gordon, 11 F.Cas. 480, 485 (No. 6,047) (CC Me. 1823). In that era, the primary responsibility for protecting seamen lay in the courts, which saw mariners as “peculiarly entitled to”—and particularly in need of—judicial protection “against the effects of the superior skill and shrewdness of masters and owners of ships.” Brown v. Lull, 4 F.Cas. 407, 409 (No. 2,018) (CC Mass. 1836) (Story, J.).[1]
Courts of admiralty saw it as their duty not to be “confined to the mere dry and positive rules of the common law” but to “act upon the enlarged and liberal jurisprudence of courts of equity; and, in short, so far as their powers extend[ed], they act[ed] as courts of equity.” Ibid. This Court interpreted the Constitution’s grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the Federal Judiciary as “the power to … dispose of [a case] as justice may require.” The Resolute, 168 U.S. 437, 439, 18 S.Ct. 112, 42 L.Ed. 533 (1897).
Courts used this power to protect seamen from injury primarily through two causes of action. The first, maintenance and cure, has its roots in the medieval and renaissance law codes that form the ancient foundation of maritime common law.[2] The duty of maintenance and cure requires a ship’s master “to provide food, lodging, and medical services to a seaman injured while serving the ship.” Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc., 531 U.S. 438, 441, 121 S.Ct. 993, 148 L.Ed.2d 931 (2001). This duty, “which arises from the contract of employment, does not rest upon negligence or culpability on the part of the owner or master, nor is it restricted to those cases where the seaman’s employment is the cause of the injury or illness.” Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.S. 525, 527, 58 S.Ct. 651, 82 L.Ed. 993 (1938) (citations omitted).
The second claim, unseaworthiness, is a much more recent development and grew out of causes of action unrelated to personal injury. In its earliest forms, an unseaworthiness claim gave sailors under contract to sail on a ship the right to collect their wages even if they had refused to 2280*2280 board an unsafe vessel after discovering its condition. See, e.g., Dixon v. The Cyrus, 7 F.Cas. 755, 757 (No. 3,930) (Pa. 1789); Rice v. The Polly & Kitty, 20 F.Cas. 666, 667, (No. 11754) (Pa. 1789). Similarly, unseaworthiness was a defense to criminal charges against seamen who refused to obey a ship master’s orders. See, e.g., United States v. Nye, 27 F.Cas. 210, 211, (No. 15906) (CC Mass. 1855); United States v. Ashton, 24 F.Cas. 873, 874-875, (No. 14470) (CC Mass. 1834). A claim of unseaworthiness could also be asserted by a shipper to recover damages or by an insurer to deny coverage when the poor condition of the ship resulted in damage to or loss of the cargo. See The Caledonia, 157 U.S. 124, 132-136, 15 S.Ct. 537, 39 L.Ed. 644 (1895) (cataloging cases).
Only in the latter years of the 19th century did unseaworthiness begin a long and gradual evolution toward remedying personal injury. Courts began to extend the cases about refusals to serve to allow recovery for mariners who were injured because of the unseaworthy condition of the vessel on which they had served.[3] These early cases were sparse, and they generally allowed recovery only when a vessel’s owner failed to exercise due diligence to ensure that the ship left port in a seaworthy condition. See, e.g., The Robert C. McQuillen, 91 F. 685, 686-687 (Conn. 1899); The Lizzie Frank, 31 F. 477, 480 (SD Ala. 1887); The Tammerlane, 47 F. 822, 824 (ND Cal. 1891).
Unseaworthiness remained a suspect basis for personal injury claims until 1903, when, in dicta, this Court concluded that “the vessel and her owner are … liable to an indemnity for injuries received by seamen in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship.” The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 175, 23 S.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760 (1903). Although this was the first recognition of unseaworthiness as a personal injury claim in this Court, we took pains to note that the claim was strictly cabined. Ibid. Some of the limitations on recovery were imported from the common law. The fellow-servant doctrine, in particular, prohibited recovery when an employee suffered an injury due to the negligent act of another employee without negligence on the part of the employer. Ibid.; see, e.g., The Sachem, 42 F. 66 (EDNY 1890) (denying recovery based on fellow-servant doctrine). Because a claimant had to show that he was injured by some aspect of the ship’s condition that rendered the vessel unseaworthy, a claim could not prevail based on “the negligence of the master, or any member of the crew.”[4] The Osceola, 2281*2281 supra, at 175, 23 S.Ct. 483; see also The City of Alexandria, 17 F. 390 (SDNY 1883) (no recovery based on negligence that does not render vessel unseaworthy). Instead, a seaman had to show that the owner of the vessel had failed to exercise due diligence in ensuring the ship was in seaworthy condition. See generally Dixon v. United States, 219 F.2d 10, 12-14 (C.A.2 1955) (Harlan, J.) (cataloging evolution of the claim).
