Opinion ID: 604157
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admiralty Law Background

Text: 2 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)). 3 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). 4 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). 5 With these principles in mind, we turn to the facts of this case, many of which have been stipulated by the parties.