Rutherford v. Sea-Land Service, Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 November 1983
• Docket Number: No. C-83-1433 RPA.,C-83-1433 RPA.
• Citation: 1984 AMC 1496,575 F. Supp. 1365
• Parties: Robert W. RUTHERFORD, Plaintiff, v. SEA-LAND SERVICE, INC., a corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

575 F. Supp. 1365

1984 AMC 1496

Robert W. RUTHERFORD, Plaintiff, v. SEA-LAND SERVICE, INC., a corporation, Defendant.

No. C-83-1433 RPA.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

November 21, 1983.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Eugene A. Brodsky, Jarvis, Miller, Brodsky & Baskin, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff.

Sam D. Delich, Graham & James, San Francisco, Cal., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

AGUILAR, District Judge.

This action is before the Court on defendant shipowner's motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. Plaintiff is a merchant seaman and a member of the International Seafarers' Union. Plaintiff's union has a collective bargaining agreement with defendant shipowner. One provision of the collective bargaining agreement limits defendant shipowner's duty of maintenance to $8.00 per day. Plaintiff has brought this action against defendant shipowner seeking a sum greater than $8.00 per day in maintenance. Plaintiff contends that $8.00 per day is an unreasonably low rate of maintenance. Defendant responds that plaintiff is absolutely bound by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. On this basis, defendant moves to dismiss plaintiff's complaint, or in the alternative for summary judgment.¹

The sole question before the Court at this time is whether a collectively bargained daily rate of maintenance is absolutely binding upon ill or injured union members, without regard to the reasonableness or adequacy of the daily rate of maintenance.

Plaintiff is a merchant seaman and an active member of the International Seafarers' Union. On March 20, 1982, plaintiff was injured when he was beaten up by a fellow crew member. At the time of his injury, plaintiff was the chief steward of the M/V Voyager, a freight vessel owned by defendant, which was temporarily docked in Long Beach.

Plaintiff received initial medical treatment in a hospital in Long Beach, and was then told to obtain further treatment in the San Francisco Bay Area. Plaintiff apparently has his home in the Bay Area. Plaintiff has since recovered from his physical injuries, but claims that he still suffers emotional trauma from the beating. Plaintiff asserts that he remains unfit for duty as a seaman.

As will be discussed in greater detail, infra, a seaman who is injured while in the service of a ship is entitled to "maintenance and cure" from the shipowner. Maintenance and cure is the food, lodging and medical care required by the seaman until he reaches the point of maximum medical recovery.

Plaintiff's union, the International Seafarers' Union, has a collective bargaining agreement with defendant shipowner. The collective bargaining agreement set the rate of maintenance payments at $8.00 per day. The applicable provision of the collective bargaining agreement provides:

When a member of the unlicensed personnel is entitled to maintenance and cure under maritime law, he shall be paid maintenance and cure at a rate of Eight Dollars ($8.00) per day for each day or part thereof of entitlement. The payment due hereunder shall be paid to the man weekly. This payment shall be made regardless of whether he has or has not retained an attorney, filed a claim for damages, or taken any other steps to that end and irrespective of any insurance agreements in effect between the Company and any insurer.

Article II, Section 13, New Standard Freightship/Passenger Agreement, June 16, 1981—June 15, 1984.

Plaintiff accepted the $8.00 per day maintenance payments from defendant for approximately three months. Plaintiff thereafter refused to accept maintenance payments at this daily rate because defendant conditioned the payments upon plaintiff's waiver of any ultimate recovery of a greater daily maintenance payment.

On March 25, 1983, Plaintiff filed this action for maintenance against defendant. Plaintiff asks the Court to declare that the collective bargaining agreement limiting maintenance to $8.00 per day is unreasonable and unenforceable under general maritime law. Plaintiff also seeks an award of adequate and reasonable daily maintenance.²

By its motions to dismiss or for summary judgment, defendant contends that plaintiff is bound by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement negotiated by his union on his behalf. Thus, defendant argues that as a matter of law plaintiff can recover no greater daily sum for maintenance than the amount established in the collective bargaining agreement. Plaintiff counters defendant's motion by arguing that $8.00 per day is an unreasonably low daily rate of maintenance in light of the actual cost of food and lodging in the San Francisco Bay Area. Plaintiff contends that the right to reasonable maintenance cannot be limited by a collective bargaining agreement.

