Hudspeth v. Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 April 1967
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 66-819.
• Citation: 266 F. Supp. 937
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
• Parties: William O. HUDSPETH, Plaintiff, v. ATLANTIC & GULF STEVEDORES, INC., Defendant.

266 F. Supp. 937

William O. HUDSPETH, Plaintiff, v. ATLANTIC & GULF STEVEDORES, INC., Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 66-819.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

April 17, 1967.

Wilson M. Montero, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff.

Cornelius G. Van Dalen, New Orleans, La., for defendant.

RUBIN, District Judge:

This motion for summary judgment puts the question: Is a seaman who usually provides his own meals even while working aboard his ship and who usually returns to his home ashore at night entitled to be paid maintenance during a period of disability resulting from an injury received in the service of his vessel? The answer is neither self-evident nor is it provided clearly by the school of decisions concerning seamen's rights. Yet on principle it appears to this court that the seaman in such a case is worthy of his maintenance.

William O. Hudspeth was employed by Atlantic & Gulf as a deckhand aboard a tug, The M/V McGRATH No. 2. The McGRATH is a push boat, and most of the time it works in the New Orleans Harbor. The regular crew consisted only of the Captain and Hudspeth. Hudspeth did not have seaman's papers. He was paid $2.27 per hour, with time and one-half for hours in excess of forty in one week. His duties were varied. He was both engineer and deckhand. Occasionally, he relieved the Captain at the wheel. He usually received no meals aboard ship. When possible, he ate his lunch ashore. If his work duties did not permit him to go ashore at meal time, he heated coffee, or made a sandwich, or warmed a can of food aboard ship. He lived in Metairie with his wife and six children, and usually spent each night at home. However, whenever required to do so by irregular work calls, he remained aboard the tug at night. On these occasions, he provided his own sheets and pillows.

The tug had a galley of sorts, with a butane stove, but meals were not usually prepared aboard. Occasionally, the tug pushed barges or derricks a relatively short distance up the Mississippi River, to Taft. In the seven months before the accident, Hudspeth took three such voyages, one for three days in January, 1966; one for a single day in August, 1966; and the last one for two days on August 7 and 8, 1966. When such trips were made, Hudspeth's employer gave the master of the tug $10 to buy food for himself and Hudspeth. At such times, Hudspeth prepared the food aboard ship.

On August 31, 1966, at about 5:30 P.M., Hudspeth left the tug and went ashore at the Alcoa Wharf in New Orleans to get a meal for himself and the master. He went to a hamburger shop where he ate his own meal while waiting for the master's order to be fixed. He then returned to the wharf and gave the master his lunch, his change, and his drink. He started to go back to the tug, but the master suggested that Hudspeth telephone the superintendent for orders concerning the night's work. Hudspeth went into a shed on the wharf to make the call, but was unable to reach the superintendent. When he returned, the captain invited him to sit down. He sat down on or rested against a pallet board which was leaning against a wall. The pallet board slipped and struck Hudspeth, injuring his back.

Although it denied liability to Hudspeth, Atlantic & Gulf paid him maintenance in the total sum of $504, at the rate of $6.00 per day, and he received free medical care at the United States Public Health Hospital as well as from defendant's own physician. When Hudspeth's lawyer sought an increase to $8.00 per day, Atlantic & Gulf's lawyer decided that Hudspeth was entitled to nothing for maintenance because he did not receive lodging or meals aboard the vessel, and the payment of maintenance was discontinued.

Hudspeth then sued seeking the payment of maintenance at the rate of $6.00 a day and damages and attorney's fees for the refusal to pay maintenance alleging this to be arbitrary, unreasonable, and without justification or cause.

The defendant contends that this matter is not ripe for summary judgment. Apparently it believes that shoals of factual disputes lie hidden in this suit and that, despite the affidavits and depositions that have been filed in support of the motion, the channel is not yet well marked enough for decision of this case. But there does not appear to be any genuine dispute about any question of fact that is material to the issues now posed. While the waters are somewhat murky, the difficulty of seeing is caused by uncertainty of legal principles, not by factual differences.

The ancient sea codes recognized the right of seamen to maintenance and cure when they became ill or were injured in the service of their ships. The obligation of the shipowner to pay maintenance and cure to ill or injured seamen was first recognized in this country in the case of Harden v. Gordon, Fed. Cas. 6047 (CC Me.1823). There Judge Story, in a passage that has become a navigation chart for admiralty lawyers, based the allowance on reasons that were profoundly humanitarian, buttressed by an argument of dubious economic and psychological logic,¹ and a generalization about seamen's character that would be at least questionable today.² Today the right is recognized in general maritime law as a part of the seaman's contract of employment,³ incident to his status in the employment of his ship.

