United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 16-1267 

BLOCK ISLAND FISHING, INC., 

Plaintiff, Appellee, 

v. 

JAMIE ROGERS, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS 

[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Lipez, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Jonathan E. Gilzean, with whom David F. Anderson and Latti & 

Anderson LLP were on brief, for appellant. 

 Thomas J. Muzyka, with whom Kirby L. Aarsheim and Clinton & 

Muzyka, P.C. were on brief, for appellee. 

December 23, 2016 
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LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This case involves rulings of 

some significance to seamen and their employers in this circuit, 

as well as for summary judgment practice. Jamie Rogers, a seaman, 

was injured on October 3, 2013, on the vessel F/V HEDY BRENNA. 

Admiralty law entitles seamen who become injured during the course 

of their service at sea to recover "maintenance and cure" payments 

from their employers. Block Island Fishing, Inc., is the owner 

and operator of the fishing vessel. Having made some maintenance 

and cure payments to Rogers and believing it had overpaid, Block 

Island brought this suit against Rogers to dispute the duration 

and amount of maintenance and cure payments that it owed. 

Block Island then moved for summary judgment on the 

ground that its maintenance and cure duties terminated on July 31, 

2014. It supported its motion with record evidence showing that 

Rogers had returned to work as a commercial fisherman on another 

fishing vessel in July.

The district court rejected July 31 as the proper date 

of termination. But it went beyond the issue raised by Block 

Island's summary judgment motion and found November 18, 2014 as 

the date on which Block Island's obligations ended. That was the 

date on which a doctor, but not Rogers' primary care physician, 

found that Rogers no longer needed follow-up care.

The district court also noted that injured seamen are 

generally entitled to maintenance and cure payments only in the 
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amount of their actual living expenses, but it reserved for a jury 

to determine the exact sum that Block Island owed Rogers, along 

with other issues not resolved at the summary judgment stage. 

Relatedly, the district court held on summary judgment that Block 

Island had overpaid Rogers by calculating its maintenance and cure 

payments using figures that overestimated Rogers' actual living 

expenses. It further ruled that Block Island could offset the sum 

of overpayment against any damages award that Rogers might win at 

trial. We affirm in part and vacate and remand in part. 

As to the exact date on which Block Island's maintenance 

and cure obligations ended, the district court erred by sua sponte 

replacing Block Island's proposed date (July 31) with its own 

(November 18) without giving Rogers sufficient notice or 

opportunity to make his case against the new date. A summary 

judgment order is premature where the nonmoving party lacked 

"notice and a reasonable time to respond" to the grounds on which 

that motion would be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f). 

We agree with the district court's implicit recognition 

that injured seamen like Rogers can generally recover only 

reasonable expenses through maintenance and cure payments, and 

that it will be the factually exceptional case where the seaman's 

actual expenses are not reasonable. Whether this case presents 

such exceptional circumstances is an issue for the jury. Finally, 

as a matter of first impression, we adopt the ruling of the Fifth 
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Circuit in Boudreaux v. Transocean Deepwater, Inc., 721 F.3d 723 

(5th Cir. 2013), and hold that Block Island may offset any 

overpayment against Rogers' potential damages award, but may not 

sue for the sum in an independent action. See id. at 726–28. 

I. 

"Because our review of a grant of summary judgment is de 

novo, we, like the district court, are obliged to review the record 

in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and to draw 

all reasonable inferences in the nonmoving party's favor." LeBlanc 

v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 841 (1st Cir. 1993). Although 

there are numerous dates at issue, the core of the dispute involves 

(1) when Block Island's maintenance and cure obligations 

terminated, and (2) the amount, if any, of the maintenance and 

cure owed. Block Island takes the position that it overpaid Rogers 

based on an inflated rent amount that it believed Rogers to be 

paying when, in fact, Rogers had found less expensive housing. 

Rogers takes the position that special circumstances dictate that 

actual expenses are not the appropriate measure here.

A. Rogers' Injury and His Various Residences from 2013 to 2014 

In August 2013, Rogers and his family moved into a 

single-family home in Bristol, Rhode Island. He paid the first 

month's rent of $1,600, which included utilities, but he cannot 

remember paying rent in subsequent months. In September 2013, 

Rogers joined the crew of the F/V HEDY BRENNA, a commercial fishing 
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vessel owned and operated by Block Island. For a fishing trip in 

which he participated that month, Rogers was paid $2,892 in his 

catch share for the trip. 

