Claussen v. Mene Grande Oil Company, CA

• Decision Date: 26 January 1960
• Docket Number: No. 12747.,12747.
• Citation: 275 F.2d 108
• Parties: Jens CLAUSSEN, Appellant v. MENE GRANDE OIL COMPANY, C.A., a Venezuela Corporation and Mene Grande Oil Company, a Delaware Corporation.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

275 F.2d 108 (1960)

Jens CLAUSSEN, Appellant v. MENE GRANDE OIL COMPANY, C.A., a Venezuela Corporation and Mene Grande Oil Company, a Delaware Corporation.

No. 12747.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued November 2, 1959.

Decided January 26, 1960.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Harvey Goldstein, New York City, (John M. Bader, Wilmington, Del., Jacob Rassner, New York City, on the brief), for appellant.

Frederick L. Scofield, New York City, (David B. Coxe, Jr., Wilmington, Del., on the brief), for appellee, Mene Grande Oil Company, a Delaware Corp.

Before McLAUGHLIN, KALODNER and HASTIE, Circuit Judges.

HASTIE, Circuit Judge.

The court below dismissed as untimely a complaint filed in 1956 by appellant Claussen, a seaman, against appellee Mene Grande Oil Co., a shipowner, for injuries alleged to have been sustained in 1947 when appellant, a member of the crew, fell from a gangway while boarding appellee's ship. The complaint asserts a cause of action for negligent injury under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688, and an admiralty cause for maintenance and cure. In addition, appellant insists that his personal injury claim is also to be read as asserting the right which admiralty gives a crewman to recover for injury resulting from the unseaworthiness of his vessel. The court below ruled that the Jones Act cause was barred by the statute of limitations and that the maintenance and cure claim was barred by laches. The court found no sufficient assertion of a maritime injury claim based on unseaworthiness, but concluded that in any event such a claim would also be barred by laches.

The district court was clearly right in ruling that the negligent injury, claim was barred by the provision of the Federal Employers' Liability Act, as adopted by the Jones Act, that "no action shall be maintained under this chapter unless commenced within three years from the day the cause of action accrued". 45 U.S.C.A. § 56. The cause of action accrued in 1947 at the time of the injury sued upon. This 1956 suit is on that cause with appellee, a Delaware corporation, sued as successor to a Venezuelan corporation of the same name, which owned the ship in question in 1947. As the district court aptly said: "The three years statute of limitations, 45 U.S. C.A. § 56, under the Jones Act is implacable in its terms * * *. The lapse of three years between the date of injury and the date of suit extinguishes the right of action". 163 F.Supp. 781. Accord Engel v. Davenport, 1926, 271 U.S. 33, 46 S.Ct. 410, 70 L.Ed. 813; Damiano v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 3 Cir., 1947, 161 F.2d 534; Bell v. Wabash R. Co., 8 Cir., 1932, 58 F.2d 569. An argument that an earlier suit filed on these claims in the Southern District of New York less than three years after the accident somehow tolled the statute of limitations for the present entirely distinct action, as filed years later in the District of Delaware, is wholly without merit.

We next consider whether appellant's complaint can properly be read as stating a claim based not only on the Jones Act but also on the admiralty right to recover for loss resulting from unseaworthiness, as to which the equitable doctrine of laches, rather than a fixed limitation period determines timeliness.¹ The damage claim in question is stated in a single count. Most of what is said concerns negligent injury within the purview of the Jones Act. However, the fourth paragraph of the complaint plainly invokes both the statutory jurisdiction of the district court under the Jones Act and its jurisdiction under "general maritime law". The thirteenth paragraph of the complaint, beyond alleging negligence in several respects, also alleges that the gangway was rigged and erected in an unseaworthy manner and that the accident was caused by "the failure, neglect and omission of the defendants to keep and maintain the aforesaid vessel and its appurtenances in a seaworthy condition * * *." True, the allegations concerning negligence and those concerning unseaworthiness are not carefully segregated so as to point up their distinctness. Yet, they do appear. And, we have from time to time approved the pleading of unseaworthiness and Jones Act negligence as alternative legal bases of a single maritime injury claim. Yates v. Dann, 3 Cir., 1955, 223 F.2d 64; McCarthy v. American Eastern Corp., 3 Cir., 1949, 175 F.2d 724, certiorari denied 338 U.S. 868, 70 S.Ct. 144, 94 L.Ed. 532, and see Jordine v. Walling, 3 Cir., 1950, 185 F.2d 662, 670. If the present claim is timely when viewed in either of these legal aspects we think it should be entertained. This means that with respect to the uneaworthiness claim, as well as the separate admiralty claim for maintenance and cure, the defense of laches is applicable and must be considered. Indeed, the most substantial question on this appeal is whether the district court was correct in its ruling that the appellant's admiralty claims for maritime injury and for maintenance and cure should be dismissed because of laches.

A suit is barred by laches only when there has been both unreasonable delay in its filing and consequent prejudice to the party against whom the claim is asserted. Gardner v. Panama R. Co., 1951, 342 U.S. 29, 72 S.Ct. 12, 96 L.Ed. 31; Loverich v. Warner Co., 3 Cir., 1941, 118 F.2d 690, certiorari denied 313 U.S. 577, 61 S.Ct. 1104, 85 L.Ed. 1535. However, in administering this equitable defense the courts recognize and apply the logical inference that delay in suing has been both unreasonably long and injurious to the defendant after the running of the period within which the analogous statute of limitations would require an action at law to be commenced, unless the claimant makes some affirmative showing to the contrary. Kane v. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 3 Cir., 1951, 189 F.2d 303, certiorari denied 342 U.S. 903, 72 S.Ct. 292, 96 L.Ed. 676; Oroz v American President Lines, Inc., 2 Cir., 1958, 259 F.2d 636; Marshall v. International Mercantile Marine Co., 2 Cir., 1930, 39 F.2d 551. Whether the Jones Act, or the Delaware statute of limitations for tort claims, or the Delaware statute for contractual claims provides the appropriate analogy in this case, it is clear that an action at law nine years after the cause arose would come years too late. Hence, to avoid a conclusion of laches from so long a delay the claimant must show some justification in the special circumstances of his case.

Here the claimant relies upon the timely filing of an earlier suit and his unsuccessful effort to obtain personal service on the shipowner in that proceeding as showing that he was diligent rather than dilatory. He did file a suit on this claim against both Gulf Oil Corp. and the Venezuelan corporation, Mene Grande Oil Co., in the Southern District of New York in 1950, some two and one-half years after the accident and a few months before the Jones Act period of limitations would have expired. That action was transferred to the Western District of Pennsylvania where, through no fault of the parties, it was not reached for trial until 1955. It was the theory of that first complaint that both Gulf and Mene Grande were liable as owners and operators of the ship. Indeed, the complaint alleged "that the defendant Gulf Corporation and Mene Grande Oil Company, C. A., acted with such community, joinder and unity of interest, that the acts of one constituted the acts of the other, each being the alter ego of the other". It proved impossible to obtain personal service on Mene Grande in New York or in Pennsylvania. The case came on for trial against Gulf alone late in 1955. The evidence showed and the court concluded that Mene Grande, and not Gulf, was the owner and operator of the ship....