Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/357/221
Timestamp: 2014-03-10 15:59:45
Document Index: 643558222

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 688', '§ 56', '§ 1', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 688', '§ 56', '§ 469', '§ 51', '§ 56']

Richard McALLISTER, Petitioner, v. MAGNOLIA PETROLEUM COMPANY. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Richard McALLISTER, Petitioner, v. MAGNOLIA PETROLEUM COMPANY.
357 U.S. 221 (78 S.Ct. 1201, 2 L.Ed.2d 1272)
Argued: April 1, 1958.
[HTML] Mr. Arthur J. Mandell, Houston, Tex., for petitioner.
The jury returned special verdicts importing the following findings: Petitioner was injured while attempting to walk down the stairs in question; the portholes and deck above and near the stairs were not watertight; these defects were not due to the negligence of respondents; and the condition did not make the vessel unseaworthy.
290 S.W.2d 313. The Texas Supreme Court refused petitioner's application for writ of error. In view of the importance of this ruling for maritime personal injury litigation in the state courts, we granted petitioner's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, and granted certiorari. 352 U.S. 1000, 77 S.Ct. 580, 1 L.Ed.2d 545.
Since the seaman must sue for both unseaworthiness and Jones Act negligence in order to make full utilization of his remedies for personal injury, and since that can be accomplished only in a single proceeding, a time limitation on the unseaworthiness claim effects in substance a similar limitation on the right of action under the Jones Act. Congress has provided that a seaman shall have three years to bring his action under the Jones Act.
A state court cannot reduce that time by applying its own statute of limitations to such an action. Engel v. Davenport, 271 U.S. 33, 46 S.Ct. 410, 70 L.Ed. 813; cf. Cox v. Roth, 348 U.S. 207, 75 S.Ct. 242, 99 L.Ed. 260. As an essential corollary of that proposition, it may not qualify the seaman's Jones Act right by affixing a shorter limitation to his concurrent right of action for unseaworthiness.
To be sure, the seaman's right of action under the Jones Act is not extinguished when a State imposes a two-year limitation on the right to sue for unseaworthiness for the same injury. But in view of the practical necessity of combining both claims in a single action, Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, supra, the unseaworthiness limitation effectively diminishes the time within which the seaman must commence his action under the Jones Act. The result falls short of affording seamen 'the full benefit of federal law,' Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U.S. 239, 243, 63 S.Ct. 246, 250, 87 L.Ed. 239, to which they are entitled when state courts undertake to adjudicate claims under the federal maritime law.
Because the state court thought petitioner's action was barred by the statute of limitations, it had no occasion to consider the assignment of error in connection with the trial judge's instructions on unseaworthiness. The parties have argued the matter, and in furtherance of what we deem to be sound judicial administration, Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. Nacirema Operating Co., 355 U.S. 563, 569, 78 S.Ct. 438, 442, 2 L.Ed.2d 491, we rule on the question at this time. We think that the charges set out in the margin
were erroneous. They carried the incorrect implication that petitioner could recover for unseaworthiness only if the defect was of such quality that it rendered the whole vessel unfit for the purpose for which it was intended.
It is well settled that 'the vessel and owner are liable to indemnify a seaman for injury caused by unseaworthiness of the vessel or its appurtenant appliances and equipment * * *.' Mahnich v. Southern S.S. Co., 321 U.S. 96, 99, 64 S.Ct. 455, 457, 88 L.Ed. 561.
No such default is necessary in this case since the Court can look elsewhere for the measure of the seaman's federal right to recover for unseaworthiness. Just as equity follows the law in applying, as a rough measure of limitations, the period which would bar a similar action at law, see Russell v. Todd, 309 U.S. 280, 287, 60 S.Ct. 527, 530, 84 L.Ed. 754, I think that the maritime cause of action for unseaworthiness could be measured by the analogous action at law for negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. 688, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688. This reference seems especially appropriate since the seaman's remedy for unseaworthiness under the general maritime law and his remedy for negligence under the Jones Act are but two aspects of a single cause of action. Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U.S. 316, 47 S.Ct. 600, 71 L.Ed. 1069.
It thus seems to me that the three-year limitation on the Jones Act remedy, 45 U.S.C. 56, 45 U.S.C.A. § 56, is the ready and logical source to draw upon for determining the period within which this federal right may be enforced. This period should be applied in an action for unseaworthiness brought in a state court, just as it would be applied by the state courts in actions brought under the Jones Act, Engel v. Davenport, supra. Such a result would be in harmony with the practice in federal admiralty courts of applying state statutes of limitations in enforcing state-created rights. Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U.S. 233, 42 S.Ct. 89, 66 L.Ed. 210. The alternative of subjecting the parties' rights to the variant state statutes of limitations and the consequent uncertainty of legal obligation would inject an unnecessarily sporting element into the affairs of men. Cf. Guaranty Trust Co. of N.Y. v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 89 L.Ed. 2079. The mischief to be avoided is the possibility of shopping for the forum with the most favorable period of limitations. In actions arising at sea, frequently beyond the territorial bounds of any State, normal choice-of-law doctrines are likely to prove inadequate to the task of supplying certainty and predictability.
