Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/990-f-2d-885-597111866
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:56:57+00:00

Document:
990 F.2d 885 (6th Cir. 1993), 91-2274, Blainey v. American S.S. Co.
Rehearing Denied May 4, 1993.
Dennis M. O'Bryan (argued and briefed), O'Bryan Law Center, Birmingham, MI, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Thomas W. Emery, Daniel S. Saylor (argued and briefed), Garan, Lucow, Miller, Seward, Cooper & Becker, Detroit, MI, for American S.S. Co.
Robert H. Fortunate, Foster, Meadows & Ballard, Detroit, MI, for Bob-Lo.
Richard A. Dietz, Foster, Meadows & Ballard, Detroit, MI, for Cleveland Tankers, Inc.
Richard C. Sanders, Hill, Lewis, Adams, Goodrich & Tait, Detroit, MI, for Huron Cement.
Paul D. Galea (argued), Foster, Meadows & Ballard, Detroit, MI, for Rouge Steel Co., Interlake S.S. Co.
William D. Carle (argued), Ray, Robinson, Hanninen & Carle, Cleveland, OH, for Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co.
Before: GUY and NORRIS, Circuit Judges; and BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge.
This class action invokes our admiralty jurisdiction and raises the issue of whether Great Lakes seamen who become sick or injured while on a voyage can recover unearned wages beyond the end of that voyage. The seamen plaintiffs appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment to the seven shipowner defendants. We arrive at the same result as did the district court concerning six of the defendants and affirm its judgment, albeit upon different reasoning. We remand the cause against the seventh shipowner for further proceedings.
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, cure, and unearned wages. 1 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). Finally, a shipowner must also pay a stricken seaman's unearned wages "at least so long as the voyage 2 is continued." The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 175, 23 S.Ct. 483, 487, 47 L.Ed. 760 (1903) (quoted in McDermott Int'l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 111 S.Ct. 807, 112 L.Ed.2d 866 (1991)).
The shipowner's obligation to pay maintenance, cure, and unearned wages can be traced to several longstanding policy rationales articulated in admiralty case law. First, it recognizes the unique relationship of sailors to their ships, which, when at sea, approaches "personal indenture." Pacific S.S. Co. v. Peterson, 278 U.S. 130, 137, 49 S.Ct. 75, 77, 73 L.Ed. 220 (1928). The shipowner's duty also recognizes the difficulty of a seaman's work, and protects injured mariners from being put ashore and abandoned in a foreign port. See 2 Martin J. Norris, The Law of Seamen § 26.9 at 23-24 (4th ed. 1985). As Justice Story noted in his thorough analysis of the subject, the obligation to pay maintenance, cure, and unearned wages also aligns the shipowners' interests with the health of their seamen, preserves an important class of citizens needed for national commerce and defense, and encourages seamen "to engage in perilous voyages with more promptitude, and at lower wages." Harden v. Gordon, 11 F.Cas. 480, 483 (C.C.D.Me.1823). See also Vella v. Ford Motor Co., 421 U.S. 1, 3-4, 95 S.Ct. 1381, 1382-1383, 43 L.Ed.2d 682 (1975) (maintenance and cure duty "fosters the combined object of encouraging maritime commerce and assuring the well-being of seamen").
For these reasons, a shipowner's ancient duty to pay maintenance, cure, and unearned wages is imposed by the law itself as an obligation annexed to the employment; it exists regardless of any employment contract, including a collective bargaining agreement. See Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, Inc., 287 U.S. 367, 371, 53 S.Ct. 173, 174, 77 L.Ed. 368 (1932). Thus, the duty to provide maintenance, cure, and unearned wages cannot be entirely abrogated by contract, although this circuit has held that a seaman's right to these remedies can be modified and defined by contract. Al-Zawkari, 871 F.2d at 588. See also Dowdle v. Offshore Express, Inc., 809 F.2d 259, 263-64 (5th Cir.1987) ("there is a fundamental difference between contractual regulation of the rate of maintenance payments and contractual elimination of such payments altogether").
With these principles in mind, we turn to the facts of this case, many of which have been stipulated by the parties.
For over 150 years, it has been the unbroken custom of the Great Lakes sailing trade to pay unearned wages only until the end of the voyage on which a sailor is injured or falls ill. Accordingly, if a seaman was injured while the ship was out of port, he would receive the wages he would have earned to the end of the voyage, but after the ship arrived at port, he collected only maintenance and cure, even if he were forced to miss future journeys with his ship. Under this custom, a voyage is a port-to-port trip; a trip "from an unloading port to a loading port or vice versa."
In 1985, twelve sailors challenged this custom by bringing this suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the defendant corporations, which operate ships on the Great Lakes. All plaintiffs were injured or became ill while in service of their ships. They did not dispute that they had received appropriate sums as maintenance and cure, nor that they had received unearned wages to the end of the voyage on which they were injured or fell ill. They claimed, however, that they should have received unearned wages beyond the end of the journey to the end of their "term of employment," that is, either to the end of the Great Lakes sailing season, to the end of a pay period, or to the termination of the articles under which they served.
Defendant shipowners operate vessels carrying various commodities, such as iron ore, coal, and limestone, between upper and lower Great Lakes ports. Also represented are operators of tankers and excursion vessels. Depending upon their type, these vessels normally are in their home ports at least every three days, some more frequently. Excursion craft are never more than an hour away from port.

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