Opinion ID: 1782111
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Harmony and Uniformity of Maritime Law

Text: Carnival asserts that, by following Nietes v. American President Lines, Ltd., 188 F.Supp. 219 (N.D.Cal.1959), the Third District has crafted a dramatic change in settled federal maritime law and thus violated the long-standing principle of uniformity. More specifically, Carnival asserts that cases following Barbetta, with Nietes as the lone exception, have established a settled rule of maritime law that a ship owner may not be held vicariously liable for the negligence of a shipboard physician. In Barbetta v. S/S Bermuda Star, 848 F.2d 1364 (5th Cir.1988), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the issue of whether a ship owner could be held liable to a passenger under a theory of respondeat superior for the medical negligence of the ship's doctor. The ship owners asserted that, because the doctor was not their servant or agent, they could not be held vicariously liable for his negligent actions under general maritime law. The ship owners also proffered a provision of the ticket contract that disclaimed all liability for the negligence of the physician. The trial court noted that the general maritime law offered no completely consistent answer regarding the vicarious liability of a ship owner to a passenger for alleged negligent medical treatment by the ship's doctor, but it determined that it was unnecessary to decide the case on that theory. Id. at 1367. The trial court reasoned that, regardless of the possible existence of a master-servant relationship, the contractual limitation of liability on the ticket was not against public policy and therefore liability could not be premised upon a theory of respondeat superior. Id. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit concluded that it must first determine whether maritime law permits vicarious claims. The court noted that the case raised the following question of law, Assuming the doctor was negligent in performing his duties, would the doctrine of respondeat superior impose liability on the defendants? Id. at 1368. [6] The court concluded that the doctrine does not impose liability upon a ship owner and recited the general rule: Although neither the Supreme Court, this court, nor any district court in this circuit has ruled on the question, we are not without guidance. An impressive number of courts from many jurisdictions have, for almost one hundred years, followed the same basic rule: When a carrier undertakes to employ a doctor aboard ship for its passengers' convenience, the carrier has a duty to employ a doctor who is competent and duly qualified. If the carrier breaches its duty, it is responsible for its own negligence. If the doctor is negligent in treating a passenger, however, that negligence will not be imputed to the carrier. Id. at 1369 (emphasis added). The court cited to a line of cases from 1887 to 1982, which held that the carrier was only liable for its own possible negligence in the hiring of the physician. The Barbetta court stated its rationale for the rule in two often-repeated justifications. First, the carrier does not have the capacity to control the relationship between the physician and the passenger since that relationship is under the control of the passenger. See id. (citing O'Brien v. Cunard S.S. Co., 154 Mass. 272, 28 N.E. 266, 267 (1891)). Second, [a] shipping company is not in the business of providing medical services to passengers; it does not possess the expertise requisite to supervise a physician or surgeon carried on board a ship as a convenience to passengers. Id. (quoting Amdur v. Zim Israel Navigation Co., 310 F.Supp. 1033, 1042 (S.D.N.Y.1969)). The Barbetta court reasoned that the justifications for the general rule are tied to the concept of control because respondeat superior liability is predicated upon the control inherent in a master-servant relationship. Id. at 1370. In examining the potential for control by a ship owner, the Barbetta court remarked only that numerous earlier courts had found that the carrier or ship owner lacked the expertise to meaningfully evaluate and, therefore, control a doctor's treatment of his patients and the power, even if it had the knowledge, to intrude into the physician-patient relationship. Id. at 1371. The Barbetta court consequently declared, a carrier cannot exercise control over the ship's doctor as he practices medicine and therefore held that a carrier could not be held liable for the doctor's negligence under a theory of respondeat superior. Id. (emphasis added). However, after reciting precedent that predicates the application of vicarious liability upon the existence of control, the Barbetta court itself avoided any analysis of record evidence relevant to control. Instead, it flatly declared and accepted the broad rule that general maritime law does not impose liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior upon a carrier or ship owner for the negligence of a ship's doctor who treats the ship's passengers. Id. at 1372. The concept of control, however, is also the very essence of the rationale underlying the Nietes decision and the decision by the Third District in this case. Analyzing the issue of control, the court in Nietes reached a different result from the Barbetta court and decisions in earlier cases. In Nietes, the injured passenger alleged that the ship's doctor and nurses were employees of the shipping company. The Nietes court found this allegation sufficient to state a cause of action under a theory of vicarious liability