Petition of United States Steel Corporation

• Decision Date: 23 December 1970
• Docket Number: No. 19835-19839.,19835-19839.
• Citation: 436 F.2d 1256
• Parties: Petition of UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION and Petition of Den Norske Amerikalinje A/S owner of the M/S Topdalsfjord, for Exoneration from or Limitation of Liability. UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION and Den Norske Amerikalinje A/S, Appellants, v. Alice Marie LAMP, Administratrix of the Estate of Donald Lamp, Deceased, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

436 F.2d 1256 (1970)

Petition of UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION and Petition of Den Norske Amerikalinje A/S owner of the M/S Topdalsfjord, for Exoneration from or Limitation of Liability.

UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION and Den Norske Amerikalinje A/S, Appellants, v. Alice Marie LAMP, Administratrix of the Estate of Donald Lamp, Deceased, et al., Appellees.

Nos. 19835-19839.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

December 23, 1970.

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Lucian Y. Ray, Cleveland, Ohio, Joseph Keig, Jr., Chicago, Ill. (Roman T. Keenen, Lucian Y. Ray, Thomas O. Murphy, Cleveland, Ohio, Johathan G. G. Bunge, Chicago, Ill., on the brief, for United States Steel Corporation and Den Norske Amerikalinje; McCreary, Ray & Robinson, Cleveland, Ohio, Price, Cushman, Keck & Mahin, Chicago, Ill., Johnson, Branard & Jaeger, Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel.

Abraham E. Freedman, Philadelphia, Pa. (Freedman, Borowsky & Lorry, Philadelphia, Pa., T. Harold Traverse, Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for Fuhrman and others.

Ned Mann, Cleveland, Ohio (Victor G. Hanson, Detroit, Mich., Robert L. Jason, Alpena, Mich., on the brief), for Alice Marie Lamp.

Dean A. Robb, Detroit, Mich. (Elmer L. Radka, Rogers City, Mich., Goodman, Eden, Robb, Millender, Goodman & Bedrosian, Deal A. Robb, Charles J. Barr, Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for Jean A. Cook.

Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and WEICK and PECK, Circuit Judges.

JOHN W. PECK, Circuit Judge.

There are herein considered appeals perfected by two shipowners from judgments entered against them in favor of twelve injured parties or personal representatives of decedents and cross appeals by the latter groups protesting the alleged inadequacy of those judgments. Appellants will sometimes herein be referred to jointly as "Shipowners" and separately as "United States Steel" and "Den Norske", respectively, and the injured parties and personal representatives of decedents as "Claimants." Claimants are seven seamen and five widows and administratrices of the estates of seamen who were allegedly injured or who lost their lives when the bulk carrier steamship Cedarville sunk in the Straits of Mackinac May 7, 1965. All such decedents and surviving claimants were members of the crew of that vessel.

The sinking of the Cedarville, owned by United States Steel, followed its collision with the Norwegian ship Topdalsfjord, owned by Den Norske. The collision occurred in a dense fog, and ten members of the Cedarville crew were lost and twenty more sustained injuries which resulted in the filing of claims. Five of the death claims and thirteen of the personal injury claims were settled during earlier stages of these proceedings, and we are here concerned with the remaining five claims of the next of kin of the decedents and of seven personal injury claimants. Petitions for exoneration from or limitation of liability were filed in the District Court¹ immediately following the disaster, followed by the filing of claims by the various claimants. Reference is made to the opinion of the District Court (276 F.Supp. 163) for a detailed statement of the facts², which will be restated herein only to the extent required for present purposes. Punitive damages were awarded by the District Court against United States Steel, which perfected an appeal from such award to this Court. We determined the award of punitive damages to have been error in a decision specifically providing that that determination would have no effect upon the awarding of compensatory damages to the various claimants. United States Steel Corporation v. Fuhrman, Administratrix, 407 F.2d 1143 (6 Cir., 1969), cert. denied 398 U. S. 958, 90 S.Ct. 2162, 26 L.Ed.2d 542 (1970).

During the pendency of the punitive damages proceedings and appeal, a stipulation was entered into by counsel for all parties and approved by the Court. Under this stipulation the shipowners' petitions for exoneration and limitation of liability were denied and their claims dismissed with prejudice, and it was further provided that, subject to the right of review and appeal, the disposition of all claims for damages, excluding punitive damages, be determined by a commissioner to be appointed by the District Court. It was further stipulated that hearings concerning compensatory damages should proceed during the pendency of the punitive damage determination, which were to be submitted on stipulated portions of the record. As has been hereinabove indicated, the punitive damage issue has heretofore proceeded to finality.

