Source: https://openjurist.org/276/f2d/822/grivas-v-alianza-compania-armadora-sa
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 07:54:38+00:00

Document:
ALIANZA COMPANIA ARMADORA, S.A., et al., Respondents-Appellees.
Isaac Salem, New York City (Lebovici & Safir, New York City, on the brief), for libelants-appellants.
Victor S. Cichanowicz, New York City (Cichanowicz & Callan, New York City, on the brief), for respondents-appellees.
This appeal, which reached us only in March 1960, is from a judgment rendered by Judge Dawson in a suit in admiralty in the Southern District of New York nearly three years ago, 150 F.Supp. 708. The libelants are Greek seamen who were hired in New York by respondent, a Panamanian corporation, as part of the deck crew of the S.S. Niki, a vessel of Liberian registry owned by respondent, which was then in port on the Pacific coast. The claims were for wages from June 18 to June 23, 1952, for vacation and overtime pay alleged to be owing under the Panama Labor Code, for damages for alleged unjustified discharge, false arrest and abandonment, and for compensation for special work done by certain of the libelants in cleaning the hold of the vessel. Judge Dawson granted the claim for wages from June 18, to June 23, 1952 and denied all other claims. We agree with his conclusions save the denial of the claim for special work. The facts are so clearly and accurately set forth in his opinion that we shall dispense with any statement of them at this point and refer to them below only when necessary for clarity.
The initial question is the choice of law. Appellants contend the rights of the parties are governed by the law of Panama, the domicile of the owner of the vessel, both because it was so agreed and, alternatively, because Panama law should govern in the absence of agreement. Respondent denies any agreement as to the governing law; it asserts that, there being no agreement, the rights of the parties are governed by the law of Liberia, the state of registry of the vessel, Title IX of whose maritime code provides 'In so far as it does not conflict with any other provisions of this Act, the nonstatutory general Maritime Law of the United States of America is hereby declared to be and is hereby adopted as the General Maritime Law of the Republic of Liberia.' United Nations Legislative Service, Laws Concerning the Nationality of Ships, p. 98. Judge Dawson found there was no competent proof the parties had agreed to apply Panamanian law, and we have no basis for disturbing this factual finding.
However, we do not dismiss appellants' suggestion that the Jones Act cases reflect some impatience with a determination of the rights of seamen in accordance with the law of a 'more or less nominal foreign registration eagerly offered by some countries.' See Lauritzen v. Larsen, supra, 345 U.S. at page 587, 73 S.Ct. at page 931; Bartholomew v. Universe Tankships, Inc., supra. We do not here decide that occasions might not arise where some law having a more meaningful relation than the law of a 'nominal foreign registration' ought not be chosen even when the choice is between two foreign laws rather than, as in the Jones Act cases, between a foreign law and our own.1 The clearest case for such a reference would be when the law of the flag would itself refer to another law; but this would not really be an exception since the reference contemplated by the 'venerable and universal rule' is presumably to the whole law of the flag including its conflict of laws. Assuming without deciding that this is not the only case where reference to some law other than that of the flag2 might be called for, on no view would reference to the law of Panama be appropriate here. For a prerequisite to the forum's choosing the law of a state other than that of the flag, at least when the law of the flag would not do so, must be a showing that such state would apply its own law if the question arose in its own courts, since otherwise the forum would not be applying the whole law of that state. See McQuade v. Compania De Vapores San Antonio, S.A., D.C.S.D.N.Y.1955, 131 F.Supp. 365, 367. There is no such showing with respect to Panama in this case.
Since there was no evidence that Liberian law required vacation or overtime pay, the disallowance of these claims was correct.
The claims relating to discharge require some discussion. We think it best to consider these without relying on the ship's articles as respondent does. For the record is unsatisfactory whether the articles were read to the libelants, few of whom can read and none of whom in fact read the articles before signing, see Brown v. Lull, C.C.D.Mass.1836, 4 Fed.Cas. 407, No. 2,018, and the Judge made no finding on this.