and denied the company's motion to dismiss. In determining that the claim was legally viable, the court acknowledged the ancient rule that precluded liability based upon the independent contractor status of the physician. Nietes, 188 F.Supp. at 220. However, the court examined specific aspects of the relationship between the physician and the ship owners to conclude that the physician was an employee. The court said: It is our opinion that, where a ship's physician is in the regular employment of a ship, as a salaried member of the crew, subject to the ship's discipline and the master's orders, and presumably also under the general direction and supervision of the company's chief surgeon through modern means of communication, he is, for the purposes of respondeat superior at least, in the nature of an employee or servant for whose negligent treatment of a passenger a shipowner may be held liable. The same would be true, a fortiori, as to a ship's nurses. Id. The Barbetta court recognized that the rule actually adopted by Nietes imposes liability only when the carrier has some control over the doctor. Barbetta, 848 F.2d at 1370. But rather than analyze the particular relationship between the parties to determine whether aspects of control could in fact exist, the Barbetta decision relied upon the factual conclusions of earlier maritime cases to support the general maritime rule. See id. at 1369-71. For example, O'Brien v. Cunard Steamship Co., 154 Mass. 272, 28 N.E. 266 (1891), cited by Barbetta and a number of maritime decisions, holds that a ship owner's sole duty is to provide a duly qualified and competent surgeon and that the ship owner is not vicariously liable to a passenger for the negligence of the shipboard surgeon. See id. at 267. The passenger in O'Brien also alleged that the physician was a servant of the ship owner and subject to its control. The rationale for the Barbetta decision is found in the O'Brien court's decree that [t]he master or owners of the ship cannot interfere in the treatment of the medical officer when he attends a passenger. He is not their servant, engaged in their business, and subject to their control as to his mode of treatment. Id. (emphasis added). The O'Brien court, however, analyzed and construed the duty of the ship owner under an 1882 act of Congress that was later repealed. [7] The court further asserted, without citation to any precedent, that any duty under the common law would be no greater than that under the statute. Id. at 267. Citing to Laubheim v. Netherland Steamship Co., 107 N.Y. 228, 13 N.E. 781 (1887), as support for its holding under the statute, the O'Brien court concluded that it was unreasonable to hold the ship owners liable when they were required by law to keep a physician on board but were powerless to interfere in the relationship between physician and patient. Id. Laubheim was decided after the Act of 1882 took effect, although the tort appears to have accrued beforehand. The court found that there was no evidence of underlying negligent treatment by the physician, but it further stated that a ship owner could only be held liable where it failed to select a reasonably competent physician. Id. at 781. The court did not analyze what, if any, control the ship owner may have asserted over its physician, but instead cited three decisions as support for its holding. One case involved a railroad's liability for the negligence of its physician, Secord v. St. Paul Minneapolis & Manitoba Ry. Co., 18 F. 221 (C.C.D.Minn.1883), one involved a railroad's liability for the negligence of a non-medical employee under the fellow-servant doctrine, Chapman v. Erie Ry. Co., 55 N.Y. 579 (1874), and one involved the liability of a public charity hospital for the negligence of its physician, McDonald v. Mass. Gen. Hosp., 120 Mass. 432 (1876). In The Great Northern, 251 F. 826 (9th Cir.1918), the court noted that the appellant relied expressly upon the 1882 Act of Congress, but the court decided the question under both the Act and the common law. See id. at 830. The court cited five cases in support of its decision that the ship owner was not vicariously liable for the negligence of the on-board physician, including the two earlier decisions in O'Brien and Laubheim. The court liberally quoted the language from O'Brien as to the ship owner's presumptive lack of control but ultimately held that the ship owner's statutory duty was met. Id. at 831-32. In De Zon v. American President Lines, Ltd., 318 U.S. 660, 63 S.Ct. 814, 87 L.Ed. 1065 (1943), the United States Supreme Court also cited to the litany of early decisions which held that the ship owner could not be held vicariously liable for the negligence of the shop's doctor. Though De Zon decided only that the ship owner could be held vicariously liable under the Jones Act for harm to the seaman caused by the negligence of the ship's doctor, by footnote, the Supreme Court cited several of the passenger cases above. It noted that ship owners have not been found liable to passengers because the medical treatment was business between the doctor and the passenger rather than fulfillment of the doctor's duty to the ship. See id. at 666 n. 2, 63 S.Ct. 814. However, the Supreme Court found that the distinction between passenger cases and seaman cases turns upon issues of control, and stated, in this case the physician was not in his own or the seaman's control; he was an employee and as such subject to ship discipline and the master's orders. Id. at 668, 63 S.Ct. 814. The court in Amdur v. Zim Israel Navigation Co., 310 F.Supp. 1033 (S.D.N.Y. 