Stevens v. McGinnis, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 June 1996
• Docket Number: Nos. 94-6091,94-6404,s. 94-6091
• Citation: 82 F.3d 1353
• Parties: Darrell Edward STEVENS, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. McGINNIS, INC., Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1353

82 F.3d 1353

1996 A.M.C. 1922

Darrell Edward STEVENS, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. McGINNIS, INC., Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 94-6091, 94-6404.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 9, 1996.

Decided May 7, 1996.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied June

13, 1996. ^*

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky; William O. Bertelsman, Judge.

Gregory G. Moser (briefed), Covington, KY, Meredith Lynn Lawrence, Crestview Hills, KY, for plaintiff-appellee.

Todd M. Powers (briefed), Schroeder, Maundrell, Barbiere & Powers, Cincinnati, OH, for defendant-appellant.

Before: BROWN, WELLFORD, and MILBURN, Circuit Judges.

BAILEY BROWN, Circuit Judge.

In this maritime common law case, Stevens, formerly a towboat deckhand and pilot, sued McGinnis, Inc. ("the company"), his former employer, for maintenance and cure resulting from the removal of a tumor which afflicted him during his employment with the company. ¹ After a bench trial the district court found that the tumor caused certain symptoms, e.g., headaches and personality changes, from which Stevens suffered during his employment, and thus that the tumor manifested itself during Stevens's service to the company. The district court therefore awarded maintenance and cure to Stevens. The company appeals the district court's judgment. Stevens cross-appeals the court's refusal to award him attorney's fees. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court's judgment.

I. FACTS

The company, which operates barges and towboats on the Ohio River, employed Stevens, first as a deckhand and later as a pilot, from 1985 until 1992. Stevens's years with the company were marred by alcoholism and occasional fighting with coworkers. He was, however, a generally agreeable worker prior to March of 1991. At that time, Stevens fell on the deck of a towboat and suffered a blow to the head and neck. He reported the fall to his supervisor, but did not seek medical attention. After the fall, Stevens began complaining of headaches. Throughout the next year and a half, the headaches grew so frequent that Stevens "complained continuously," according to his supervisor, Michael Carey. Moreover, Carey testified that Stevens's personality changed after his fall. While he was admittedly a quick-tempered and occasionally violent man before he fell, after the fall Stevens had considerable difficulty relating to his fellow employees and handling even minor job-related problems. Stevens's headaches grew severe and his disposition even poorer. In Carey's words, "it was like dealing with just a different person."

Stevens's employment problems culminated on December 8, 1992, when he fought with another employee and allegedly threatened Carey with a gun (Stevens denies that he threatened Carey). The company fired both Stevens and Carey on that day.

Five months later, Stevens entered a hospital seeking treatment for alcoholism and stomach ulcers. While in the hospital, Stevens underwent a CAT scan which revealed a baseball-sized glomus vagale tumor in his neck below his right ear. A glomus vagale tumor is a very rare, noncancerous type of glomus jugulare tumor (also known as a paraganglioma) which occurs in the head and neck. This particular type of tumor occurs so infrequently that there are only approximately one hundred reported cases of them in medical literature. In June of 1993, a surgeon, Dr. Deutsch, removed the tumor from Stevens's neck. Thereafter, Stevens's headaches subsided and his personality improved. According to his family physician, Dr. Poore, Stevens became "a model citizen" after his surgery and recuperation. The company argues, however, that Stevens's improved condition also corresponded with an apparently successful treatment for alcoholism.

After the surgery, Stevens, who is characterized by his attorney as a "homeless pauper" who is "completely penniless," requested that the company provide him maintenance and cure payments to help defray his living expenses and the costs of his surgery and recuperation. The company refused, and Stevens filed this suit.

After a bench trial, the district court found, as a matter of fact, that the tumor caused Stevens's headaches and personality changes. ² The court thus concluded that the tumor "manifested itself" during Stevens's employment with the company. Therefore, the district court ordered the company to pay maintenance to Stevens beginning on the day of the termination of his employment through the point at which he reaches maximum cure, in the amount of twenty dollars per day. Moreover, the court ordered the company to pay the "medical expenses for the treatment of his tumor ... during the same period." The court held, however, that "since the law in this situation was not clearly established, the [company] is not liable for ... attorney's fees."