On October 3, 2013, during another fishing voyage, 

Rogers fell off the top bunk while sleeping and injured himself. 

Three days later, upon returning from the voyage, Rogers was 

diagnosed with a fractured rib and received medical treatment. In 

October 2013, Block Island paid Rogers $1,752.37 in catch share 

from the October 3 voyage and $475 in maintenance. On November 1, 

2013, Block Island supplemented that amount with an additional 

$175 in maintenance and $1,857.78 in lost wages. The total sum 

paid from Block Island to Rogers over this period equaled 

$4,260.15. 

In November 2013, Rogers and his family were evicted 

from the Bristol apartment and moved to a less expensive apartment 

in Fall River, Massachusetts. He paid $625 in monthly rent, 

excluding utilities, for the new Fall River apartment. On November 

4, 2013, Rogers' treating physician, Dr. Christian Campos, gave 

him a "fit for duty" slip and cleared him to return to work as a 

fisherman "without restrictions." 

Rogers' health worsened in December, however, when he 

was diagnosed with pneumonia and was hospitalized for three weeks. 

Rogers attributes the pneumonia to his rib injury. Block Island 
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learned about Rogers' condition and hospitalization on December 

19, 2013.

On February 20, 2014, Dr. Campos reported that Rogers' 

condition was improving and that Rogers could "increase his level 

of physical activity as tolerated without restrictions" while 

staying on pain medication. On March 17, 2014, Dr. Campos 

completed another examination and once again advised Rogers to 

continue to "increase his level of physical activity as tolerated 

without restrictions."

In March 2014, Rogers moved to Sparta, Tennessee, where 

he lived with his brother. Rogers paid his brother $800 per month 

as rent. Finally, in May or June 2014, Rogers purchased a 38-foot 

boat for $2,500 and lived on that boat before returning to Fall 

River in June. 

On June 19, 2014, Rogers' primary care physician, Dr. 

Melanie Cardoza, examined Rogers for pain in his lower back and 

left leg. During this examination, Rogers told the doctor that he 

had returned from a fishing trip the previous day and that he was 

planning to embark on another fishing trip the next day. The 

conversation demonstrated that Rogers had been working as a 

fisherman in June. Dr. Cardoza's examination of Rogers' chest and 

lungs revealed "normal excursion with symmetric chest walls and 

quiet, even and easy respiratory effort with no use of accessory 

muscles." 
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By July 2014, Rogers was working on, and was physically 

fit to captain, another fishing vessel, the KELLY ANN. But Dr. 

Campos examined Rogers in August 2014 and provided him with a 

letter stating that he was not yet fit to return to work as a 

commercial fisherman. 

On November 18, 2014, Dr. Campos examined Rogers again 

and found that "his condition had improved to the point that no 

'further formal follow-up' was necessary." At oral argument, 

Rogers' counsel clarified that although Dr. Campos had discharged 

Rogers from his care on November 18, he had "transferr[ed] all 

follow-up care to his primary care physician, Dr. Cardoza, who was 

also treating Rogers for his illness and injury."

B. Communications Between Parties Regarding Maintenance and Cure 

In January 2014, after learning about Rogers' pneumonia 

and hospitalization the previous month as recounted above, Block 

Island hired Neil Stoddard of Marine Safety Consultants to 

investigate Rogers' demand for maintenance and cure. From that 

point, almost a year of correspondence ensued between Stoddard and 

Danny Alberto, a paralegal employed by Rogers' counsel, regarding 

the rate of maintenance and cure owed to Rogers.

In a letter dated January 9, 2014, Stoddard requested 

medical records from Rogers' counsel to support Rogers' claim of 

ongoing medical treatment. On January 24, 2014, Alberto responded 

to Stoddard's letter and requested that Block Island pay Rogers 
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$72 per day in maintenance and cure. Alberto cited the following 

as Rogers' monthly expenses: $1,600 for rent, $119.25 for gas, 

$61.28 for electricity, and $362.50 for food, based on the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture's Moderate Cost Plan for a person of 

Rogers' age living in a four-person family home. 

