Murphy v. Light
Decision Date | 10 June 1958 |
Docket Number | No. 16569.,16569. |
Citation | 257 F.2d 323 |
Parties | Thomas J. MURPHY v. George LIGHT. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Arthur Roth, Miami, Thomas J. Murphy, in pro. per. for appellant.
Daniel Neal Heller, Miami, Fla., for appellee.
Before TUTTLE, BROWN and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.
This case, as part of the considerable flotsam in the wake of the assault committed on Murphy while he was Master of the JESSE II, Murphy v. Light, 5 Cir., 211 F.2d 824, 1954 A.M.C. 908, certiorari denied 350 U.S. 960, 76 S.Ct. 348, 100 L.Ed. 834; Murphy v. Light, 5 Cir., 224 F.2d 944, 1955 A.M.C. 1986; Light v. Murphy, 5 Cir., 257 F.2d 322, ____ A.M.C. ____, differs from the admiralty libels relating separately to wages and to maintenance and cure. This was a civil action for trial by jury asserting the claim that because of the negligent failure of the shipowner to supply and furnish adequate medical aid, care, and attention, Murphy, the seaman, had sustained additional damages. The case was for a tortious breach of the implied undertaking to supply maintenance and cure. The question presented here is whether the Trial Court was correct in dismissing this case on the shipowner's motion for summary judgment.
The record is singularly unilluminating. The District Court stated only that "* * * There is no genuine issue as to any material fact in Civil Action No. 6401 and the defendant-respondent is entitled to a summary judgment as a matter of law * * *" without indicating in any way any one of the several possible particulars in which there was or was not an actual good faith controversy. To this must be added the unavoidable confusion which arises where, as we previously pointed out, the principal actor, the plaintiff here, the libellant there, was for a long time (and perhaps still is) a mentally incompetent. And confusion has become rampant with the succession of counsel who have appeared and served for brief intervals from time to time in Murphy's behalf and who have either withdrawn or have been replaced. And the motion itself1 was a broadside which brought before the Court practically every paper, deposition, interrogatory, motion and pleading which had been filed by anyone over the course of five years as this nautical engagement continued on its endless course.
A moment's consideration of the nature of this case will demonstrate, we think, that what the Judge did was not the making of a determination that no genuine issue of fact was involved. What he did was to resolve some or all of them against the plaintiff perhaps from a wellgrounded notion that with all of the confusion, uncertainty, contradictions and inconsistencies of this jumbled record, much of it coming from Murphy or his wife, it was inconceivable that a trier could arrive at any other conclusion.
The claim rests on the premise that since there is an obligation by the shipowner properly to supply maintenance and cure to seamen falling sick or becoming injured in the service of the vessel, a failure to perform that obligation gives rise to liabilities which are either essentially tort in nature, or at least akin to them. Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, Inc., 287 U.S. 367, 53 S.Ct. 173, 77 L.Ed. 368, 1933 A.M.C. 9; The Point Fermin, 5 Cir., 70 F.2d 602, 1934 A.M.C. 662. The doctrine, which had its origin in the necessitous circumstances of ailing seamen in a foreign or remote place or aboard ship at sea, has been extended under carefully circumscribed conditions to impose a tort consequence on a shipowner for failure to supply or pay for, i. e., supply the money by which to acquire the essential care, after the seaman has been discharged and is living safely ashore at his own home base. Sims v. United States, 3 Cir., 186 F.2d 972, 1951 A.M.C. 461, certiorari denied 342 U.S. 816, 72 S.Ct. 31, 96 L.Ed. 617; Graham v. Alco Steamship Co., 3 Cir., 201 F.2d 423, 1953 A.M.C. 331, certiorari denied 346 U.S. 832, 74 S.Ct. 32, 98 L.Ed. 355, 1953 A.M.C. 1978; O'Neill v. United States, D.C.Pa., 157 F.Supp. 193, 204, 205, ___ A.M.C. ___.
Of course the obligation must be carefully circumscribed because it inflicts on one who breached an obligation essentially contractual in nature damages of a kind which ordinarily are not recoverable for simple breach of contract. Graham makes clear that Sims did not intend to scuttle the traditional notions. For in Graham the Court emphatically stated: "In Sims * * * we held the shipowner liable for its failure to supply maintenance and cure, but we limited liability to damages for those consequences occurring after notice to shipowner of libellant's need of care and of his inability to procure it because of indigence." 201 F.2d 425.
But even though held within the narrow compass its nature requires, whether the Sims doctrine is or is not applicable depends primarily on factual matters. Only if we can say, as a matter of law, that there is no genuine controversy about the facts of every one of its essential elements may summary judgment be sustained.
In this analysis we are not concerned with the problem frequently so vexing whether the plaintiff's response was sufficient to put in issue the "noncontroverted facts" set forth in the defendant's motion for summary judgment. For here the defendant's motion incorporated this great mass of material, see note 1, supra, and this, we are confident, was replete with dispute, contention, affirmation and denial. Where the moving papers affirmatively disclose that the nature of the controversy presents good faith, actual, as distinguished from formal, dispute on one or more material issues, summary judgment cannot be used. Bruce Construction Corp. v. United States, 5 Cir., 242 F.2d 873; Inglett v. Everglades Fertilizer Co., 5 Cir., 255 F. 2d 342.
The essence of a Sims maintenance and cure damage claim is that (1) further medical treatment, care and attention was needed; (2) the shipowner was made aware of its need; (3) the shipowner, being thus actually aware, unreasonably failed to supply it; (4) the seaman did not have the means or facilities by which to procure it; and (5) as a consequence the medical condition was made worse.
As to each of these the many papers incorporated in defendant's blunderbuss motion showed the existence of genuine disputes in the sense that a trier of facts, court or jury, could draw different inferences. On (1) testimony of doctors showed that the blow to Murphy's head received in the assault had produced concussion of the brain with post concussion syndrome. Whether this post concussion syndrome was proximately caused by the assault or by a subsequent injury to his head while working in a shipyard some months later, and if the latter, whether that was attributable to the earlier injury, was itself a medical question of fact. One doctor ventured an opinion, perhaps considerably weakened on cross examination, but how much or how far was a question for a trier....
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