Joiner v. Diamond M Drilling Co.
| Decision Date | 07 June 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-3896,80-3896 |
| Citation | 677 F.2d 1035 |
| Parties | Kathy L. JOINER, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, v. DIAMOND M DRILLING CO. and Halliburton Company, Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dr. C. Babson FRESH, Third-Party Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Joseph J. Weigand, Jr., Houma, La., for Diamond M Drilling Co.
Allen L. Smith, Jr., Jeff M. Cole, Lake Charles, La., for Halliburton Co.
Provosty, Sadler & De Launay, LeDoux R. Provosty, Jr., F. Rae Swent, Alexandria, La., for third-party defendant-appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Before CHARLES CLARK, Chief Judge, GOLDBERG and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
These appeals arise from the offshore injury and subsequent onshore death of a seaman. Federal litigation in this case began when the seaman's widow brought two damage actions in district court; one suit was filed against the decedent's maritime employer and another claim was lodged against the manufacturer of allegedly defective shipboard equipment. Each of these "maritime" defendants in turn brought third-party claims for contribution and indemnity against a Louisiana physician whose alleged onshore medical malpractice was said to have ultimately caused the seaman's death.
The widow's claims against the shipowner and manufacturer were settled prior to trial; however the district court continued to exercise jurisdiction over the third-party claims. Upon a motion for summary judgment, the trial court dismissed these actions on their merits, finding as a matter of Louisiana state law that the physician could not be liable to the third-party plaintiffs. The shipowner and manufacturer then brought this appeal, arguing that the trial court erred in its application of Louisiana state law.
We conclude that the district court acted beyond the proper scope of its limited subject matter jurisdiction in adjudicating these third-party claims. Therefore, we do not reach the merits of this state-law controversy. Instead, we vacate the judgments entered below and remand these third-party actions with instructions that they be dismissed without prejudice for want of subject matter jurisdiction.
On August 25, 1977, Ronald S. Joiner was injured while working aboard the New Era, an offshore drilling vessel owned and operated by the Diamond M Drilling Company ("Diamond M"). The seaman was hurt while attempting to clean a shipboard mud tank manufactured by the Halliburton Company ("Halliburton").
After the accident, the injured seaman was hospitalized and placed under the care and treatment of a private physician, Dr. C. Babson Fresh. Unfortunately, the patient's condition steadily deteriorated and on August 31, 1977, Ronald Joiner died.
On November 15, 1977, Joiner's widow 1 brought suit against the Diamond M Drilling Company, alleging that her husband's injury and subsequent death had been caused by the shipowner's negligence and by the unseaworthiness of the vessel it owned and operated. Diamond M in turn filed a third-party complaint against C. Babson Fresh, the doctor whose alleged onshore malpractice was said to have ultimately caused Joiner's death.
On June 22, 1979, Mrs. Joiner amended her complaint, adding Halliburton, the mud tank manufacturer, as a defendant. Then, on August 24, 1979, Mrs. Joiner settled her claim against both Diamond M and Halliburton. 2 Together, the two defendants paid $300,000 to Joiner's estate in exchange for a voluntary dismissal of the plaintiff's claims.
Unfortunately, the pretrial settlement failed to bring this litigation to an end. Diamond M's third-party action against Dr. Fresh remained before the court and Halliburton would soon file its own third-party claim against the physician. 3 Dr. Fresh responded to these third-party claims with a motion to dismiss. The district court took up the motion and granted summary judgment on the merits in favor of the third-party defendant. 4 Third-party plaintiffs Diamond M and Halliburton then brought this appeal.
Although these third-party claims were adjudicated "on-their-merits," the trial court failed to indicate the basis upon which it presumed to exercise subject matter jurisdiction. Thus, the task falls to this Court to determine whether these third-party claims properly come within the scope of the federal courts' limited jurisdiction.
The parties have suggested that there may be three possible bases for the exercise of federal subject matter jurisdiction over these third-party claims; admiralty, diversity, or ancillarity. We will consider each of these possible jurisdictional bases in turn.