Upon Stoddard's objection that Alberto had provided only 

"cash receipts" with "nothing on them to identify them as a rent 

payment," Alberto mailed Stoddard a copy of the Bristol lease on 

March 27, 2014. (Rogers had vacated the Bristol home in November 

2013.) This lease indicated that the monthly $1,600 rent included 

utilities. When Stoddard discovered that Rogers had moved to the 

Fall River apartment, and he further objected to the $72 daily 

rate demanded by Alberto, Alberto responded that "he had provided 

'all of Mr. Rogers['] living expenses and all of his medical 

records'" and warned that he would pursue punitive damages on 

Rogers' behalf if Block Island did not begin making the requested 

maintenance and cure payments. At some point during this exchange, 

Alberto also provided Stoddard with two utility invoices that 

reflected two different addresses in Fall River.

In late June, Block Island paid $68,891.41 in cure to 

Rogers' health care providers. Then, on July 23, 2014, Block 

Island sent Rogers a maintenance check for $10,800.06 -- based on 

a daily rate of $63.26 -- covering the period from October 2013 to 

April 23, 2014, "the date of his last treatment record received." 
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The $63.26 rate was calculated based on Rogers' $1,600 monthly 

rent for his Bristol home and $279.80 per month in food. As the 

Bristol lease reflected that utilities were included, Block Island 

did not account for electricity and gas bills in calculating the 

maintenance and cure rate. 

On July 25, 2014, Alberto sent Stoddard a copy of Rogers' 

Fall River lease, which reflected a monthly rent of $625 excluding 

utilities. (Rogers had vacated this apartment in March 2014.) 

After another threat from Alberto that he would seek punitive 

damages if Block Island did not provide additional maintenance of 

$72 per day, Block Island sent Rogers a second check for 

$11,956.14, based on a daily rate of $63.26.

II. 

On November 25, 2014, Block Island filed a complaint 

against Rogers in the U.S. District Court for the District of 

Massachusetts. Block Island sought a declaratory judgment on the 

amount of retroactive maintenance owed to Rogers (Count I), on 

whether it had any continuing obligation to pay maintenance and 

cure, and on whether it was entitled to reimbursement for 

overpayments resulting from Rogers' failure to provide accurate 

and timely information about his living expenses and medical 

treatment (Count II). On March 6, 2015, Rogers filed a 

counterclaim alleging negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. 

§ 30104 (Count I), unseaworthiness (Count II), continuing 
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maintenance and cure (Count III), negligent or intentional failure 

to provide maintenance and cure (Count IV), and lost wages (Count 

V). 

Block Island moved for summary judgment on its counts 

for declaratory judgment, and on Counts III and IV of Rogers' 

counterclaim. Block Island also sought $13,027.80, the amount by 

which it had allegedly overpaid Rogers. 

The district court granted in part and denied in part 

Block Island's motion. First, as to its demand for reimbursement 

for its overpayment, the district court agreed with Block Island's 

premise that it had overpaid Rogers because his actual expenses 

were lower than what Block Island believed them to be: "The 

undisputed evidence is that Rogers vacated the Bristol apartment 

[with $1,600 monthly rent] in November of 2013, and that his 

monthly rent since leaving Bristol has not exceeded $800. It is 

also undisputed that in calculating the daily maintenance due[,] 

Block Island relied on the $1,600 monthly rent figure and that an 

overpayment resulted." Nonetheless, the court relied on the Fifth 

Circuit's opinion in Boudreaux to rule that, despite the 

overpayment, Block Island could not seek affirmative recovery of 

maintenance and cure payments that it had already made. See 721 

F.3d at 726–28. But the court did allow Block Island to offset 

the sum of overpayment, to be determined by a jury, against any 

damages award that Rogers might win at trial. 
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The district court then denied Block Island's summary 

judgment motion as to Count IV of Rogers' counterclaim, which 

alleged that "Block Island negligently or intentionally failed to 

promptly provide maintenance and cure prior to November 3, 2014." 

"[A]s with most issues of negligence," the court explained, "the 

issue of the provision of prompt and proper maintenance and cure 

is a matter for the jury." 

With regard to Block Island's summary judgment request 

for declaratory relief "establishing a specific date upon which 

its maintenance and cure obligations to Rogers came to an end," 

the district court rejected Block Island's proposed date of July 

31, 2014 but sua sponte supplied its own date of November 18, 2014 

to ultimately grant summary judgment in Block Island's favor. The 

court noted that "[o]n this issue, the relevant question before 

the court is not whether Rogers returned to work as a fisherman 

(which could be explained by necessity as well as by cure)." 

Accordingly, although Rogers had been working on the KELLY ANN in 

July 2014, that fact was not dispositive of whether Rogers had 

reached the point of maximum medical recovery, as Block Island had 

argued. 