Pursuant to this stipulation, the District Court appointed two Commissioners to receive the evidence with reference to all of the claims, and they in due course filed their Awards and Opinions for the various claimants. The District Court thereafter received and overruled objections and requests for modifications and accepted the facts found and law applied by the Commissioners in their awards and opinions "as the findings of fact and rules of law of this Court." By separate document of even date judgments in favor of the individual claimants for specified sums were entered and costs were assessed against the Shipowners. The amounts of the judgments are as follows:

                Alice Marie Lamp, Administratrix of
                  the Estate of Frank Donald Lamp
                  deceased                                 $452,084.00
                Jean Cook, Administratrix of the Estate
                  of Charles H. Cook, deceased              194,491.00
                Barbara Fuhrman, Administratrix of
                  the Estate of Arthur Fuhrman, deceased    338,095.00
                Elizabeth Haske, Administratrix of the
                  Estate of Stanley Haske, deceased         308,702.00
                Marion B. Jones, Administratrix of the
                  Estate of Eugene F. Jones, deceased       149,414.00
                Jerone F. Kierzek                            88,860.00
                Stanley P. Mulka                             92,740.00
                Raphael Przybyla                            196,288.00
                Ronald G. Piechan                            82,160.00
                Billy R. Holley                             251,976.00
                Michael John Idalski                         89,420.00
                Walter Tulgetske                            195,888.00
                

Before passing to a consideration of the separate items of damages itemized by the Commissioners in their determination of the claimants' awards, attention is directed to the issue presented concerning the scope of the present review. This issue was before us in the appeal dealing with the question of the allowance of punitive damages in the present case and we therein determined that "Rule 52(a) applies to the findings of fact of the District Judge * * * notwithstanding that he heard no live testimony at the trial. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Duberstein, 363 U.S. 278, 291, 80 S.Ct. 1190, 4 L.Ed.2d 1218; United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746." United States Steel Corp. v. Fuhrman, Administratrix, supra; see also Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Spermacet Whaling & Shipping Co., 281 F.2d 646 (6th Cir. 1960). Thus at the very least, despite the view expressed in the separate concurrence in Fuhrman that the determination expressed therein on this point and in Spermacet constituted obiter dictum, the quoted conclusion is here controlling as the law of the case. Accordingly, we are here required to affirm the District Court unless we conclude its finding to have been "clearly erroneous" under the definition provided by the Supreme Court:

"A finding is `clearly erroneous\' when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed." United States v. United States Gypsum, supra, 333 U.S. at 395, 68 S.Ct. at 542.

It is against this yardstick that we measure the evidence of compensatory damages contained in the record.

I. PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS

For their experiences at the time of the sinking, and for their alleged physical and mental disabilities resulting therefrom, the seven personal injury claimants were awarded a total of $997,332. The individual awards ranged from $82,160 to $251,976, and included the following specific elements of damages: loss of earning capacity from the date of the accident to the date of judgment, and for future loss of earning capacity; pain and suffering experienced during the sinking, from the date of the sinking to the date of judgment, and for future pain and suffering; loss of life's pleasures from the date of the sinking to judgment, as well as future loss of life's pleasures; maintenance and cure to the date of judgment; and the cost of future medical services.

Before turning to a discussion of the specific elements of damages awarded to the personal injury claimants, a few comments of a general nature are deemed appropriate.

The first pertains to the nature of the Commissioners' Opinions and Awards themselves. Those Opinions and Awards, although designated by the Commissioners as their findings of fact and conclusions of law, are entirely unsatisfactory in that respect. Despite the fact that these cases present difficult and complex issues of past and future damages, depending in large part on conflicting medical and psychiatric testimony, the Opinion and Awards for each individual claimant consisted only of a brief review of that testimony together with the claimant's testimony, and concluded with a bare conclusory finding such as:

"We determine that the claimant Idalski was injured on May 7, 1965 and was damaged thereby."

In each instance a statement of this nature is followed by a listing of the dollar amounts awarded for each of the elements of damages allowed to the individual claimants.

We recognize that this abbreviated aspect of the Commissioners' findings here would not alone be sufficient to require reversal, especially since the findings were concerned with the question of damages rather than liability. Compare Ginsberg v. Royal Insurance Company, 179 F.2d 152, 153 (5th...