Kernan v. American Dredging Company the Arthur Herron In the Matter of the Petition for Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability

• Decision Date: 03 February 1958
• Docket Number: No. 34,34
• Citation: 78 S.Ct. 394,2 L.Ed.2d 382,1958 A.M.C. 251,355 U.S. 426
• Parties: William J. KERNAN, Administrator of the Estate of Arthur E. Milan, Deceased, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN DREDGING COMPANY, as Owner of THE Tug ARTHUR N. HERRON, In the Matter of the Petition for Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

355 U.S. 426

78 S.Ct. 394

2 L.Ed.2d 382

William J. KERNAN, Administrator of the Estate of Arthur E. Milan, Deceased, Petitioner,

v AMERICAN DREDGING COMPANY, as Owner of THE Tug ARTHUR N. HERRON, In the Matter of the Petition for Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability.

No. 34.

Argued Nov. 21, 1957.

Decided Feb. 3, 1958.

Mr. Abraham E. Freedman, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

Mr. T. E. Byrne, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this limitation proceeding brought by the respondent under §§ 183—186 of the Limited Liability Act, R.S. §§ 4281—4289, as amended, 46 U.S.C. §§ 181—196, 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 181—196, the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the petitioner's claim for damages filed on behalf of the widow and other dependents of a seaman who lost his life on respondent's tug in a fire caused by the violation of a navigation rule. 141 F.Supp. 582. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. 235 F.2d 618, rehearing denied, 235 F.2d 619. We granted certiorari. 352 U.S. 965, 77 S.Ct. 356, 1 L.Ed.2d 320.

The seaman lost his life on the tug Arthur N. Herron, which, on the night of November 18, 1952, while towing a scow on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, caught fire when an open-flame kerosene lamp on the deck of the scow ignited highly inflammable vapors lying above an extensive accumulation of petroleum products spread over the surface of the river. Several oil refineries and facilities for oil storage, and for loading and unloading petroleum products, are located along the banks of the Schuylkill River. The trial court found that the lamp was not more than three feet above the water. Maintaining the lamp at a height of less than eight feet violated a navigation rule promulgated by the Commandant of the United States Coast Guard.¹ The trial court found that the vapor would not have been ignited if the lamp had been carried at the required height.

The District Court held that the violation of the rule 'whether * * * (it) be called negligence or be said to make the flotilla unseaworthy,' did not impose liability because 'the Coast Guard regulation had to do solely with navigation and was intended for the prevention of collisions, and for no other purpose. In the present case there was no collision and no fault of navigation. True, the origin of the fire can be traced to the violation of the regulation, but the question is not causation but whether the violation of the regulation, of itself, imposes liability.' 141 F.Supp. at page 585.

The petitioner urges first that the statutory violation made the flotilla unseaworthy, creating liability without regard to fault. But the remedy for unseaworthiness derives from the general maritime law, and that law recognizes no cause of action for wrongful death whether occasioned by unseaworthiness or by negligence. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 7 S.Ct. 140, 30 L.Ed. 358;² see Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U.S. 233, 240, 42 S.Ct. 89, 90, 66 L.Ed. 210. Before the Jones Act,³ federal courts of admiralty resorted to the various state death acts to give a remedy for wrongful death. The Hamilton, 207 U.S. 398, 28 S.Ct. 133, 52 L.Ed. 264; The Transfer No. 4, 2 Cir., 61 F. 364; see Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, supra, 257 U.S. at page 242, 42 S.Ct. at page 90; Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U.S. 479, 43 S.Ct. 418, 67 L.Ed. 756. The Jones Act created a federal right of action for the wrongful death of a seaman based on the statutory action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. In Lindgren v. United States, 281 U.S. 38, 50 S.Ct. 207, 74 L.Ed. 686, the Court held that the Jones Act remedy for wrongful death was exclusive and precluded any remedy for wrongful death within territorial waters,⁴ based on unseaworthiness, whether derived from federal or state law. The petitioner assumes that under today's general maritime law the personal representative of a deceased seaman may elect, as the seaman himself may elect, between an action based on the FELA and an action, recognized in The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 175, 23 S.Ct. 483, 487, 47 L.Ed. 760, based upon unseaworthiness. In view of the disposition we are making of this case, we need not consider the soundness of this assumption.