"Maintenance" is the duty of a shipowner to provide food and lodging to a seaman who becomes ill or injured while in the service of the ship. The shipowner's duty of maintenance continues until the seaman reaches the point of maximum medical recovery. Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 531, 82 S.Ct. 997, 999-1000, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962); Caulfield v. AC & D Marine, Inc., 633 F.2d 1129, 1131 (5th Cir.1981). The duty of maintenance is coupled with the duty of cure: to provide the ill or injured seaman with proper medical care until the seaman reaches the point of maximum medical recovery. Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.S. 525, 528, 531-32, 58 S.Ct. 651, 653, 654-655, 82 L.Ed. 993 (1938).

Maintenance and cure is a right granted by general maritime law. It has been recognized for hundreds of years. In fact, the duty of the shipowner to provide for the ill or injured seaman can be traced as far back as the Sea Codes of the Middle Ages. 2 Norris, The Law of Seaman, § 540 (1970).

The duty to provide maintenance and cure arises from the unique hazards attendant to the work of seamen. Its purpose is to foster the combined goals of encouraging marine commerce and assuring the well-being of the seaman. Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U.S. 724, 727, 63 S.Ct. 930, 932, 87 L.Ed. 1107 (1943). The purpose of, as well as the need for, the duty to provide maintenance and cure were aptly described by Justice Story in 1823:

Seamen are by the peculiarity of their lives liable to sudden sickness from change of climate, exposure to perils, and exhausting labour. They are generally poor and friendless, and acquire habits of gross indulgence, carelessness, and improvidence. If some provision be not made for them in sickness at the expense of the ship, they must often in foreign ports suffer the accumulated evils of disease, and poverty, and sometimes perish from the want of suitable nourishment. Their common earnings in many instances are wholly inadequate to provide for the expenses of sickness; and if liable to be so applied, the great motives for good behaviour might be ordinarily taken away by pledging their future as well as past wages for the redemption of the debt.

. . . . .

On the other hand, if these expenses are a charge upon the ship, the interest of the owner will be immediately connected with that of the seamen. The master will watch over their health with vigilance and fidelity. He will take the best methods, as well to prevent diseases, as to ensure a speedy recovery from them. He will never be tempted to abandon the sick to their forlorn fate, but his duty, combining with the interest of his owner, will lead him to succor their distress, and shed a cheering kindness over the anxious hours of suffering and despondency.

Harden v. Gordon, 11 Fed.Cas. 480, 483 (C.C.D.Me.1823) (No. 6047).

A lawsuit by a seaman to recover maintenance is separate and distinct from a suit for injury under the Jones Act. Norris, supra, § 545, n. 11. The duty to provide maintenance to the ill or injured seaman is imposed irrespective of the presence or absence of negligence on the part of the seaman or the shipowner. Id.

The ill or injured seaman is entitled to the maintenance that is sufficient to supply him with food and lodging of the kind and quality he would receive if he were still on board the vessel. Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.S. at 528, 58 S.Ct. at 653. The monetary value of such maintenance is a question of fact to be resolved by the trial court based upon all of the evidence before it. Norris, supra, § 607, n. 6. The evidence that can be considered by a court in determining the appropriate award for daily maintenance includes: the costs the seaman incurs in acquiring food and lodging, expert testimony regarding the cost of food and lodging in the area, rates of maintenance provided in local union contracts, and previous awards ordered by the courts. Evidence of the seaman's actual expenditures is the preferred method of determining the amount of the daily maintenance payment owed to the seaman. Morel v. Sabine Towing & Transportation Co. Inc., 669 F.2d 345, 347 (5th Cir.1982).³

In the 1950's the trial courts, as one court recently phrased it, "fell into the habit" of awarding maintenance at a rate of $8.00 per day. Incandela v. American Dredging Co., 659 F.2d 11, 14 (2nd Cir. 1981). With the advent of collective bargaining agreements in the 1960's, the union and the shipowners made the rate of maintenance a subject of negotiation, and uniformly adopted the $8.00 figure as the daily rate of maintenance.

In recent cases for maintenance where a seaman is not bound by a collective bargaining agreement that sets forth the amount of daily maintenance, courts have found that the common $8.00 per day award is a "starvation payment," Harper v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 563 F.Supp. 576, 582 (E.D.La.1983), and an "unfulfilled promise to seamen that their maintenance needs will be met." Incandela, 659 F.2d at 14. In those cases the courts have awarded maintenance well in excess of $8.00 per day. Caulfield v. AC & D Marine, 633 F.2d at 1132-33 ($15.00 per day); Robinson v. Plimsoll Marine, Inc., 460 F.Supp. 949, 950 (E.D.La.1978) ($15.00 per day); Morel v. Sabine...