St. Paul Fire and Marine Ins. Co. v. Belle of Hot Springs, Inc.

Decision Date14 April 1988
Docket NumberNo. 87-1273,87-1273
Citation844 F.2d 550
PartiesST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee, v. BELLE OF HOT SPRINGS, INC., et al., Appellants.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Richard Wootton, Hot Springs, Ark., for appellants.

G. Ray Bratton, Memphis, Tenn., for appellee.

Before JOHN R. GIBSON and BEAM, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

In this declaratory judgment action relating to insurance coverage, Belle of Hot Springs, Inc. (Belle) appeals an order of the district court 1 denying its motion for summary judgment and granting St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company's motion for summary judgment. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arose out of an accident that occurred in June 1985 on Lake Hamilton in Arkansas when the Belle, an excursion boat, collided with a dock while mooring. The collision resulted in personal injury to passengers and crew.

The pertinent facts are undisputed. The Belle was licensed by the Coast Guard and Craig Buhrow, a licensed operator, was the qualified master on board the vessel.

On the day of the accident Mark Buhrow backed the Belle from her mooring and turned over the pilothouse to Brett Hacker who then piloted the vessel. Hacker was a college student who worked as a crewman/deckhand on board the Belle. Hacker had only been employed by the Belle for approximately one month. During this time, Hacker frequently piloted the Belle, but he had never docked the vessel without assistance.

After leaving the dock, Craig Buhrow went to the second deck and tended bar. From this position Craig was able to view the vessel's location and course. As the Belle neared the docking point Craig did not go to the pilothouse to dock the vessel as he had done in the past. Hacker took Craig's absence as an indication of Craig's intent that he should dock the vessel. Hacker attempted to dock the Belle, but he was unsuccessful and the vessel struck the dock.

St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company (St. Paul), the Belle's insurer, filed a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment that it was not liable on its insurance policy issued to the Belle. St. Paul maintains that the Belle breached two warranties contained in the policy--the use of vessel and the seaworthiness warranties--and that the breaches relieved St. Paul of its duties to investigate, defend, or pay claims resulting from the accident.

II. DISCUSSION

The insurance policy issued by St. Paul contained the following warranties:

B. USE OF VESSEL WARRANTY

* * *

* * *

2. When the vessel is operated to carry passengers it is agreed:

a. that said vessel will be in charge of a qualified Master at all times;

b. That the Assured will use its best efforts to comply with all regulations of the United States Coast Guard relating to the carrying of passengers and/or crew;

* * *

* * * 3. any violation of these warranties relating to the carrying of passengers shall render this policy void during the term of such violation.

C. SEAWORTHINESS WARRANTY

Warranted at the inception of this policy the vessel shall be in a seaworthy condition and thereafter, during the currency of this policy, the Assured shall exercise due diligence to keep the vessel seaworthy, and in all respects fit, tight, and properly manned, equipped and supplied.

(Emphasis added).

St. Paul argues that the use of vessel warranty was breached because the master was not in charge in that he was not in the pilothouse and did not have actual control of the Belle when the accident occurred. St. Paul also contends that because the vessel was not properly manned the Belle breached the seaworthiness warranty.

In reviewing a district court decision granting a motion for summary judgment, we are governed by the same standard as the district court. "A motion for summary judgment may be granted only if an examination of all the evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party reveals no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Krause v. Perryman, 827 F.2d 346, 350 (8th Cir.1987).

Both parties in this case moved for summary judgment. In ruling on the motions the district court considered deposition testimony of Brett Hacker, Mark Buhrow, and Craig Buhrow and the affidavit of Lt. Cmdr. Halsey, a retired Coast Guard officer. The district court concluded that there were no genuine issues of material fact and that St. Paul was entitled to summary judgment. We agree with the district court that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that summary judgment was proper. 2

The use of vessel warranty required that the Belle be under the direction of a qualified master at all times when operated with passengers onboard. It is undisputed that Hacker was not a qualified master and lacked the experience and training required to safely dock the vessel. On appeal the Belle makes the same arguments which were presented to the district court. The Belle argues that Craig Buhrow's mere presence on the second deck satisfied the use of vessel warranty, noting that Craig Buhrow was in contact with the pilothouse via an intercom system. We disagree.