The company appeals the judgment of the district court, claiming that the court's findings of fact were clearly erroneous, and that it erred in holding that maritime common law requires it to pay maintenance and cure to Stevens. Stevens cross-appeals, claiming he is entitled to attorney's fees.

II. ANALYSIS

A. The district court's factual findings are not clearly erroneous.

We review a district court's findings of fact for clear error. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). "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." Concrete Pipe & Prods. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust, 508 U.S. 602, 622, 113 S.Ct. 2264, 2279, 124 L.Ed.2d 539 (1993) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948)).

At trial, the district court considered the testimony of four physicians; two called by each side. Predictably, the two doctors Stevens called, Dr. Poore (Stevens's family physician) and Dr. Martin, testified that the tumor probably caused the headaches and personality problems Stevens endured between his fall and his surgery. The company's physicians, Dr. Deutsch (who actually removed the tumor) and Dr. Geier, testified that it was unlikely that the tumor caused Stevens's problems. Without going into detail regarding the scientific testimony, suffice it to say that the experts on both sides offered scientific rationale tending to support their conclusions, and that one cannot satisfactorily reconcile the differing opinions.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence presented concerning the tumor was how rare this type of tumor actually is. As noted above, only approximately one hundred similar tumors are known to have occurred. It is therefore difficult to know exactly what effects such a tumor could produce. The district court thus had to make a difficult finding based on conflicting evidence regarding a rare tumor. The only undisputed facts were that the tumor existed during Stevens's employment with the company, and that Stevens's symptoms subsided after the tumor was removed. ³ After a review of the record, we are not left "with a definite and firm conviction" that the district court made a mistake. Thus, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err in finding that the tumor caused Stevens's headaches and personality changes from which he suffered during his employment. Cf. Sentilles v. Inter-Caribbean Shipping Corp., 361 U.S. 107, 109, 80 S.Ct. 173, 175, 4 L.Ed.2d 142 (1959) (holding that a jury may draw an inference as to the cause of an illness despite the lack of unanimity among experts as to the cause).

B. The company must provide maintenance and cure to Stevens.

Assuming the district court's factual conclusions to be correct, whether the doctrine of maintenance and cure is broad enough to include Stevens's claim is a legal question, and thus we review it de novo. United States v. Spinelle, 41 F.3d 1056, 1057-58 (6th Cir.1994).

1. Maintenance and Cure Law

In Blainey v. American Steamship Co., 990 F.2d 885 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 346, 126 L.Ed.2d 311 (1993), we provided the following basic synopsis of maintenance and cure law:

Rather than relying upon the protection of workers' compensation statutes, seamen who suffer illness or injury on the job look to a unique package of remedies. Due to "historical tradition and the realization that seamen are required to endure special perils and hardships," federal common law of the sea accords seamen special relief not available to other workers, including maintenance [and] cure.... Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Laws § 5-1 (1987). Maintenance refers to a shipowner's obligation to provide a mariner with food and lodging if he becomes injured or falls ill while in service of the ship, while cure alludes to the duty to provide necessary medical care and attention. See Al-Zawkari v. American S.S. Co., 871 F.2d 585, 586 n. 1 (6th Cir.1989). A shipowner is liable to pay maintenance and cure to the point of maximum cure, that is, when the seaman's affliction is cured or declared to be permanent. See Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511, 517-19, 69 S.Ct. 707, 710-11, 93 L.Ed. 850 (1949).

Blainey, 990 F.2d at 886-87.

The shipowner's obligation to pay maintenance and cure stems from two basic policy concerns recognized by maritime law for hundreds of years. See Martin J. Norris, The Law of Seamen § 26:4 (1985) (stating that the roots of the obligation to pay maintenance and cure are found in medieval sea codes). These two policy concerns are (1) the well-being of seamen aboard ship and in foreign ports, and (2) the importance of a capable merchant marine to the economic and military security of a nation. Justice Story, sitting as a circuit judge, once stated the concerns underlying maintenance and cure as follows:

Seamen are by the peculiarity of their lives liable to...