Disputes with respect to wages and other matters arose as soon as libelants boarded the vessel at Victoria, B.C., on June 26, 1952. On July 15, a fight developed between libelant Grivas and a messman which resulted in both being taken by State police before a justice of the peace at Coos Bay, Oregon. On July 21, while the ship was still at Coos Bay, the theft of 34 gallons of paint was discovered; Grivas was the watchman on duty and libelant Trilivas was suspected. On the ship's arrival in Portland on July 26, the master discharged these two libelants and also a seaman; the three men refused either to leave the ship or to do any further work. On July 29 the deck crew, including all the libelants and some of the engine room crew, went on strike. The three men who had been discharged picketed on board the ship carrying 'On Strike' placards and the stevedores then working left the vessel as a result. Some one of the crew turned off the steam, with the result that the winches stopped and several heavy slings of lumber fell. The master called the police who ordered the three discharged seamen to leave the vessel and put the men off when they did not leave voluntarily. The master told the rest of the crew to go back to work or leave. They demanded the ship's articles be revised to provide that the master could not discharge a crew member without paying his transportation back to New York. When the master declined, the libelants who were still on the vessel refused either to leave or go back to work. The master again called the police, who put them off.
The District Judge held the discharge justified because of libelants' insubordination. He relied on Korthinos v. Niarchos, 4 Cir., 175 F.2d 730, certiorari denied, 1949, 338 U.S. 894, 70 S.Ct. 241, 94 L.Ed. 550, and Southern Steamship Co. v. N.L.R.B., 1942, 316 U.S. 31, 43, 62 S.Ct. 886, 892, 86 L.Ed. 1246 the latter holding that a strike by seamen even when the vessel was tied to a dock in a safe port was not concerted activity protected by 7 of the National Labor Relations Act 29 U.S.C.A. 157 because it was a mutiny within 18 U.S.C. 2192 and 2193, despite the contrary views expressed by a 'number of courts and commentators.' /4/ It is questionable whether the Southern Steamship case is decisive here since Liberia incorporated in its own general Maritime Law only 'the non-statutory general Maritime Law of the United States of America,' although it could be argued that a statute the substance of which goes back to the earliest days of the Republic, Act of April 30, 1790, c. 9, 12, 1 Stat. 115, and, indeed, nearly a hundred years before that to 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 7, 8 (1698-99), was not meant to be excluded. However, the Korthinos case supports Judge Dawson's conclusion, as does The T. F. Oakes, C.C.D.Or.1888, 36 F. 442, 445.5 Weisthoff v. American-Hawaiian S.S. Co., 2 Cir., 79 F.2d 124, certiorari denied, 1935, 296 U.S. 619, 56 S.Ct. 140, 80 L.Ed. 439, is distinguishable on the grounds that a prior statutory violation during the voyage entitled the libelants to receive their discharge and be paid their wages at New York and that there was no evidence of misconduct such as occurred here; we need not determine to what, if any, extent the authority of Weisthoff as a statement of American law, statutory and non-statutory, has been affected by Southern Steamship Co. v. N.L.R.B. We therefore sustain Judge Dawson's conclusion that the discharge was justified,6 as well as his holdings that libelants are not entitled to damages for false arrest, Mavromatis v. United Greek Shipowners Corp., 1 Cir., 1949, 179 F.2d 310, 313, or for their subsequent detention and deportation by the immigration authorities.
There remains libelants' claim for $200 for cleaning the hold of the vessel. The District Judge found that when libelants were hired, it was agreed the deck crew would receive $200 in addition to their wages for cleaning the hold, that the deck crew was put to work doing, this, and that thereafter the master told them they would not be paid the agreed sum but instead would be paid overtime at the rate of fifty cents an hour, whereupon they ceased cleaning the hold. However, the District Judge denied the claim on the ground that libelants had walked off the job and that the evidence failed to justify their failure to perform. We think that in so ruling he failed to recognize the established principle that 'where failure of a party to perform a condition or a promise is induced by a manifestation to him by the other party that he cannot or will not substantially perform his own promise * * *, the duty of such other party becomes independent of performance of the condition or promise.' American Law Institute, Restatement of Contracts 306, see 4 Corbin, Contracts 977.
The judgment is modified to allow libelants an additional $200 with interest from June 26, 1952 and as so modified is affirmed. No costs on appeal.
Libelants' argument is a technical one, that since this is a suit in admiralty, the court may not take notice of a foreign law which had not been proved as a fact, 3 Benedict, Admiralty, 382 (6th ed. 1940), as a combination of Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 43(a), 28 U.S.C.A. and 344-a(1) of the New York Civil Practice Act would have permitted in a civil action in the Southern District governed by the Federal Rules. We do not decide whether the argument is sound or whether, if it is, the case would not be appropriate for taking evidence as to Art. 1080 of the Panama Commercial Code on appeal under Admiralty Rule 45, 28 U.S.C.A.

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 Art. 1080