Opinion ID: 406181
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of the Law to These Facts

Text: 17 Holmes describes the award of attorney's fees here as similar to costs. If that were the case, our decision might be materially different. However, in an action for arbitrary and willful failure to pay maintenance and cure, attorney's fees are not similar to costs, at all but rather are an element of damages which may be recovered. As the Supreme Court stated in its seminal decision allowing an award of attorney's fees in an action for maintenance and cure: 18 Nor do we have the usual problem of what constitutes costs in the conventional sense. Cf. The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377 (19 L.Ed. 463). Our question concerns damages. Counsel fees were allowed in The Apollon, 9 Wheat. 362, 379 (6 L.Ed. 111), an admiralty suit where one party was put to expense in recovering demurrage of a vessel wrongfully seized. While failure to give maintenance and cure may give rise to a claim for damages for the suffering and for the physical handicap which follows (The Iroquois, 194 U.S. 240 (24 S.Ct. 640, 48 L.Ed. 955) ), the recovery may also include necessary expenses. Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U.S. 367, 371 (53 S.Ct. 173, 174, 77 L.Ed. 368). 19 In the instant case respondents were callous in their attitude, making no investigation of libellant's claim and by their silence neither admitting nor denying it. As a result of that recalcitrance, libellant was forced to hire a lawyer and go to court to get what was plainly owed him under laws that are centuries old. The default was willful and persistent. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of damages suffered for failure to pay maintenance than this one. 20 Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 530, 82 S.Ct. 997, 999, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962) (emphasis added). 21 Additionally, we emphasize two critical facts that indicate that the attorney's fees were integral to the determination of the merits of the action. First, Holmes requested the attorney's fees as part of his damages for McDermott's arbitrary and willful failure to pay maintenance and cure, and this requested relief was included in the pretrial order. Second, the jury was charged on the issue of attorney's fees and the jury returned a verdict awarding them. 22 Moreover, the Supreme Court in White distinguished the case before it from the type with which we are faced today. 23 Unlike other judicial relief, the attorney's fees allowed under § 1988 are not compensation for the injury giving rise to an action. Their award is uniquely separable from the cause of action to be proved at trial. See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 695 n.24, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 2576 n.24, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978). 24 White v. New Hampshire Department of Employment Security, --- U.S. at ----, 102 S.Ct. at 1165 (emphasis added). 7 Here, in contrast, the award of attorney's fees to Holmes was an element of damages for McDermott's willful and arbitrary denial of maintenance and cure. Vaughan v. Atkinson, supra. The attorney's fees award, therefore, was not uniquely separable from the merits but was bound hand in hand with them. The jury was instructed to consider awarding attorney's fees only if it found that the denial of maintenance and cure was willful and arbitrary. Moreover, the maintenance and cure issue is the only one on which attorney's fees were awarded. Thus, the considerations that the Supreme Court found controlling in a motion for § 1988 attorney's fees do not apply here. 8 Cf. Stacy v. Williams, 446 F.2d at 1367 (per curiam) (a motion for attorney's fees because of opponent's bad faith in prolonging litigation is a component of substantive relief, and, therefore, the motion must be made either before judgment or within ten days of judgment as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e)). 9 25 We simply cannot distinguish this case from any other judgment of liability that leaves undetermined the relief as to the amount of damages to which the plaintiff is entitled. The policies against piecemeal appeals apply fully to such a situation; they are also applicable here. Cf. Security & Exchange Commission v. Independence Drilling Co., 595 F.2d 1006 (5th Cir. 1979) (district court's order that the SEC pay for the costs of a receivership was not final until the Commission's liability had been given a dollar amount). 26 In sum, while we recognize that determination of the amount of attorney's fees may be similar to costs, Knighton v. Watkins, supra, or collateral to the main dispute in a case in some situations, see Odin v. District No. 9 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, supra, in an action for arbitrary and willful failure to pay maintenance and cure we hold that such determination is not collateral to the main issues of the case but an issue relating to the substantive component of the case. The order appealed from which left the amount of a substantive claim undetermined 10 is not final and we have no jurisdiction to hear this appeal. 27 DISMISSED.