The petitioner also urges that, since the violation of the rule requiring the lights to be eight feet above the water resulted in a defect or insufficiency in the flotilla's lighting equipment which in fact caused the seaman's death, liability was created without regard to negligence under the line of decisions of this Court in actions under the FELA based upon violations of either the Safety Appliance Acts⁵ or the Boiler Inspection Act.⁶ That line of decisions interpreted the clause of § 1 of the FELA, 45 U.S.C. § 51, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51, which imposes liability on the employer 'by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.' The cases hold that under this clause, a defect resulting from a violation of either statute which causes the injury or death of an employee creates liability without regard to negligence. San Antonio & A.P.R. Co. v. Wagner, 241 U.S. 476, 484, 36 S.Ct. 626, 629, 60 L.Ed. 1110. Here the defect or insufficiency in the flotilla's lighting equipment due to a violation of the statute resulted in the death of the seaman. The question for our decision is whether, in the absence of any showing of negligence, the Jones Act—which in terms incorporates the provisions of the FELA—permits recovery for the death of a seaman resulting from a violation of a statutory duty. We hold that it does.

In denying the claim the lower courts relied upon their views of general tort doctrine. It is true that at common law the liability of the master to his servant was founded wholly on tort rules of general applicability and the master was granted the effective defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence. This limited liability derived from a public policy, designed to give maximum freedom to infant industrial enterprises, 'to insulate the employer as much as possible from bearing the 'human overhead' which is an inevitable part of the cost—to someone—of the doing of industrialized business.' Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U.S. 54, 59, 63 S.Ct. 444, 447, 87 L.Ed. 610. But it came to be recognized that, whatever the rights and duties among persons generally, the industrial employer had a special responsibility toward his workers, who were daily exposed to the risks of the business and who were largely helpless to provide adequately for their own safety. Therefore, as industry and commerce became sufficiently strong to bear the burden, the law, the reflection of an evolving public policy, came to favor compensation of employees and their dependents for the losses occasioned by the inevitable deaths and injuries of industrial employment, thus shifting to industry the 'human overhead' of doing business. For most indus- tries this change has been embodied in Workmen's Compensation Acts. In the railroad and shipping industries, however, the FELA and Jones Act provide the framework for determining liability for industrial accidents. But instead of a detailed statute codifying common-law principles, Congress saw fit to enact a statute of the most general terms, thus leaving in large measure to the courts the duty of fashioning remedies for injured employees in a manner analogous to the development of tort remedies at common law. But it is clear that the general congressional intent was to provide liberal recovery for injured workers, Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 508—510, 77 S.Ct. 443, 449—450, 1 L.Ed.2d 493, and it is also clear that Congress intended the creation of no static remedy, but one which would be developed and enlarged to meet changing conditions and changing concepts of industry's duty toward its workers.

The FELA and the Jones Act impose upon the employer the duty of paying damages when injury to the worker is caused, in whole or in part, by the employer's fault. This fault may consist of a breach of the duty of care, analogous but by no means identical to the general common-law duty, or of a breach of some statutory duty. The tort doctrine which the lower courts applied imposes liability for violation of a statutory duty only where the injury is one which the statute was designed to prevent.⁷ However, this Court has repeatedly refused to apply such a limiting doctrine in FELA cases. In FELA cases based upon violations of the Safety Appli- ance Acts or the Boiler Inspection Act, the Court has held that a violation of either statute creates liability under FELA if the resulting defect or insufficiency in equipment contributes in fact to the death or injury in suit, without regard to whether the injury flowing from the breach was the injury the statute sought to prevent. Since it appears in this case that the defect or insufficiency of the flotilla's lighting equipment resulting from the violation of 33 U.S.C. § 157, 33 U.S.C.A. § 157, actually caused the seaman's death, this principle governs and compels a result in favor of the petitioner's claim.

In Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U.S. 617, 37 S.Ct. 456, 457, 61 L.Ed. 931, a railroad employee on one of five freight cars loaded with coal was thrown to the track and injured when an engine pushed a stock car into the last of the loaded cars and drove the five cars against a standing train. Neither the stock car nor the car which it struck was equipped with automatic couplers, as required by the Federal Safety Appliance Act. Had the cars been so equipped they would have coupled when they came together and the five cars would not have run against the standing train. The stated purpose of the automatic coupler requirement was to avoid 'the necessity of men...