Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

PER CURIAM.
In this action, Jose Fernandez, a seaman (junior engineer), seeks to recover from his former employer amounts allegedly due him, since December 13, 1957, for maintenance and cure. The libellant left his ship in September 1956 and entered the United States Public Health Service Hospital at New Orleans, Louisiana, complaining of internal bleeding. At the hospital, in the course of an operation described as an exploratory laparotomy right hemicolectomy, a malignant tumor was removed from his colon. January 27, 1957, he was discharged as, able to resume his duties. Fernandez was paid $536 for maintenance while an out-patient between the time of his departure from the ship and the time of his return to it. After he returned to> sea and until April 27, 1957, he complained of no illness. Early in May Fernandez again became an out-patient of the Public Health Service Hospital. Then, on May 22, 1957, he was admitted as an in-patient of the hospital. At that time his ills were described as generalized arteriosclerosis, aortic insufficiency, and leukoplakia of the lip. (The leuko-plakia is not a factor in this case.) While he was an out-patient, through December 13, 1957, Fernandez was paid $1,564 for maintenance. In January 1958 the hospital found him permanently unfit to return to his former employment, because of a number of physical disorders and infirmities common to persons of his, age; he was then sixty. Since then, the hospital has consistently found him permanently unfit for sea duty. His principal difficulty now is an unfeigned anxiety reaction to the fear of cancer.
The district court found that all of the causes of the libellant’s disability were attributable to normal degenerative changes common among cancer victims and among men of his age, and that, his ills were unrelated to his employment by the respondent. The court found also that the treatment Fernandez received was designed to maintain control of his disorders, but that there was no hope for cure, maximum cure having been effected by January of 1958; that he had not resumed his employment and would never be able to do so. At the time of the trial the libellant was receiving two pensions totalling $201 a month, one from the National Maritime Union and one from Social Security, both based on proof of his permanent disability.
A shipowner is obligated to furnish a seaman medical care and maintenance only until the seaman is cured or recovery under treatment is no longer possible. Farrell v. United States, 1949, 336 U.S. 511, 69 S.Ct. 707, 93 L.Ed. 850; Calmar Steamship Corp. v. Taylor, 1938, 303 U.S. 525, 58 S.Ct. 651, 82 L.Ed. 993; Desmond v. United States, 2 Cir., 1954, 217 F.2d 948; Muruaga v. United States, 2 Cir., 1949, 172 F.2d 318; Lindgren v. Shepard S.S. Co., 2 Cir., 1940, 108 F.2d 806.
After careful consideration of the record and the questions of law raised on this appeal, we hold that the evidence and the law fully support the judgment of the district court. The judgment is
Affirmed.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: A