Hall v. Noble Drilling

• Decision Date: 14 February 2001
• Docket Number: Nos. 00-60063,00-60065,s. 00-60063
• Parties: (5th Cir. 2001) JAMES HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING (U.S.) INC.; NOBLE DRILLING SERVICES, INC., Defendants-Appellants. CHARLES BYRON STUART, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING (U.S.) INC.; NOBLE DRILLING SERVICES, INC., Defendants-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 582

242 F.3d 582 (5th Cir. 2001)

JAMES HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING (U.S.) INC.; NOBLE DRILLING SERVICES, INC., Defendants-Appellants.

CHARLES BYRON STUART, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING (U.S.) INC.; NOBLE DRILLING SERVICES, INC., Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 00-60063, 00-60065

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FIFTH CIRCUIT

February 14, 2001

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi

Before GARWOOD, HIGGINBOTHAM, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

This admiralty case involves the calculation of maintenance. Plaintiffs James Hall and Charles Byron Stuart are seamen employed by defendant Noble Drilling (U.S.) Inc. ("Noble") who were injured during their employment on offshore rigs. The district court awarded maintenance of $30.50 to Stuart and $31.50 to Hall, based in part on the costs of their shelter, homes that they share with their families.

Noble argues that maintenance is provided solely for the benefit of the seaman, and thus the maintenance rate should be have been reduced to reflect only the seaman's pro rata portion of the mortgage on the family home. We agree with Noble's premise that maintenance is provided solely for the benefit of the seaman, but we reject Noble's conclusion. In this case, the plaintiffs actually paid their entire mortgages; they were obligated to pay their entire mortgages; and their food and lodging expenses were reasonable. We affirm the ruling of the district court.

I

Plaintiffs Charles Byron Stuart and James Hall are both seamen employed by Noble Drilling (U.S.) Inc. Stuart lives in Petal, Mississippi, with his wife and two young children. Hall lives in Columbia, Mississippi, with his wife and adult son. Both live in houses for which they pay mortgages.

Stuart was injured on October 3 or 4, 1998, while aboard the Noble jack-up rig EDDIE PAUL. Hall was injured on February 7, 1999, while aboard the Noble jack-up rig M/V BILL JENNINGS. Noble has paid them each $21 a day in maintenance.

Stuart and Hall brought suit in admiralty against Noble in May and June, 1999, respectively. They made claims under the Jones Act and the doctrines of unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure. Hall and Stuart each sought an increase in their rate of maintenance. The cases were consolidated, and trial on the issue of the proper maintenance rates was held.

At trial, Stuart and Hall presented itemized lists of their expenses, which included housing and food, telephone, satellite TV, automobile, and other expenses. They also presented an expert witness who described their expenses and provided national and regional estimates of the cost of food and lodging. The food and lodging estimates based on national statistics varied from $27.85 to $49.23 for a single person.¹ Noble presented evidence of the costs of various forms of lodging in the area and their own expert witness, who concluded that $13.17 to $18.52 per day would provide adequate maintenance.

Stuart claimed entitlement to $45.93 per day based on an itemized list of his expenses. Of this figure, he claimed $14.24 for mortgage, escrow, and real estate insurance; $5.43 for utilities; $9.47 for food;² and $16.78 in telephone, cable TV, house maintenance, and automobile expenses.³

Hall claimed entitlement to $51.45 per day based on a similar list of expenses. He claimed $20.27 for mortgage, escrow, and real estate insurance; $6.41 for utilities; $10.39 for food;⁴ $11.09 in telephone, satellite TV, house maintenance, and automobile expenses; and $3.29 for the prorated cost of some dental work.

The trial judge noted that maintenance does not provide for expenses such as telephone or automobile bills or the costs of supporting children. The judge then awarded Stuart a maintenance rate of $30.50 per day and awarded Hall a maintenance rate of $31.50 per day. Noble appealed.⁵ On appeal, Noble challenges the amount of the maintenance awards.⁶ Noble's primary argument is that since Hall and Stuart live with their families, their lodging expenses should be divided among the members of the household; the maintenance awards, then, should only reflect Stuart's and Hall's pro rata share of food and lodging expenses.