At first, the seaman's right to maintenance and cure lasted only for the remainder of the voyage for which he had signed, and consisted of payment by the shipowner of his wages, cure (in the sense of medical and nursing care), and subsistence.⁴ The exact amount to which a seaman is entitled, however, is not clearly set forth in the American cases.

The sea codes of the Middle Ages attempted to define with precision the extent of the seaman's right to maintenance. Excerpts from some of these are set forth in Norris, The Law of Seamen, § 538. Thus, The Laws of Oleron (dating from the 12th Century) provided:

"Art. VII. If it happens that sickness seizes on any one of the mariners, while in the service of the ship, the master ought * * * likewise to afford him such diet as is usual in the ship; that is to say, so much as he had on shipboard in his health, and nothing more, unless it please the master to allow it him; and if he will have better diet, the master shall not be found to provide it for him, unless it be at the mariner's own cost and charges * * *."

Similarly, The Laws of Wisbury (13th Century) stated:

"Art. XIX. If a seaman falls ill of any disease, and it is convenient to put him ashore, he shall be fed as he was aboard. * * *"

And The Laws of the Hanse Towns, which were used in the 17th Century, contained similar language:

"Art. XLV. If any mariner falls sick of any disease, he shall be put ashore and maintained in like manner as if he was on shipboard * * *."

The American maritime cases contain generalizations similar to, but less explicit, than the rules of the sea codes. In The Bouker No. 2, 241 F. 831 (2d Cir. 1917), cert. den. 245 U.S. 647, 38 S.Ct. 9, 62 L.Ed. 529, when the principle was established that the right to maintenance and cure extends a reasonable time beyond the duration of the voyage, the right was defined as follows:

"By the custom of the sea the hiring of sailors has for centuries included food and lodging at the expense of the ship. This is their maintenance, and the origin of the word indicates the kind and to a certain extent the quantum of assistance due the sailor from his ship."

In Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 1938, 303 U.S. 525, 58 S.Ct. 651, 82 L.Ed. 993, the Supreme Court decided that the duty of a shipowner to provide maintenance and cure to a seaman who became ill of an incurable disease while in its employ did not extend to the payment of a lump sum sufficient to defray the cost of maintenance and cure for the remainder of his life. Discussing the basic nature of the right, the Court said:

"The maintenance exacted is comparable to that to which the seaman is entitled while at sea, The Henry B. Fiske, 141 F. 188, 192 (D.C.); The Mars, 145 F. 446, 447 (D.C.), affirmed 149 F. 729 (C.C.A.); The Bouker No. 2, supra, 836, and `cure' is care, including nursing and medical attention during such period as the duty continues. Whitney v. Olsen, 108 F. 292, 297 (C.C.A.) and cases cited; Dougherty v. Thompson-Lockhart Co., 211 F. 224, 227 (D.C.)."

Similar generalizations can be found in other American cases.⁵ In none of these cases, however, does it appear that the court was confronted with the necessity of tacking its sails to the wind that blows here, for the courts apparently proceeded on the hypothesis that the disabled seaman was a typical blue water tar.

But it is now certain that the seaman's right to maintenance and cure is a basic term of his employment contract, and it should not be treated like the "landman's remedy so often a promise to the ear to be broken to the hope."⁶

"It has been the merit of the seaman's right to maintenance and cure that it is so inclusive as to be relatively simple, and can be understood and administered without technical considerations."⁷

Admiralty courts have been liberal in interpreting the duty to pay maintenance "for the benefit and protection of the seamen who are its wards."⁸ "Certainly the nature and foundations of the liability require that it be not narrowly confined or whittled down by restrictive and artificial distinctions defeating its broad and beneficial purposes."⁹ For the shipowner's liability for maintenance and cure is among "the most pervasive" of all. When there are ambiguities or doubts, they are resolved in favor of the seaman.¹⁰

The "ancient solicitude of courts of admiralty for those who labor at sea"¹¹ continues unchanged despite the progress from canvas sails to diesel engines. For the injured seaman is entitled to be certain of "receiving compensation intended to be sufficient to pay for his care."¹²

When faced head-on with a situation in which a seaman...