The district court then turned to November 18, 2014 -- 

the date on which Dr. Campos had found that Rogers' health had so 

improved that he required no more follow-up visits -- as the date 

on which Rogers had reached maximum medical recovery and thus was 
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no longer entitled to maintenance and cure. The court observed 

that while Rogers protested that he continued to have trouble 

breathing and to experience pain at the site of his injury, Rogers 

"offer[ed] no medical evidence that contradict[ed] his own 

doctor's evaluation that he had achieved the maximum feasible 

recovery as of November 18, 2014." On that basis, the court 

granted Block Island's summary judgment motion as to Count III 

(continuing maintenance and cure) of Rogers' counterclaims. 

The court lastly denied Block Island's request for 

attorney's fees.

Rogers' interlocutory appeal, permissible in admiralty 

cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(3) and our circuit's case law, 

followed. See Doyle v. Huntress, Inc., 419 F.3d 3, 6–7 (1st Cir. 

2005); P.R. Ports Auth. v. Barge Katy-B, 427 F.3d 93, 100–01 (1st 

Cir. 2005); Martha's Vineyard Scuba Headquarters, Inc. v. 

Unidentified Vessel, 833 F.2d 1059, 1063–64 (1st Cir. 1987). 

III. 

We review de novo the entry of summary judgment. Hannon 

v. Beard, 645 F.3d 45, 47 (1st Cir. 2011). 

A. District Court's Duty to Give Notice Before Entering Summary 

 Judgment on Grounds Not Stated in the Motion 

Rogers' primary argument on appeal is that the district 

court erroneously entered summary judgment on a ground that Block 

Island had "never briefed, argued, or raised," thus depriving 
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Rogers of due notice or opportunity to contest that ground. We 

agree. 

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f), a district 

court may grant a summary judgment motion on grounds not raised by 

the moving party, but may do so only "[a]fter giving notice and a 

reasonable time to respond" to the opposing party. Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 56(f). Our circuit has established two criteria that a district 

court must meet before entering summary judgment sua sponte: First, 

"discovery [must be] sufficiently advanced that the parties have 

enjoyed a reasonable opportunity to glean the material facts." 

Berkovitz v. Home Box Office, Inc., 89 F.3d 24, 29 (1st Cir. 1996) 

(citations omitted). Rogers does not claim that he did not have 

a reasonable opportunity for discovery. 

Second, the district court must "first give[] the 

targeted party appropriate notice and a chance to present its 

evidence on the essential elements of the claim or defense." Id. 

"Notice, in this context, has two aspects: the summary judgment 

target is entitled to know both the grounds that the district court 

will consider and the point at which her obligation to bring forth 

evidence supporting the elements of her claim accrues." Rogan v. 

Menino, 175 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir. 1999) (citing Berkovitz, 89 F.3d 

at 31). 

Here, Block Island sought summary judgment explicitly 

and only on the ground that its maintenance and cure obligations 
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terminated on July 31, 2014 because Rogers had resumed his job as 

a commercial fisherman by that point. According to Block Island, 

Rogers' return to work signaled that it need not make further 

payments because "[m]aintenance and cure is designed to provide a 

seaman with food and lodging when he becomes sick or injured in 

the ship's service; and it extends during the period when he is 

incapacitated to do a seaman's work and continues until he reaches 

maximum medical recovery." Vaughn v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 531 

(1962). 

While the district court rejected the July 31, 2014 date 

and the return-to-work theory, it independently, and without 

notice to Rogers, determined that November 18, 2014 should be the 

date on which Block Island's maintenance and cure obligations 

ended, based on a theory of maximum medical recovery. November 18 

is the date on which Dr. Campos advised that Rogers no longer 

required follow-up care from him. 

As a threshold matter, the district court correctly 

noted the well-established law that a fishing vessel must continue 

to make maintenance and cure payments until the point of maximum 

medical recovery -- that is, the point at which an injured seaman's 

"condition has stabilized and further progress ended short of a 

full recovery." Whitman v. Miles, 387 F.3d 68, 72 (1st Cir. 2004) 

(quoting In re RJF Int'l Corp. for Exoneration from or Limitation 

of Liab., 354 F.3d 104, 106 (1st Cir. 2004)). As a matter of 
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summary judgment law, we hold that the district court nonetheless 

erred when it substituted a new date and ground for summary 

judgment without first notifying Rogers and giving him an 

opportunity to dispute this new date and ground. 

