Spellman v. American Barge Line Co.

• Decision Date: 09 August 1949
• Docket Number: No. 9746.,9746.
• Parties: SPELLMAN v. AMERICAN BARGE LINE CO., Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

176 F.2d 716 (1949)

SPELLMAN v. AMERICAN BARGE LINE CO., Inc.

No. 9746.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued February 11, 1949.

Decided August 9, 1949.

Hymen Schlesinger, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant.

Lucian Y. Ray, Cleveland, Ohio, for appellee.

Before BIGGS, Chief Judge, and O'CONNELL and KALODNER, Circuit Judges.

BIGGS, Chief Judge.

Marjorie Spellman, being mentally incompetent, by Maggie Roush, her mother and next friend, both referred to hereinafter as "Spellman" for the sake of brevity, brought suit in the court below to recover from the American Barge Line Company ("American") (a) maintenance and cure, (b) damages allegedly suffered by Spellman because the captain was incompetent, and (c) damages allegedly suffered by Spellman because of the negligence of the captain within the purview of Section 33 of the Jones Act, Act of June 5, 1920, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688.¹ The recoveries sought under (b) and (c) are based on identical facts and constitute in reality but one charge of negligence as will appear hereinafter. Due to the way in which the complaint was drawn the court below, quite properly we think, throughout the proceedings treated (a), (b) and (c) as if they were three separate counts. See in particular the first paragraph of the opinion of the court below, 76 F.Supp. at page 1, in which the learned trial judge granted a new trial following the first trial of the cause, and the charge of the court at the second trial. We are presently concerned with what occurred at the second trial. The verdicts on all counts were in favor of American. The court below wrote no opinion following the second trial.

The pertinent facts are as follows: On December 13, 1946 Spellman entered the employment of American in the capacity of a maid on board the M. V. Duncan Bruce, owned by American and operated by it on the Ohio River. Her employment was interrupted for several weeks while the vessel underwent repairs. On January 8, 1947 she returned to the Bruce for service. On this date as well as on December 13 she appeared to be in good mental health. Eight days later, on January 16, 1947, her conduct became queer and irrational. A progressive disintegration of her personality seemed to take place. Her roommate, Beckett, also a maid on the Bruce, stated that Spellman slept on the floor rather than in her bunk and for three straight nights woke her, Beckett, in the middle of the night to ask Beckett if she was afraid to remain in the room with her. Spellman became extremely nervous, took to wringing her hands, and developed a quarrelsome attitude toward other members of the crew, in particular toward the cook who also was a woman. Spellman's memory failed to the point where it became necessary to write out for her the things she was supposed to do, albeit she had previously proven herself to be experienced in her work. Beckett testified that she became afraid of Spellman because she had ceased to be rational. The captain of the Bruce denied knowledge of all these facts prior to the time Spellman left the boat but there was testimony from Beckett that Spellman's conduct was mentioned by Beckett several times in the captain's presence at the dinner table.

On January 17 Spellman went to the captain and according to his testimony requested him to send her to a hospital. A company form was made out² which contains the notation respecting Spellman "To sic Nervous to do the work — Condition very Bad. Starts Trouble with crew." At the bottom of this form is the further notation "Transportation paid from Evansville Indiana to Louisville (Bus)." The captain testified that he wrote the first notation quoted on the form so that Spellman would not incur penalties from her union for leaving the vessel without a replacement and that he was unaware of her disturbed mental condition. He gave her a "hospital ticket" which entitled her to admission to a United States marine hospital.³ He said that it was his practice where a sick or injured seaman could move "under his own power" to give him a hospital ticket and means of transportation; if, on the other hand, the seaman was unable to walk, he summoned an ambulance and had him sent to a hospital. There was some discussion between Spellman and the captain as to whether she should go to the marine hospital at Evansville or whether she should go to some other place. What was said during this discussion is not clear from the record and it is not necessary, under the view which we take of the case to decide what this conversation was. Spellman left the Bruce on the morning of January 18 accompanied by two members of the crew who took her to the bus station and bought her a ticket for Louisville. There follows a hiatus in the known chain of events but two days later Spellman was seen, in a dazed condition, on the streets of her home town, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, by the sheriff of the County. She was taken home and was examined physically by her mother and her sister-in-law. Her clothes were torn; her body was dirty and unkempt. She had numerous bruises and contusions on her body. She required and received extreme sedation but despite this could not be treated at home, and was transferred to the Spencer State Hospital, at Spencer, West Virginia, where she was found to be suffering from dementia praecox, catatonic state.⁴ Spellman was finally discharged from the hospital with a "guarded prognosis", and it is agreed by the medical witnesses that she is presently in a state of "partial remission" from the disease and that in all probability she will never fully recover. A physician, appearing on behalf of Spellman, testified that the two days of wandering that she had endured with its concomitant small injuries to her person had aggravated her illness.

