Opinion ID: 1435949
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Commuter Seamen

Text: DRBA asks the Court to adopt a per se rule denying maintenance to commuter seamen. DRBA observes that the rationale for maintenanceto provide seamen compensation equivalent to food and lodging received at seais inapplicable to commuter seamen, who eat and sleep ashore. DRBA argues, further, that the wages of commuter seamen are already computed with the expectation that they will pay for their own food and housing expenses on land and, therefore, an award of maintenance would produce an unjustified windfall. DRBA maintains that, based on these concerns, we left open the question of whether commuter seamen are entitled to maintenance in Barnes, 900 F.2d at 643. Our inquiry begins with Barnes. There, we considered whether a blue water seaman, who maintained a home ashore, was entitled to include in his calculation of maintenance expenses incurred in connection with his permanent lodging, or whether he was solely permitted to recover the incremental costs attributable to his presence on land, including food, laundry, and gas. In approving Barnes's recovery of costs associated with his permanent lodging, we cited precedents awarding maintenance to commuter seamen: Many of the reasons given by the courts for awarding maintenance to land-based seamen who, by definition, ordinarily incur their own expenses for food and lodging are also applicable to inclusion in maintenance of the prorated costs of permanent lodging by a blue water seaman: the status of seamen as wards of the admiralty, Weiss, 235 F.2d at 313; DuPlantis, 298 F.Supp. at 14-15 & n. 3; consistency with maritime tradition, Weiss, 235 F.2d at 313; DuPlantis, 298 F.Supp. at 14-15[;] and the need to provide support to those who are ineligible for workman's compensation or other means of support. Weiss, 235 F.2d at 313. Id. at 642. Despite our reliance on these precedents in Barnes, DRBA insists, This Circuit has left open the question of whether a commuter seaman, such as Kopacz, is even entitled to maintenance in the first place. Appellant's Br. at 14. Although Barnes acknowledged that there was some logic in denying maintenance to shore-based seamen, the court stressed that the life of the law is experience, not logic. Id. at 643. Barnes then reiterated Congress and the Supreme Court's long-established solicitude to seamen, the liberal attitude regarding the scope of maintenance, and the interpretative canon requiring that ambiguities in regard to maintenance be resolved in favor of the seamanall considerations that, Barnes concluded, supported an expansive understanding of the right to maintenance. Id. at 637, 643 (citing Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 532-33, 82 S.Ct. 997, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962)). Barnes also quoted at length from an opinion rejecting a position identical to that urged by DRBA: To deny [maintenance to a seaman] because he does not receive lodging and meals aboard ship raises problems that would distort the simple lines of the maintenance remedy.... Indeed, the rationale that maintenance is allowable only when meals would have been served aboard challenges the now well settled doctrine that the disabled seaman is entitled to be paid maintenance beyond the end of his voyage, for were maintenance to be allowed only for those days during which the ship would have served him meals, it would end when the voyage was over. Id. at 642 (quoting Hudspeth v. Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc., 266 F.Supp. 937, 943 (E.D.La.1967)); see Smith v. Del. Bay Launch Serv., Inc., 972 F.Supp. 836, 849 (D.C.Del.1997); see also Crooks v. United States, 459 F.2d 631, 634-35 (9th Cir.1972) ([T]he maintenance remedy should be kept simple, uncluttered by fine distinctions which breed litigation, with its attendant delays and expenses.) (internal citation omitted). Hence, Barnes strongly suggested that commuter seamen are also entitled to maintenance. Today, we make explicit what was implicit in Barnes: commuter seamen enjoy the same right to maintenance as their blue water counterparts. Although DRBA's concerns relating to other payments have merit, we do not write on a blank slate. Id. at 637 (noting the Court's clear and frequent pronouncements that seamen remain wards of the admiralty). Rather, our analysis is informed by nearly two centuries of jurisprudence consistently expand[ing] the scope of the right [to maintenance]. Id. at 633. In Vaughan, decided over one hundred years after the introduction of maintenance into admiralty law, the Supreme Court stressed the continued status of seamen as wards of admiralty and the need for liberal interpretation of the maintenance obligation. 369 U.S. at 532, 82 S.Ct. 997. Notwithstanding our dissenting colleague's vigorous argument that the maintenance and cure obligation does not arise when the seaman is a commuter, we find no such limiting principleor inclination to curtail this historic remedyin the applicable jurisprudence. [6] As much as we might have expected the Supreme Court in 1962 to modify the traditional maintenance obligation to reflect changes in the modern seaman's lifestyle, it did no such thing. To the contrary, the Court, stressing the expansive nature of this right, declined to fashion exceptions to the shipowner's longstanding duty to provide maintenance and cure: Admiralty courts have been liberal in interpreting this duty `for the benefit and protection of seamen who are its wards.' We noted in Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co ., that the shipowner's liability for maintenance and cure was among `the most pervasive' of all and that it was not to be defeated by restrictive distinctions nor `narrowly confined.' When there are ambiguities or doubts, they are resolved in favor of the seaman. Id. at 531-32, 82 S.Ct. 997 (internal citations omitted). And, in fact, DRBA cites no authority supporting withholding maintenance from commuter seamen. See id. at 642 (quoting Weiss v. Central R.R. Co. of N.J., 235 F.2d 309, 313 (2d Cir.1956) (We know of no authority ... for holding that a seaman is not entitled to the traditional privileges of his status merely because his voyages are short, because he sleeps ashore, or for other reasons his lot is more pleasant than that of most of his brethren.)); Bailey v. City of N.Y., 55 F.Supp. 699, 701 (S.D.N.Y.1944), aff., 153 F.2d 427 (2d Cir.1946) (awarding maintenance to land-based seaman after finding no authority for narrow construction of the right); see also Crooks, 459 F.2d at 633 (Thus we find the obligation of maintenance enforced even where maritime compensation did not include board and lodging-where the seaman was expected to pay for his meals out of his wages. No matter what the terms of his maritime employment were, during the period of his disability he was entitled to be provided with maintenance as well as cure.); The City of Avalon, 156 F.2d 500, 501 (9th Cir.1946) (holding that seaman could recover cost of food as element of maintenance, even where shipowner had not paid for his meals). In short, [t]he Supreme Court has shown no inclination to depart from its long-established solicitude for seamen, despite the protections afforded modern seamen. Barnes, 900 F.2d at 637. Until it does so, we decline to depart from the uniformly enforced rule entitling deep water and commuter seamen to maintenance. Weiss, 235 F.2d at 313.