An action for breach of a maritime contract is cognizable under the federal courts' admiralty jurisdiction. 5 In an effort to bring their claims within the ambit of federal admiralty jurisdiction, the appellants argue that their third-party actions against Dr. Fresh concern an alleged breach of a maritime contract and are therefore cognizable in federal court. Appellants suggest that a physician's treatment of an injured seaman creates an implied maritime contract between doctor and shipowner and that the physician's alleged malpractice constitutes a breach of that implied contract. Thus, appellants argue that their claims against Dr. Fresh can be seen as actions for breach of an implied warranty for workmanlike performance and therefore contend that their third-party complaints set forth "general maritime law" claims under the doctrine of maritime indemnity described in Ryan Stevedoring Company Inc. v. Pan Atlantic Steamship Corporation, 350 U.S. 124, 132, 76 S.Ct. 232, 236, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956).
We find that the appellants' Ryan indemnity argument is foreclosed by our decision in Penn Tanker v. United States, 409 F.2d 514, 517-518 (5th Cir. 1969). In Penn Tanker, supra a third-party plaintiff shipowner sought to recover Ryan indemnity from a hospital which had negligently treated an injured seaman. This court unequivocally rejected the shipowner's Ryan indemnity argument, stating:
(T)here can be no implied warranty running from the (hospital) to the shipowner ... We are unwilling to accept (the) tenuous argument that the relationship of ... hospitals and shipowners, concerning treatment of seaman, is comparable to those relationships which have been held to justify the application of Ryan.
Penn Tanker Company v. United States, supra, 517-518.
We adhere to our decision in Penn Tanker, supra. A private land-locked physician who treats a patient who happens to have been injured at sea, does not thereby enter into an implied maritime contract. We can find absolutely no support for the proposition that an ordinary, private, onshore physician who treats an injured sailor has thereby submitted himself to the rules of maritime commerce. Rather, it has been consistently held that it is state law which controls in cases such as this. See, e.g., United States Lines, Inc. v. U. S., 470 F.2d 487, 491 (5th Cir. 1972) (); Penn Tanker v. United States, 409 F.2d 514, 519 at n.9 (5th Cir. 1969) (); 6 McCann v. Falgout Boat Co., 44 F.R.D. 34 (S.D.Tex.1968) (); Accord, Wood v. Standard Products Co., Inc., 456 F.Supp. 1098, 1103 (E.D.Va.1978) ().
These third-party claims against Dr. Fresh cannot be fairly characterized as being actions for breach of maritime contract, independently cognizable under the federal courts' admiralty jurisdiction. As the district court recognized, these are state law claims. If they are to be cognizable in federal court, it can only be under a theory of either diversity or ancillary jurisdiction.
Diamond M's third-party complaint against Dr. Fresh included the following jurisdictional allegations:
On appeal, Diamond M has taken the position that these allegations were sufficient to confer federal diversity jurisdiction over their third-party claim. We cannot agree.
For the purposes of diversity jurisdiction, a corporation is deemed to be a citizen of both the state in which it is incorporated and of the state where its principal place of business is located. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c); R. G. Barry Corp. v. Mushroom Makers, Inc., 612 F.2d 651, 654 (2nd Cir. 1979); Canton v. Angelina Casualty Company, 279 F.2d 553, 554 (5th Cir. 1960). In order to adequately establish diversity jurisdiction, a complaint must set forth with specificity a corporate party's state of incorporation and its principal place of business. Where the plaintiff fails to state the place of incorporation or the principal place of business of a corporate party, the pleadings are inadequate to establish diversity. Walsh v. International Precious Metals Corp., 510 F.Supp. 867, 873 (D.Ut.1981); Strout Realty v. Country 22 Real Estate Corp., 493 F.Supp. 997, 1000 (W.D.Mo.1980); Holman v. Carpenter Technology Corp., 484 F.Supp. 406, 407-8 (E.D.Pa.1980).
We can find nothing in the pleadings to indicate where Diamond M is incorporated or where it makes its principal place of business. Thus, we must reject Diamond M's contention that these pleadings were sufficient to establish diversity.
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