Williams v. Steamship Mut. Underwriting Ass'n, 32715

• Decision Date: 24 August 1954
• Docket Number: No. 32715,32715
• Citation: 273 P.2d 803,45 Wn.2d 209
• Parties: WILLIAMS, v. STEAMSHIP MUT. UNDERWRITING ASS'N, Limited.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 209

45 Wn.2d 209

273 P.2d 803

WILLIAMS, v. STEAMSHIP MUT. UNDERWRITING ASS'N, Limited.

No. 32715.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 2.

Aug. 24, 1954.

Bassett, Geisness & Vance, Stephen V. Carey, Seattle, for appellant.

Wayne J. Davies, Seattle, for respondent.

HILL, Justice.

While the M.V. 'Southeastern' was owned and operated by the Briggs Steamship Corporation (hereinafter called 'Briggs'), a Delaware corporation doing business and operating in this state, the appellant, a seaman thereon, was injured by a fall into a manhole in a passageway, the cover having been removed by engineering personnel to gain access to the refrigeration machinery. At the time of the injury, Briggs was covered by a policy of marine insurance issued by the respondent in California. The exact character of this insurance will be discussed hereinafter.

Appellant instituted an action against Briggs in the superior court for King county but was unable to obtain service for the reason that Briggs had ceased its operations in this state. Appellant later commenced an action against Briggs as a dissolved corporation (permissible under 4 Del. Code Ann.Title 8, § 278) on the civil side of the United Stated district court for the district of Delaware, and a default judgment was entered subject to proof of appellant's damages. Upon the taking of depositions of appellant and his physician regarding the nature of the injuries sustained, judgment was entered in favor of appellant for the amount prayed for, twenty-five thousand dollars, no part of which has been paid. This will be referred to hereinafter as the 'Delaware judgment.'

Appellant filed a certified copy of that judgment in the United States district court for the western district of Washington and brought this action to enforce it, based upon a California statute providing for suit against and insurer by a judgment creditor of the insured. Respondent made two major contentions in the trial court: (1) that the Delaware judgment was void because the court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action, and (2) that the insurance policy it had issued was an indemnity and not a liability policy, and the California statute which in dffect made it a liability policy was neither applicable nor constitutional.

After four days of trial, judgment was entered dismissing the complaint and enjoining appellant from attempting to enforce the Delaware judgment, the basis being that it was void for lack of jurisdiction over the defendant Briggs and over the subject matter of that action. This appeal followed.

Inasmuch as there is some intimation that the issues raised as to the validity of the Delaware judgment constituted a direct attack upon that judgment, we wish to make it clear at the outset that an attack upon a judgment in defense of an action to enforce it is a collateral attack. In re Fourth Avenue South, 1943, 18 Wash.2d 167, 138 P.2d 667; 1 Freeman on Judgments (5th ed.) 623, § 310. Where a suit is on a foreign judgment, the requirements of full faith and credit correspond to the rules governing collateral attacks on domestic judgments, i. e., a judgment valid where rendered is conclusive as to the merits of the cause of action merged therein. Crowley v. Baumgartner, 1921, 114 Wash. 193, 194 P. 970; Deposit Bank of Frankfort v. City of Frankfort, 1903, 191 U.S. 499, 24 S.Ct. 154, 48 L.Ed. 276; Milliken v. Meyer, 1940, 311 U.S. 457, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278, 132 A.L.R. 1357; 50 C.J.S., Judgments, § 891, page 492. Judgments of Federal courts must be accorded the same full faith and credit as judgments of the courts of the state where rendered. Hancock Nat. Bank v. Farnum, 1900, 176 U.S. 640, 20 S.Ct. 506, 44 L.Ed. 619; Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias v. Meyer, 1924, 265 U.S. 30, 44 S.Ct. 432, 68 L.Ed. 885.

It is conceded that the validity of a foreign judgment may always be attacked upon the grounds that the court rendering it lacked jurisdiction of the parties or of the subject matter of the action, Milliken v. Meyer, supra, and these are the grounds upon which the trial court based its judgment of dismissal in the present case. However, the burden of establishing lack of jurisdiction is on the party attacking the judgment, it being well-settled that in an action on a judgment of a court of general jurisdiction in a sister state (or a Federal court) jurisdiction over the cause and the parties is to be presumed unless disproved by extrinsic evidence or by the record itself. Ritchie v. Carpenter, 1891, 2 Wash. 512, 28 P. 380; Trowbridge v. Spinning, 1900, 23 Wash. 48, 62 P. 125, 54 L.R.A. 204; Milliken v. Meyer, supra; Adam v. Saenger, 1938, 303 U.S. 59, 58 S.Ct 454, 82 L.Ed. 649. (This rule is subject to certain limitations hereinafter discussed but presently of no importance.)

