Opinion ID: 201761
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: History of the highest rate of wages provision

Text: 23 The substance of the highest rate of wages provision was not new when § 11107 was enacted in 1983. In 1840, Congress enacted the statute that eventually became 46 U.S.C. § 11107. 1 Act of July 20, 1840, ch. 48, 5 Stat. 395 (current version at 46 U.S.C. § 11107 (1983)). 2 This statute entitled all seamen engaged contrary to the provisions of any act of Congress to the highest wage paid at the port of engagement, or to the agreed wage. 3 At that time, there was no provision excluding fisherman employed aboard lay share vessels from this highest rate of wages statute. 24 During the mid- to late-1800s, however, several federal courts concluded that a lay share is not a wage within the purview of the highest rate of wages statutes. See Caffray v. The Cornelia M. Kingsland, 25 F. 856, 858-59 (S.D.N.Y.1885); The Ianthe, 12 F. Cas. 1145 (D.Me.1856). Then, as part of the 1872 Shipping Commissioners Act, which imposed new regulations on the burgeoning foreign and intercoastal shipping industry, Congress excluded share-based vessels from multiple statutes, including the highest rate of wages statute. See Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872, ch. 322, 17 Stat. 262 (1872) (repealed). These exemptions were later consolidated in § 544. See 46 U.S.C. § 544 (repealed 1983) (excluding coastwise vessels and any boat where the seamen are by custom or agreement entitled to participate in the profits or result of a cruise, or voyage from many regulatory statutes reserved for vessels engaged in foreign shipping, including the highest rate of wages predecessor to § 11107). 4 Thus, prior to 1983, lay share vessels were explicitly excluded from the highest rate of wages provision of the predecessor statute to § 11107. 25 More than one hundred years later, as part of its on-going effort to recodify all of the United States Code, Congress passed an act recodifying the maritime statutes in Title 46. In the course of this revision, the exclusionary statute, § 544, was repealed. It was replaced, for the most part, however, by individual exclusions where appropriate. The exclusion of share-based vessels from the highest rate of wage statute, however, was not replaced.