Although both are federal laws, each creates a separate and independent cause of action for conduct not covered or made redressable by the other, though both are designed for the one purpose of authorizing, within their respective terms, recovery of damages by a seaman for a bodily injury suffered in the course of his employment. Under the maritime law of unseaworthiness the owner warrants the vessel, its appliances and gear to be free of defects, and is liable to pay damages to a seaman for an injury occasioned by a breach of the warranty. This is so even though 'negligence of the officers of the vessel contributed to its unseaworthiness (for their negligence) is not sufficient to insulate the owner from liability for * * * failure to furnish seaworthy appliances * * *.' Mahnich v. Southern Steamship Co., 321 U.S. 96, 100101, 64 S.Ct. 455, 458, 88 L.Ed. 561. (Emphasis supplied.) But 'before the Jones Act the owner was, in other respects, not responsible for injuries to a seaman caused by the negligence of officers or members of the crew.' Id., 321 U.S. at page 101, 64 S.Ct. at page 458.
That Act, thus, incorporated the provisions of the Federal Employers' Liability Act,
§ 1 of which
creates a liability upon the carrier for 'injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its * * * boats, wharves, or other equipment' (emphasis supplied), and § 6
provides, in pertinent part, that '(n)o action shall be maintained under this chapter unless commenced within three years from the day the cause of action accrued.' This makes clear that the maritime law of unseaworthiness imposes an unqualified liability upon the owner to pay damages to a seaman for injuries sustained through the owner's failure to keep the vessel, its appliances and gear in that safe and sound condition colloquially called 'ship-shape,' and that the Jones Act, on the other hand, supplements the maritime law of unseaworthiness by imposing a liability in tort upon the owner to pay damages to a seaman injured by negligence of the officers or members of the crew in the operation of the vessel, its appliances and gear.
Numerous decisions of this Court have established that, in a suit to enforce a federally created right which is silent on the matter of limitations, the applicable period of limitations is that prescribed by the law of the State in which the action is brought. Cope v. Anderson, 331 U.S. 461, 463, 67 S.Ct. 1340, 1341, 91 L.Ed. 1602; Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 395, 66 S.Ct. 582, 584, 90 L.Ed. 743; Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U.S. 96, 97, 61 S.Ct. 473, 85 L.Ed. 605; Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. City of Atlanta, 203 U.S. 390, 397, 27 S.Ct. 65, 66, 51 L.Ed. 241; McClaine v. Rankin, 197 U.S. 154, 158, 25 S.Ct. 410, 411, 49 L.Ed. 702, and Brady v. Daly, 175 U.S. 148, 158, 20 S.Ct. 62, 66, 44 L.Ed. 109. The Court's opinion, holding that, where an action for unseaworthiness is combined with an action under the Jones Act, a court cannot apply to the former 'a shorter period of limitations' than Congress has prescribed for the latter, recognizes this rule but permits it to be applied only to an unseaworthiness action which is not conjoined with a count for negligence under the Jones Act, or to an unseaworthiness action which is conjoined with a count for negligence under the Jones Act if brought in a State whose laws provide an equal or longer period than Congress has provided for the commencement of a negligence action under the Jones Act. This seems quite inconsistent. We know that many States provide a longer period, and others a shorter period, for the commencement of a suit for unseaworthiness than is provided by Congress for the commencement of an action for damages for negligence under the Jones Act. I cannot escape the conviction that the long-established rule, expressive of the meaning of the silence of Congress in fixing a statute of limitations, should be enforced in all unseaworthiness cases or in none. I am therefore unable to see why, as the Court argues, 'a time limitation on the unseaworthiness claim effects in substance a similar limitation on the right of action under the Jones Act' or, transposingas I think more properthe names of the laws as used in the Court's argument, why 'a time limitation on the (Jones Act) claim effects in substance a similar limitation on the right of action (for unseaworthiness),' i.e., extends it to three years when, as here, the applicable state statute prescribes a limitation of two years.
Recent authorities have effectively disposed of suggestions in earlier cases that an injured seaman can be required to exercise an election between his remedies for negligence under the Jones Act and for unseaworthiness. McCarthy v. American Eastern Corp., 3 Cir., 175 F.2d 724; Balado v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 2 Cir., 179 F.2d 943; Williams v. Tide Water Associated Oil Co., 9 Cir., 227 F.2d 791. Cf. Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143. See Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty, §§ 623625.
See 46 U.S.C. 688, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688, which incorporates the statute of limitations under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. 56, 45 U.S.C.A. § 56. When the Jones Act was adopted in 1920 the period of limitations for the FELA was two years. Some authorities have suggested that the Act of Aug. 11, 1939, 53 Stat. 1404, which extended the FELA period to three years, did not effect a similar extension for the Jones Act. E.g., 3 Benedict, Admiralty, (6th ed., Knauth, 1940), § 469. The contrary must now be taken to have been established. See Cox v. Roth, 348 U.S. 207, 210, 75 S.Ct. 242, 244, 99 L.Ed. 260; Pope v. McCrady Rodgers Co., 3 Cir., 164 F.2d 591, 592; Streeter v. Great Lakes Transit Corp., D.C., 49 F.Supp. 466; Gahling v. Colabee S.S. Co., D.C., 37 F.Supp. 759; Royle v. Standard Fruit & Steamship Co., 269 App.Div. 762, 54 N.Y.S.2d 778.
45 U.S.C. 51, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51.
45 U.S.C. 56, 45 U.S.C.A. § 56.