The complaint in the Delaware action, commenced August 31, 1950, contained the following material allegations:

'On or about September 1, 1947, the plaintiff [appellant here] was proceeding along the passageway to his quarters in the forecastle. At that time a manhole cover in the floor of the passageway, about two and one-half feet square, had been removed for the apparent purpose of allowing engineering personnel into the refrigerating machinery. The officers or other employees of the defendant [Briggs] had negligently and carelessly failed to erect any guards or signs to warn of this condition and had negligently and carelessly failed to provide sufficient and adequate light in the passageway. As a proximate result of the aforesaid conditions and the negligence and carelessness of the defendant, the plaintiff fell into said hatchway.'

In the present action, the trial court found, on the basis of the evidence submitted, that the injury occurred August 24, 1947. The trial court also found that the Delaware action was brought under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688, and concluded that, inasmuch as it had not been brought within the three-year period required by that act, the Delaware court did not have jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action.

If it be conceded that failure to bring the action within three years of the date of injury deprived the Delaware court of jurisdiction of the subject matter under the Jones Act, and that extrinsic evidence as to the date of the injury could be introduced in the present case to establish that the injury had occurred more than three years prior to the commencement of the Delaware action, we are still of the opinion that the trial court's basic premise, i. e., that the presence or absence of jurisdiction under the Jones Act was determinative of the Delaware court's jurisdiction of that action, was erroneous.

In order successfully to attack the Delaware judgment, respondent had not only to show that the Delaware court had no jurisdiction under the Jones Act but that, in the absence of that act, it had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action. It therefore becomes necessary to inquire whether, under the allegations of the pleadings in the Delaware action, there is any other basis on which the United States district court for Delaware had jurisdiction to entertain an action at law for a tortious injury suffered in the course of maritime employment.

As a basis for his inquiry, we must look to the Jones Act and to the maritime law which it modified. The leading case, The Osceola, 1903, 189 U.S. 158, 23 S.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760, limited the seaman's right to compensatory damages under the maritime law (apart from maintenance and cure) to actions for injuries caused by the unseaworthiness of the vessel or the failure to supply and keep in order the proper appliances appurtenant to the ship. The Jones Act provides that:

'Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the commonlaw right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply * * *.'

Mr. Justice Van Devanter has said of the Jones Act that, 'rightly understood,' it

'* * * neither withdraws injuries to seamen from the reach and operation of the maritime law, nor enables the seaman to do so. On the contrary, it brings into that law new rules drawn from another system and extends to injured seamen a right to invoke, at their election, either the relief accorded by the old rules or that provided by the new rules. The election is between alternatives accorded by the maritime law as modified, and not between that law and some nonmaritime system.' Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 1924, 264 U.S. 375, 388, 44 S.Ct. 391, 394, 68 L.Ed. 748.

For our present purposes, it need only be said that the effect of the Jones Act was to extend the seaman's right to compensatory damages for personal injuries which occurred on board ship to injuries for which the negligence of the ship's officers or members of the crew were responsible. As is frequently pointed out, a seaman could not prior to the passage of that act, successfully prosecute an action predicated solely upon negligence, because he would always be confronted with the defense of common employment (the fellow-servant rule).

In 1 Benedict on Admiralty (6th ed.) 50, § 25, in a discussion of the effect of the Jones Act, it is said:

'* * * the defense of common employment (the fellow servant rule) is abolished, and the doctrine of assumption of risk is profoundly modified. If a statute relating to safety devices is not complied with the seaman assumes no risk whatsoever. Contributory negligence is not necessarily a complete defense; the damages may merely be reduced proportionately.'

An action based upon the doctrine of unseaworthiness is maintainable at law in state and Federal courts, as well as in admiralty. Chelentis v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 1918, 247 U.S. 372, 38 S.Ct. 501, 62 L.Ed. 1171; Engel v. Davenport, ...