We believe that the use of vessel warranty requires more than the mere presence of a qualified master. The master must actually be in charge of the vessel in order to satisfy the warranty. Craig Buhrow was never actually in control of the vessel. 3 Indeed it was undisputed that Mark Buhrow piloted the Belle from the beginning of the cruise until he relinquished control of the vessel to Brett Hacker. Thus it is clear that at no time during the cruise was Craig Buhrow in actual control of the vessel. We agree with the district court that:

For a qualified master to be in charge of the vessel, it is necessarily required that he be present in or near enough to the pilothouse to take such action as a sudden emergency would mandate, either through direct control or operational control of the vessel. Craig Buhrow was neither in direct or operational control on the June 22 dinner cruise.

District court opinion at 7-8.

The seaworthiness warranty required that the Belle be in a seaworthy condition at the inception of the insurance policy and throughout the policy term. We believe that the Belle breached the seaworthiness warranty because, as already noted, the Belle was being operated without a master in charge. In addition, placing Brett Hacker in the pilothouse made the Belle unseaworthy.

It is clear that the concept of seaworthiness extends to a vessel's crew as well as to the vessel and its gear. Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. S/S Co., 348 U.S. 336, 339, 75 S.Ct. 382, 384, 99 L.Ed. 354 (1955). Thus if the Belle was not staffed with a sufficient number of competent and skillful crewmen then the seaworthiness warranty would be breached.

In Waldron v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 386 U.S. 724, 87 S.Ct. 1410, 18 L.Ed.2d 482 (1967), the Supreme Court held that a vessel was unseaworthy because too few crewmen were assigned to perform a specific task in a safe manner. Similarly the Fifth Circuit noted that "to be inadequately or improperly manned is a classic case of an unseaworthy vessel." June T., Inc. v. King, 290 F.2d 404, 407 (5th Cir.1961).

There is no question in this case that the Belle was unseaworthy due to an inadequate crew. Brett Hacker was not qualified to dock the Belle due to his inexperience and lack of training. This fact alone justifies a finding that there was a breach of the seaworthiness warranty. We find this case indistinguishable from Comeaux v. T.L. James & Co., Inc., 666 F.2d 294 (5th Cir.1982). In Comeaux a mate on a dredge found himself shorthanded and enlisted the aid of a galleyhand to help him perform the duties of deckhand and boathand. The galleyhand had no experience performing these tasks. The galleyhand was placed in charge of the wheel and while under the galleyhand's control the vessel lunged forward injuring a mate on board the vessel. Finding that the vessel was unseaworthy while the galleyhand was at the wheel, the Fifth Circuit stated "[t]he warranty of seaworthiness includes a seaworthy crew and the ship owner's duty is breached by providing a 'defective' or inadequate crew." Id. at 299.

We believe the district court correctly stated the controlling principles as follows:

Although the crew herein employed may have been adequate in number under the certificate of inspection issued by the United States Coast Guard and adequate for the purposes of each member's regularly assigned duties, the assignment of Hacker to the position of pilot, without proper training and supervision, rendered the Belle unseaworthy. Furthermore, the inattention to duty by the qualified master by intentional absence from [sic] pilothouse, rendered the Belle unseaworthy. Thus, the Court concludes that the Belle breached the seaworthiness warranty contained in the policy.

District court opinion at 6.

The Belle admits that the acts of Hacker and Craig Buhrow were negligent but argues that a vessel is not rendered unseaworthy because of one act of negligence by an otherwise competent master or crew member. We disagree with the Belle's characterization of this accident as only involving one act of negligence. There were numerous negligent acts on the part of both Hacker and Craig Buhrow that placed the Belle in an unseaworthy condition.

Warranties in marine insurance policies must be strictly complied with and where the language of the policy is unambiguous the court must construe the policy as written. Benton State Bank v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., 452 F.2d 5, 8 (8th Cir.1971). Under the terms of the policy "any violation of [the] warranties relating to the carrying of passengers [renders the] policy void during the term of such violation."

Since we hold that the Belle breached the use of vessel and seaworthiness warranties, St. Paul was...

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  • St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Abhe & Svoboda, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota
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    ...Policy. St. Paul Fire's arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. First, St. Paul Fire relies on St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Belle of Hot Springs, 844 F.2d 550 (8th Cir. 1988), where the Eighth Circuit found that the seaworthiness warranty applied to a P&I policy. See id. at 5......

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