The court's decision to grant summary judgment based on 

the November 18 date, notwithstanding the fact that Block Island's 

summary judgment motion had focused exclusively on July 31, 

deprived Rogers of the opportunity to argue and present evidence 

that he had not yet reached maximum medical recovery as of November 

18. Indeed, Rogers suffered prejudice as a result of the district 

court's failure to provide notice of the ground on which it would 

enter summary judgment. Had he known that maximum medical recovery 

would be an issue at summary judgment, Rogers says that he would 

have submitted additional evidence (already in his possession) of 

further treatment with Dr. Cardoza, his primary care physician, 

after November 18. In light of the lack of notice afforded to 

Rogers, the district court acted prematurely when it concluded 

that Rogers had "offer[ed] no medical evidence that contradict[ed] 

[Dr. Campos's] evaluation that he had achieved the maximum feasible 

recovery as of November 18, 2014." 

Although Block Island concedes that it briefed only the 

July 31, 2014 date and return-to-work theory, it argues that the 

district court committed no error in entering summary judgment 

based on the November 18 date because Rogers had been "fully aware" 
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that maximum medical recovery would be a central issue throughout 

this case. Block Island contends that Rogers had "a reasonable 

opportunity to glean the material facts" on that issue during 

discovery. But this argument misses the point. Rogers had no 

reason to know that he would face the issue at summary judgment. 

The district court has a duty to notify the nonmoving party of the 

stage in the litigation at which his "obligation to bring forth 

evidence supporting the elements of [his] claim accrues." Rogan, 

175 F.3d at 79. That Rogers knew he would need to dispute that he 

had reached maximum medical recovery at trial, is not the same as 

knowing that the issue would be decided at summary judgment.1

B. Calculating the Amount of Maintenance and Cure Payments 

Rogers also complains that the district court erred when 

it allegedly ruled that the amount of Rogers' maintenance and cure 

recovery is capped at the actual living expenses that he incurred.2 

 

1 In vacating the district court's decision on the end date of 

Block Island's maintenance and cure obligations, we note that we 

need not and do not reach the question of whether a lack of notice 

before a summary judgment ruling could ever be per se sufficient 

for a vacatur absent a further showing of prejudice. Here, there 

is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Rogers 

was prejudiced by the district court's premature summary judgment 

ruling on the end-date issue. The end date of the obligation to 

pay maintenance and cure, in turn, affects the issue of the total 

amount of maintenance and cure owed, and that, in turn, affects 

the issue of whether there has been an overpayment. 

2 Rogers' argument that the district court imposed such a cap 

presumably comes from two places in the summary judgment opinion. 

First, while recounting the governing law applicable to the 

dispute, the district court cited Johnson v. United States, 333 
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We understand differently the district court's statements on the 

law governing the calculation of maintenance and cure. 

We do not read the district court's statements on this 

point as a ruling that limited, as a matter of law, Rogers' 

maintenance and cure recovery to his actual living expenses. 

First, the district court stated that an overpayment had resulted 

in the specific context of determining "whether the court can -- 

or should -- do anything about the maintenance overpayment in a 

restitutionary sense." That is, recognition of the overpayment 

immediately preceded the court's ruling that Block Island could 

not affirmatively seek to recover any amount of overpayment but 

rather could only offset it against any damages that Rogers might 

win at trial. 

Second, our reading is bolstered by the fact that, in 

the same summary judgment opinion, the district court refused to 

decide whether Block Island had unduly delayed making maintenance 

and cure payments to Rogers, an issue that is material to establish 

whether Block Island's negligence contributed to Rogers' move from 

 

U.S. 46, 50 (1948), and noted that a seaman is "entitled to recover 

maintenance only for his actual living expenses." Then, the 

district court listed the following three propositions as 

"undisputed" for the purposes of the summary judgment motion: 

(1) that Rogers vacated the Bristol apartment with $1,600 monthly 

rent in November 2013; (2) that Rogers' rent since leaving Bristol 

has not exceeded $800 per month; and (3) "that in calculating the 

daily maintenance due[,] Block Island relied on the $1,600 monthly 

rent figure and that an overpayment resulted."
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the Bristol home to a series of less expensive residences. The 

court reserved this issue for the jury, noting that "as with most 

issues of negligence, the issue of the provision of prompt and 

proper maintenance and cure is a matter for the jury." By 

assigning the decision to the jury, the court left open the 

possibility that the jury might find that Block Island did 

negligently delay in paying Rogers. This finding might, in turn, 

impact the amount of maintenance and cure to which Rogers is 

entitled. 