In the early 20th century, then, under “the general maritime law … a vessel and her owner … were liable to an indemnity for injuries received by a seaman in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship and her appliances; but a seaman was not allowed to recover an indemnity for injuries sustained through the negligence of the master or any member of the crew.” Pacific S. S. Co. v. Peterson, 278 U.S. 130, 134, 49 S.Ct. 75, 73 L.Ed. 220 (1928); see also Plamals v. S. S. “Pinar Del Rio,” 277 U.S. 151, 155, 48 S.Ct. 457, 72 L.Ed. 827 (1928) (vessel was not unseaworthy when mate negligently selected defective rope but sound rope was available on board). Because of these severe limitations on recovery, “the seaman’s right to recover damages for injuries caused by unseaworthiness of the ship was an obscure and relatively little used remedy.” G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty § 6-38, p. 383 (2d ed. 1975) (Gilmore & Black).
Tremendous shifts in mariners’ rights took place between 1920 and 1950. First, during and after the First World War, Congress enacted a series of laws regulating maritime liability culminating in the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, § 33, 41 Stat. 1007 (Jones Act), which codified the rights of injured mariners and created new statutory claims that were freed from many of the common-law limitations on recovery. The Jones Act provides injured seamen with a cause of action and a right to a jury. 46 U.S.C. § 30104. Rather than create a new structure of substantive rights, the Jones Act incorporated the rights provided to railway workers under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. 46 U.S.C. § 30104. In the 30 years after the Jones Act’s passage, “the Act was the vehicle for almost all seamen’s personal injury and death actions.” Gilmore & Black § 6-20, at 327.
But the Jones Act was overtaken in the 1950s by the second fundamental change in personal injury maritime claims—and it was this Court, not Congress, that played the leading role. In a pair of decisions in the late 1940s, the Court transformed the old claim of unseaworthiness, which had demanded only due diligence by the vessel owner, into a strict-liability claim. In Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U.S. 96, 64 S.Ct. 455, 88 L.Ed. 561 (1944), the Court stated that “the exercise of due diligence does not relieve the owner of his obligation” to provide a seaworthy ship and, in the same ruling, held that the fellow-servant doctrine did not provide a defense. Id., at 100, 101, 64 S.Ct. 455. Mahnich‘s interpretation of the early cases may have been suspect, see Tetreault 397-398 (Mahnich rests on “startling misstatement” of relevant precedents), but its assertion triggered a sea-change in maritime personal injury. Less than two years later, we affirmed that the duty of seaworthiness was “essentially a species of liability without fault … neither limited by conceptions of negligence nor contractual in character. It is a form of absolute duty owing to all within the range of its humanitarian policy.” Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 94-95, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099 (1946) (citations omitted). From Mahnich forward, “the decisions of this Court have undeviatingly reflected an understanding 2282*2282 that the owner’s duty to furnish a seaworthy ship is absolute and completely independent of his duty under the Jones Act to exercise reasonable care.” Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U.S. 539, 549, 80 S.Ct. 926, 4 L.Ed.2d 941 (1960). As a result of Mahnich and Sieracki, between the 1950s and 1970s “the unseaworthiness count [was] the essential basis for recovery with the Jones Act count preserved merely as a jury-getting device.”[5] Gilmore & Black § 6-20, at 327-328.
The shifts in plaintiff preferences between Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims were possible because of the significant overlap between the two causes of action. See id., § 6-38, at 383. One leading treatise goes so far as to describe the two claims as “alternative `grounds’ of recovery for a single cause of action.” 2 R. Force & M. Norris, The Law of Seamen § 30:90, p. 30-369 (5th ed. 2003). The two claims are so similar that, immediately after the Jones Act’s passage, we held that plaintiffs could not submit both to a jury. Plamals, supra, at 156-157, 48 S.Ct. 457 (“Seamen may invoke, at their election, the relief accorded by the old rules against the ship, or that provided by the new against the employer. But they may not have the benefit of both”). We no longer require such election. See McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U.S. 221, 222, n. 2, 78 S.Ct. 1201, 2 L.Ed.2d 1272 (1958). But a plaintiff still cannot duplicate his recovery by collecting full damages on both claims because, “whether or not the seaman’s injuries were occasioned by the unseaworthiness of the vessel or by the negligence of the master or members of the crew, … there is but a single wrongful invasion of his primary right of bodily safety and but a single legal wrong.” Peterson, 278 U.S. at 138, 49 S.Ct. 75; see also 2 Force, supra, §§ 26:73, 30:90.