Blanco v. Carigulf Lines
| Decision Date | 12 December 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-7427,80-7427 |
| Parties | Manuel BLANCO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CARIGULF LINES, a division of Carigulf Ltd., a corporation; John Doe I, etc., and the M/V CARIGULF EXPRESS, Defendants-Appellees. Summary Calendar. . Unit B |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Diamond, Lattof, Gardner, Pate & Peters, Mitchell G. Lattof, Jr., Mobile, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.
Joe E. Basenberg, Joseph M. Allen, Jr., Mobile, Ala., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
Before HILL, FAY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff, a Honduran seaman, brought suit against a Panamanian flag vessel and corporate and individual defendants, with unknown citizenship, for injuries received aboard the vessel in the waters off Belize, British Honduras. The district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Based upon procedural error, we reverse.
The question presented is whether the district court's dismissal for lack of jurisdiction is proper when the court relied exclusively upon defendants' affidavits, although defendants' answers to interrogatories directed at requisite jurisdictional factors were outstanding and overdue.
This action was brought on September 26, 1979, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 688, and general maritime law. Plaintiff, a Honduran seaman, was injured off the waters of Belize while employed aboard the M/V Carigulf Express owned by defendant Carigulf Lines. Plaintiff's assertion of American jurisdiction is based upon the fact that Carigulf lists on its letterhead and stationary the USA address: 1002 Commerce Building, P. O. Box 50, Mobile, Alabama, 36601, and lists in Lloyds List of Shipowners 1978-79 the address: 1002 Commerce Building, P. O. Box 760, Belize, 36601, Belize.
The record indicates that defendants twice requested and were granted thirty day extensions before finally responding to plaintiff's complaint on January 28, 1980 with an alternate motion to decline jurisdiction and/or dismiss the complaint. On February 15, 1980, plaintiff propounded interrogatories and filed an Opposition to Defendants' Alternative Motion accompanied by a brief of law, informing the court that interrogatories number 39 to number 61 were directed to elicit material jurisdictional factors to support its assertion of American jurisdiction, and arguing that defendants' motion was premature.
The record indicates that on March 26, 1980 the case went to pretrial conference and was put aside pending resolution of jurisdictional matters. A transcript of the pretrial conference is not included in the record but the fact that jurisdiction was discussed is alluded to in both briefs. Absent a transcript of the pretrial conference we do not know the nature of that discussion. We do know that defendants' answers to plaintiff's interrogatories were overdue and that no objections to the interrogatories had been filed by defendants.
On April 24, 1980 the district court issued an order dismissing the complaint without prejudice, based solely upon defendants' affidavits. Plaintiff is appealing the court's order of April 24, 1980 and the court's subsequent refusal on May 7, 1980 to grant both a motion for reconsideration and a motion to compel answers to the interrogatories.
Rule 33, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that any party may serve upon any other party interrogatories to be answered by the party served, and further states that "each interrogatory shall be answered separately and fully in writing under oath, unless objected to in which event the reasons for objection shall be stated in lieu of an answer. In this case, defendant did not comply with the Rule, in that the interrogatories were not answered within...
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