Colon v. Gulf Trading Co.
| Decision Date | 22 December 1983 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 79-2348CC. |
| Citation | 576 F. Supp. 1379 |
| Parties | Felipe COLON, Plaintiff, v. GULF TRADING CO., Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v. FARRELL LINES, INC. and Prudential Lines, Inc., Third-Party Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Harry A. Ezratty, San Juan, P.R., for plaintiff.
Antonio M. Bird, Jr., Bird & Bird, San Juan, P.R., for defendant and third-party plaintiff.
J. Ramón Rivera-Morales, Jimenez & Fuste, San Juan, P.R., for third-party defendants.
This action in admiralty was brought by a seaman to recover damages suffered as a result of an alleged asbestos dust intoxication contracted during his employment aboard defendant's vessel. The complaint asserts a claim of negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. Sec. 688, and a claim of unseaworthiness under general maritime law. On August 11, 1981 leave to amend was sought to add a cause of action for loss of society on behalf of plaintiff's wife and son allegedly derived from Cruz v. Hendy International Co., 638 F.2d 719 (5th Cir.1981) where the Fifth Circuit, relying on the Supreme Court's decision in American Export Lines, Inc. v. Alvez, 446 U.S. 274, 100 S.Ct. 1673, 64 L.Ed.2d 284 (1980) overruled itself and held that the wife of a seaman injured in territorial waters could recover for loss of society under the general maritime law if the injuries were the result of some unseaworthy condition. Defendant opposed the request to amend challenging the applicability of the Cruz decision in our Circuit in view of the decisions in Do Carmo v. F.V. Pilgrim I. Corp., 612 F.2d 11 (1st Cir.1979) and Barbe v. Drummond, 507 F.2d 794 (1st Cir.1974) which, it contends, limit the availability of non-pecuniary damages to seamen for injuries suffered in the high seas. Defendant also argues that regardless of the existence of said remedy, it is barred by laches even assuming that 1978-1979 were deemed to be the period the injury was inflicted. The Court referred these matters to the United States Magistrate who recommended that the amendment be allowed. Shortly thereafter, the Court requested memoranda discussing whether Cruz, if considered as an acceptable precedent in support of the new claim, should be given only prospective application (as was done by the Fifth Circuit in Stretton v. Penrod Drilling Co., 701 F.2d 441 (5th Cir.1983)). The parties having submitted their memoranda, their comments and objections to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation, the Court hereby adopts the Magistrate's findings and recommendations with the observations made in this Opinion and Order. We also rule that the judicially fashioned remedy permitting loss of society claims for injuries due to unseaworthiness under the general maritime law should not be limited to a prospective application for the reasons which will be expressed herein.
As the Supreme Court indicated in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971) the test to determine whether the application of a judicial decision should be limited prospectively requires a balancing of three factors: (1) how "new" or unexpected was the decision, that is, whether it established a new principle of law either by overruling past precedent or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed; (2) the impact of retroactive application on the operation of the rule in question considering its history and purpose and (3) the general effects in terms of possible inequities, hardships or injustice of retroactive application. In Stretton v. Penrod Oil, the Court found that, although the second factor weighed favorably in support of retroactive application, the other two factors favored nonretroactivity and outweighed any considerations urged by the second factor. Judge Wisdom pointed out that Cruz had overruled Christofferson v. Halliburton Co., 534 F.2d 1147 (5th Cir.1976), a "well-established precedent in /their/ circuit holding that a spouse of a non-fatally injured seaman could not recover for loss of society." Stretton at 444. The Christofferson opinion, in turn, had been issued after the Supreme Court's decisions in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339 (1970) and Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573, 94 S.Ct. 806, 39 L.Ed.2d 9 (1974) which opened the door for non-pecuniary damages under the general maritime law and which appeared to rely on this font of law to favor broad concessions of remedies to those who ventured the dangers of the seas. Thus, the Fifth Circuit considered the first factor to weigh heavily for non-retroactivity. It was patently clear to the court that, at least in their circuit, the Cruz decision had established a new principle of law by overruling past precedent. In turn, the court also found that reliance on the Christofferson precedent as the state of the law in the Fifth Circuit could have led defendant-employers to forsake insurance coverage for this type of loss. In particular, the court emphasized that defendants Penrod Drilling Co. and Fluor Drilling Services, Inc. would suffer undue hardship because they had already settled their cases with the injured seamen for substantial amounts but, because of their justifiable reliance on the prior law, had found it unnecessary to obtain releases from the spouses of the injured seamen and had been under the impression that they had settled amiably all possible liability. Stretton at 444 and Nealy v. Fluor Drilling Services, Inc., 524 F.Supp. 789, 793 (W.D.La., 1981). The court understood that the possible inequity in depriving spouses of seamen injured prior to the Alvez and Cruz decisions of a loss of society claim was outweighed by the combination of the other two factors which favored non-retroactivity; Stretton at 446. It stated that the possible adverse impact of retroactive application on the administration of justice, i.e., a flood of litigation reopening settled claims and cases and presenting thorny issues of laches and collateral estoppel, although not as important as the other three factors, may be relevant to the analysis and also pointed towards prospective application of the decision.