II

Maintenance and its counterpart, cure, have a venerable history in the jurisprudence of admiralty,⁷ with origins at the beginning of the last millennium.⁸ In the last century, American courts have developed and expanded the right to maintenance and cure, adapting it to the changing duties of seamen in modern commerce. While centuries ago the typical seaman was a single man--perhaps without a home--who spent most of his life at sea, today the typical seaman may be someone very much like the plaintiffs in this case: a worker on a floating rig who has a home and family and spends significant stretches of time onshore.

This juxtaposition of the ancient right of maintenance, protecting the "poor and friendless" seaman,⁹ with the cases of modern seamen with families and mortgages is at the heart of this case. Courts have long held that in providing maintenance the ship owner must "furnish the seaman with food and lodging of the kind and quality he would have received . . . aboard [the] ship."¹⁰ Yet in this appeal the parties focus their attention on Stuart's and Hall's housing costs and the number of people in their families. We examine the historical source of this incongruity and then turn to the facts of this case.

A

The maritime doctrine of maintenance entitles a seaman injured in the service of his ship to "food and lodging of the kind and quality he would have received . . . aboard [the] ship."¹¹ This articulation of the standard for the amount of maintenance originated from the obligation of the shipowner to provide room and board to seamen during the voyage.¹² This equivalence between food and lodging onshore and room and board during the voyage was natural, given that American courts originally held that the shipowner's obligation to provide maintenance extended only to the end of the voyage.¹³

The logical foundation for this formulation has eroded, however. By the turn of the last century, American courts had embraced the rule that maintenance extends beyond the end of the seaman's voyage to the time of maximum cure.¹⁴ And in more recent years courts have awarded maintenance and cure to seamen who have no room or board on their vessels.¹⁵ Nonetheless, the notion that the shipowner must provide the seaman with the equivalent of his food and lodging on the ship remains the touchstone for calculating maintenance.

The expansion in the last century of the scope of maintenance has complicated the calculation of the appropriate rate of maintenance. Most obviously, seamen with no food or lodging on board their vessels cannot compare their shoreside accommodations with quarters that don't exist. But the determination of maintenance is also complicated by the fact that little, if any, lodging on land is truly equivalent to quarters on a vessel; that, as in this case, some seamen have existing accommodations on land; and that, as a practical matter, seamen have historically lacked the resources to present detailed proof in suits for maintenance and cure.¹⁶

Understanding these practical and conceptual difficulties, courts have not required literal equivalence of facilities onshore and in the vessel. Instead, the reference to a seaman's shipboard food and lodging serves to define the amount of maintenance as no more and no less than the reasonable costs of subsistence the seaman has incurred while recuperating on land.¹⁷ This breaks down into two components: the reasonable cost of food and lodging for a seaman living alone, and the actual expenses for food and lodging that the seaman has incurred. We address courts' treatment of these components of the maintenance calculation in turn.

A seaman is entitled to the reasonable cost of food and lodging, provided he has incurred the expense. Proving reasonable costs admits of many forms of proof. Courts allow proof of the seaman's actual expenditures and expert testimony about the cost of living in the area of the seaman's residence.¹⁸ Courts also allow evidence of maintenance rates negotiated by unions,¹⁹ per diem allowances for seamen in port when the vessel's facilities are unavailable,²⁰ and, of course, the cost of food and lodging equivalent to food and lodging on the vessel, if such exist on land. The use of evidence of actual expenses should not obscure the fact that this evidence is offered to prove not only actual, but also reasonable expenses. Thus, maintenance awards should depend on the reasonable cost of food and lodging for a seaman living alone in the seaman's locality.²¹

Since the reasonable cost of food and lodging for a single seaman in an area is an objective standard, "the rate at which maintenance is paid tends to become standardized to reflect the costs of food and lodging in a particular area."²² The historical tendency towards uniform rates of maintenance has simplified the litigation over the reasonable amount of maintenance to the benefit of both shipowner and seaman. Standard rates of maintenance protect the seaman's interest in recovering maintenance without great delay or expense and without disparities between seamen; and it protects the shipowner's interest in predictable obligations and reduced litigation. Uniform rates also reduce the decision costs of courts and the impact of maintenance litigation on the docket.

We have consistently held that "one who has not paid his own expenses . . . cannot recover maintenance and cure from the ship owner."²³ Courts have treated maintenance not as a payment owed from shipowner to seaman, but as an obligation of the shipowner to ensure that the seaman can afford food and lodging. Thus, the shipowner is obligated to pay the seaman no more than the seaman actually spends to...