As to (a), supra, Spellman's claim for maintenance and cure, it is well established, The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 23 S.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760, that the shipowner is liable to the seaman for maintenance and cure for sickness arising during the voyage. There is no evidence that Spellman herself became aware of her illness until January 17, 1947. It follows that even if in law there be a warranty by the seaman of his own health, Lindquist v. Dilkes, 3 Cir., 127 F.2d 21, 24-25, such a principle is inapplicable under the instant circumstances. The testimony in the record is so strongly probative that Spellman became ill on the Bruce that any other conclusion would be against the weight of the evidence.

The court's charge to the jury in respect to maintenance and cure was erroneous. It precluded recovery by Spellman as it was the equivalent of a binding instruction in American's favor. The learned trial judge specifically instructed the jury that while the shipowner owed a duty to furnish maintenance and cure to Spellman if "* * * he furnishes a hospital ticket entitling the * * * sick seaman to enter a hospital and there receive bed and board and medical attention, under the law that would discharge the defendant's obligation to furnish maintenance and cure."⁵ He said also that "If you find that * * * Spellman became sick during the time mentioned, and if you find that that sickness continued, and if you find that she didn't receive a hospital ticket which would entitle her to maintenance and cure, then your verdict should be for the plaintiff on this claim for maintenance and cure. On the other hand, if she didn't become sick during this time or if she was furnished with a hospital ticket entitling her to maintenance and cure, then your verdict should be for the defendant on this claim for maintenance and cure."⁶

Merely giving a hospital ticket to a seaman manifesting symptoms of a mental disorder, even if he be furnished also means of public transportation and some money, may not necessarily be a discharge of the vessel owner's obligation to furnish maintenance and cure. "If hospitalization was the way in which the obligation of maintenance and cure was to be fulfilled, this would mean, we think, that there was a duty to provide means to get the man there." Murphy v. American Barge Line Co., 3 Cir., 169 F.2d 61, 64, certiorari denied American Barge Line Co. v. Murphy, 335 U.S. 859, 69 S.Ct. 133. Merely furnishing means of transportation without making sure that they are employed by a mentally ill seaman may not amount to affording a method of transportation at all. Giving a bus ticket to a person who is mentally ill is hardly a method of affording safe transportation. What the captain of The Bruce did must be found by the jury to have been adequate or insufficient in the execution of his duty in the light of the circumstances in the case. If the captain had had Spellman conducted to a hospital and that hospital had effected the maximum cure obtainable, Farrell v. United States, 336 U. S. 511, 518-519, 69 S.Ct. 707, and if American had paid the expenses necessary to effect such a cure including her subsistence, then Spellman could have no claim for maintenance and cure. These things were not done, however, and American does not contend to the contrary.

Neither the court below nor this tribunal is faced in the instant case with the difficult questions presented in Farrell v. United States, supra, for in the case at bar the amount due for medical expenses and for maintenance and cure, if any be owing, has been stipulated by the parties. We do not have to deal with a difficult cut-off date for it appears that if Spellman be entitled to maintenance and cure, the cut-off date in effect has been stipulated. If the evidence presented at the...