Our Circuit recently had the opportunity to explore the dilemma of retroactive versus prospective application of judicial decisions. In Simpson v. Dir. Office of Workers' Comp. Programs, 681 F.2d 81 (1st Cir.1982) the Court ruled that the Supreme Court's decision in Calbeck v. Travelers Insurance Co., 370 U.S. 114, 82 S.Ct. 1196, 8 L.Ed.2d 368 (1962), clarifying that the marine-but-local rule which permitted state workmen compensation laws to apply to maritime work of a traditionally local concern (i.e., shipbuilding) did not preclude application of the Longshoremen's Act to said type of work notwithstanding Section 3(a) of the Act,1 was to be applied retroactively. Like the Court in Stretton, our Circuit conducted the Huson three factor analysis but cautioned from the outset that retroactive application of judicial decisions is the rule and not the exception, a consideration that was practically ignored in Stretton. Upon discussing the presumption that all judicial decisions are generally applied retroactively it said:
This century has seen the Supreme Court establish that both state courts and federal courts, may legitimately conclude that justice requires a decision to be applied non-retroactively. But, at least in the federal courts, the strong presumption has remained in favor of retroactivity. This presumption follows in part from the fact that every federal decision applies "retroactively" to a set of facts that has already taken place. The presumption promotes uniform treatment of litigants, since the reasons that lead the court to make such a "retroactive" decision should apply with equal force to other similarly situated litigants, no matter when their cases arise. Most court-made law is interstitial, constrained by previously enacted principles of positive constitutional and statutory law, and merely clarifies points that were previously open to debate. It is applied retroactively, since that is usually the fairest, least arbitrary way to proceed. Simpson at 84, 85. (Citations and footnotes omitted)
The court also considered that the Huson test should be applied in light of general patterns in society instead of confining it to the specific, narrow facts of the case before it. Id. at 85-86. It viewed the Huson factors not as "discrete, disembodied tests, but rather (as) three perspectives on the central question of retroactivity: was reliance on a contrary rule so justified and the frustration of expectation so detrimental as to require deviation from the traditional presumption of retroactivity. The answer to this central question, found in an analysis of the state of the law at the time of the Calbeck decision, led the court to conclude that reliance on the proposition that the marine-but-local doctrine precluded resort to federal jurisdiction would have been imprudent given the legislative history of the Longshoreman's Act favoring coverage and the absence of clear precedent upholding that proposition. The reliance factor was tied in with defendant's allegations of hardship, essentially, a lack of proper insurance coverage for liability under the federal law, but, unlike the Fifth Circuit in Stretton, the Court did not give much weight to the allegations of hardship in view of the absence of clear legal foundation to justify relying on the rejected theory. A key element of our analysis lies then in determining whether the state of the general maritime law justified assuming that the spouses of injured seamen could not successfully initiate actions for loss of society. Finding the key to the analysis, does not always result in unlocking the doors to safe havens of legal certainty.
The first difficulty encountered lies in determining which of the decisions, ...
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Colon v. Gulf Trading Co.
...to include as damages the loss of society of his spouse and son and to allege that the action against Gulf was not barred by laches. 576 F.Supp. 1379 (1983). Presently before us is third-party defendant Prudential Lines, Inc.'s (Prudential) Motion to Dismiss for Lack of In Personam Jurisdic......