Lipfird v. Mississippi Valley Barge Line Company

• Decision Date: 06 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 13945.,13945.
• Citation: 310 F.2d 639
• Parties: Marvin E. LIPFIRD, Appellant, v. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BARGE LINE COMPANY, a Corporation.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

310 F.2d 639 (1962)

Marvin E. LIPFIRD, Appellant, v. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BARGE LINE COMPANY, a Corporation.

No. 13945.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued September 18, 1962.

Decided December 6, 1962.

Harry Alan Sherman, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant.

Bruce R. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Pringle, Bredin & Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARIS, McLAUGHLIN and GANEY, Circuit Judges.

MARIS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves a civil action brought in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania by the plaintiff, Marvin E. Lipfird, a seaman, against his employer, the Mississippi Valley Barge Line Company, for the recovery of damages for injuries claimed to have been suffered from two separate accidents, the first occurring on July 3, 1954, when the plaintiff was ordered to paint the motor boat on the vessel M/V Northern, and the second occurring on May 14, 1957 aboard the M/V Valley Transporter when he was ordered to wash the side of the vessel. The complaint, which was filed on September 25, 1958, asserted two causes of action arising out of the 1954 and 1957 accidents, each based upon negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688, and upon unseaworthiness under the maritime law, and also asserted two causes of action for maintenance and cure arising out of these accidents, the complaint clearly disclosing that the action was instituted more than four years after the occurrence of the July 1954 accident. The defendant answered raising, inter alia, the defenses of the statute of limitations and of laches. The answer further averred that the plaintiff had settled on November 3, 1954 the claim arising out of the July 3, 1954 occurrence by executing a release in consideration of a payment to him by the defendant of $250.00 and that the defendant had paid the plaintiff maintenance and cure following each accident.

The case was tried to a jury. At the close of the evidence, counsel for plaintiff moved orally for leave to withdraw the Jones Act negligence basis for the July 1954 claim, admitting that its assertion was barred by the three years statute of limitations, 45 U.S.C.A. § 56, and for leave to withdraw the maintenance and cure claims both of which the evidence established had been paid. The trial judge granted both motions. The defendant then filed a written motion for a directed verdict. The trial judge granted defendant's motion so far as it concerned the remaining basis, unseaworthiness, for the claim for damages for the July 1954 accident, concluding that on plaintiff's own evidence the vessel was not unseaworthy, that plaintiff's evidence as to the place where the accident occurred was so wholly contradictory that the jury would be required to guess which location averred by the plaintiff was the true one, and that under the facts of the case the claim based on unseaworthiness was barred by the plaintiff's laches.

The defendant's motion with respect to the plaintiff's claim for damages for the May 1957 accident was denied and that claim for relief was submitted to the jury which returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $5,150.00. Judgment against defendant was entered thereon and motions for a new trial by plaintiff on the July 1954 unseaworthiness claim and by defendant on the May 1957 claim were denied. The plaintiff alone appealed.

On this appeal we need consider only the plaintiff's contention that the trial judge erred in holding that the plaintiff was barred by his laches from prosecuting his claim for damages for the July 1954 accident upon the remaining ground of unseaworthiness.

It is settled that a seaman's suit for damages for personal injuries claimed to have resulted both from unseaworthiness and Jones Act negligence must be brought in a single proceeding since these claims give rise to a single cause of action, one actionable wrong for which a seaman is entitled to but one recovery. Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 1927, 274 U.S. 316, 47 S.Ct. 600, 71 L.Ed. 1069. "Since," said the Supreme Court in McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 1958, 357 U.S. 221, 225, 78 S.Ct. 1201, 2 L.Ed.2d 1272, 1276, "the seaman must sue for both unseaworthiness and Jones Act negligence in order to make full utilization of his remedies for personal injury, and since that can be accomplished only in a single proceeding, a time limitation on the unseaworthiness claim effects in substance a similar limitation on the right of action under the Jones Act. Congress has provided that a seaman shall have three years to bring his action under the Jones Act." The Supreme Court accordingly concluded in the McAllister case that the doctrine of laches might not be so applied as to impose upon a claim for damages insofar as it is based upon unseaworthiness a shorter period of limitation than that prescribed for claims under the Jones Act.

The case now before us presents the question whether the doctrine of laches may be applied by analogy to the limitation applicable to Jones Act cases to bar the assertion of unseaworthiness as a basis for a seaman's claim for damages in a suit brought more than three years after the accident occurred.

In a concurring opinion in the McAllister case Justice Brennan said, 357 U.S. 229-230, 78 S.Ct. 1201, 2 L.Ed.2d 1278-1279

"* * * Just as equity follows the law in applying, as a rough measure of limitations, the period which would bar a similar action at law, see Russell v. Todd, 309 U.S. 280, 287, 60 S.Ct. 527, 84 L.Ed. 754, 759, I think that the maritime cause of action for unseaworthiness could be measured by the analogous action at law for negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 688. This reference seems especially appropriate since

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