1969), supplementing Israeli law with the general maritime law, also relied upon the general rule of law recited in these earlier decisions and found that a shipping company is not in the business of providing medical services to passengers; it does not possess the expertise requisite to supervise a physician or surgeon carried on board a ship as a convenience to passengers. Id. at 1042. Although the court recognized the applicability of Nietes to some species of passengers' vicarious liability claims where it stated, This rationale, while perhaps viable for the specific fact pattern in Nietes, is not sound as a general rule, it strongly criticized the Nietes decision. Id. at 1042. The Amdur court appropriately took issue with the concept that a shipboard physician became subject to the control of the ship owner simply through mere employment, and it declared that neither a ship's master nor a shore-bound chief surgeon could occupy sufficient control over a shipboard doctor to warrant imputation of liability. See id. at 1042-43. Ultimately, however, the court held only that the facts before it failed to indicate any negligence by the physician, thus obviating the application of respondeat superior. Id. at 1046. In Di Bonaventure v. Home Lines, Inc., 536 F.Supp. 100 (E.D.Pa.1982), an injured passenger brought a vicarious liability claim against the ship owner, contending that the ship's physician was an employee of the ship owner. The ship owner claimed that the physician was an independent contractor. The court emphasized that the respondeat superior theory is predicated upon the control inherent in a master-servant relationship. Id. at 104. Without analysis of any fact relevant to the issue of control, the court simply quoted Amdur for the general proposition that a ship's doctor is an independent medical expert and held that vicarious liability would not lie because such control was lacking. Id. at 103-04. Despite the long line of precedent reciting that a ship owner may not be held vicariously liable for the medical negligence of its shipboard doctor, the Third District in this case followed Nietes, which was then the sole decision to hold that liability may be imputed to a ship owner under a theory of respondeat superior for the negligence of its shipboard doctor upon a passenger. See Nietes, 188 F.Supp. at 220. [8] The position espoused by the Third District has some appeal because much has changed in the world in the one hundred years since the earlier courts held ship owners immune from such claims. As the court below observed, While the presence of an onboard physician is not required by law, the practical realities of the competitive cruise industry, and the reasonably anticipated risks of taking a small city of people to sea for days at a time, all but dictate a doctor's presence. Carlisle v. Carnival Corp., 864 So.2d 1, 6 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003). Moreover, modern means of communication make it possible for the actions of the shipboard doctor to be controlled and supervised by a doctor thousands of miles away. We are also aware of cases that have been decided since the district court's decision that have likewise followed the Nietes rule. In Huntley v. Carnival Corp., 307 F.Supp.2d 1372 (S.D.Fla.2004), the passenger argued that the ship owner was vicariously liable, under a theory of actual or apparent agency, for the alleged medical malpractice of the ship's physician. The federal district court analyzed the rationale underlying the Third District's opinion in Carlisle, as well as the opinions in Barbetta, Nietes, and Fairley, and concluded that the Carlisle decision appeared to be thorough and well-reasoned. Huntley, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1374. The Huntley court denied the ship owner's motion to dismiss the claim for vicarious liability, finding it was unable to conclude under existing law that the passengers would be unable to prove a set of facts entitling them to relief. Id. at 1375. Similarly, other recent maritime decisions have permitted a passenger's vicarious liability action for the alleged negligent acts of the ship's physician to withstand the ship owner's motion to dismiss. See Doonan v. Carnival Corp., 404 F.Supp.2d 1367, 1371-72 & n. 2 (S.D.Fla.2005) (dismissing passenger's claim based upon actual agency where the passenger's allegations were insufficient to justify deviation from the majority rule, but declining to dismiss vicarious liability claim based upon apparent agency because despite Barbetta, a Plaintiff may be able to sustain an apparent agency claim); Mack v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 361 Ill.App.3d 856, 297 Ill. Dec. 593, 838 N.E.2d 80, 91 (2005) (finding that federal maritime law is unsettled and affirming the denial of the ship owner's motion to dismiss in accord with the holdings of Nietes, Huntley, and Fairley ), appeal denied, 218 Ill.2d 542, 303 Ill.Dec. 3, 850 N.E.2d 808 (Ill.2006), and cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 350, 166 L.Ed.2d 44 (2006). As earlier stated, we find merit in the plaintiff's argument and the reasoning of the district court. However, because this is a maritime case, this Court and the Florida district courts of appeal must adhere to the federal principles of harmony and uniformity when applying federal maritime law. At the time the instant case was decided by the Third District, with the exception of Nietes, the federal maritime law uniformly held that a ship owner is not vicariously liable for the medical negligence of the shipboard physician.