In this circuit, as in numerous sister circuits, the 

norm is to award an injured seaman maintenance and cure payments 

in the amount of his actual living expenses. See, e.g., Johnson, 

333 U.S. at 50 (affirming circuit court's decision to reject 

injured seaman's claim for maintenance and cure because "there 

[wa]s ample evidence . . . that petitioner had incurred no expense 

or liability for his care and support at the home of his parents"); 

Hall v. Noble Drilling (U.S.) Inc., 242 F.3d 582, 587 (5th Cir. 

2001) ("A seaman is entitled to the reasonable cost of food and 

lodging, provided he has incurred the expense." (emphasis added)); 

Barnes v. Andover Co., L.P., 900 F.2d 630, 641 (3d Cir. 1990) 

("Because maintenance is intended to substitute for the food and 

lodging that a seaman enjoyed at sea, it is established that the 

seaman is entitled only to expenses actually incurred. Thus, if 

a seaman is not charged for hospitalization or lives with his 
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family without incurring any expense or liability for his care, no 

maintenance is due." (citations omitted)). 

But the rule remains that an injured seaman may recover 

reasonable expenses beyond the amount that he actually incurred, 

even if it is the exceptional case where the seaman's reasonable 

expenses will exceed his actual expenses. See, e.g., McMillan v. 

Tug Jane A. Bouchard, 885 F. Supp. 452, 463–67 & n.13 (E.D.N.Y. 

1995) (holding that injured seaman was entitled to maintenance and 

cure payments even though he had paid no rent, after factfinding 

at trial that the seaman had involuntarily moved in with friends 

and family because his employer had refused to pay him 

maintenance), abrogated on other grounds by Hicks v. Tug PATRIOT, 

783 F.3d 939 (2d Cir. 2015); cf. Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 

527, 530–31, 533 (1962) (holding that injured seaman was entitled 

to attorney's fees and to his wages earned as taxi driver without 

offset, after factfinding that his employer had negligently 

remained "silen[t,] neither admitting nor denying" its duty to pay 

maintenance and cure for two years). Rogers argues that this case 

presents just this kind of exceptional circumstance because Block 

Island's delayed maintenance and cure payments forced him to vacate 

the Bristol home and seek cheaper housing. That fact-bound 

determination, however, is one for the jury. To the extent that 

the district court could be understood as having ruled otherwise, 

any such ruling would be error. 
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C. Method of Recovery for Any Overpayment 

Finally, both parties seek affirmance of the district 

court's decision that although Block Island cannot affirmatively 

sue to recover any maintenance and cure payments that it has 

already made to Rogers, it can offset any overpayment (the exact 

amount of which should be determined at trial) against any damages 

that Rogers may win. 

The district court properly relied on Boudreaux v. 

Transocean Deepwater, Inc., 721 F.3d 723 (5th Cir. 2013). There, 

the Fifth Circuit faced a similar question -- namely, whether a 

Jones Act employer, upon establishing that it overpaid an injured 

seaman, is "automatically entitled to a judgment against the seaman 

for benefits already paid." Id. at 725. The court answered this 

question in the negative, observing that allowing for such 

affirmative recovery would disturb a central policy of admiralty 

law, which seeks to "achieve[] a fair reconciliation between 

protecting seamen in the wake of debilitating on-the-job injury 

and ensuring that shipowners can protect themselves from liability 

for sums attributable to concealed preexisting injuries." Id. at 

728. By denying the availability of affirmative recoveries but 

allowing for offset against the injured seaman's damages award, 

the court in Boudreaux strove to strike the proper balance. We 

agree with Boudreaux's sound rule, as well as the rationale 

animating it. 
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We thereby adopt the Fifth Circuit's approach in 

Boudreaux that "once a shipowner pays maintenance and cure to the 

injured seaman, the payments can be recovered only by offset 

against the seaman's damages award -- not by an independent suit 

seeking affirmative recovery." Id. at 728. 

IV. 

We affirm the district court's ruling that Block Island 

may offset any overpayment that occurred against any damages that 

Rogers may win at trial. 

We vacate the ruling that Block Island's maintenance and 

cure obligations terminated on November 18, 2014, and remand for 

further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. The 

district court did not provide Rogers with sufficient notice and 

opportunity to contend otherwise before entering summary judgment. 

No costs are awarded.