Opinion ID: 2545921
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Unseaworthiness and Maintenance and Cure Claims

Text: Cavin argues that even if the court rules against him on Jones Act seaman status, he is still entitled to a common law remedy for unseaworthiness given his status as a Sieracki seaman [33] a status that Cavin prefers to call vicarious seaman status. Cavin argues that the superior court erred in ruling that this remedy has been extinguished by the 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA). [34] The state, citing Normile v. Maritime Co. of the Philippines [35] the case relied on by the trial courtresponds that [t]here is no such thing as a Sieracki seaman, maintaining that [t]he 1972 amendments ended the judicially-created Sieracki remedy. But while it may be true that the 1972 amendments extinguished Sieracki seaman status for longshore and harbor workers, the same does not appear to hold true for those workers who `fall into the crack between seamen and longshore workers.' [36] The test of seaman status for purposes of the unseaworthiness remedy is not rigorous: the Supreme Court expanded this category in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki , based on the type of work the plaintiff did [when injured] and its relationship to the ship. [37] Under Sieracki, the warranty of seaworthiness extends to any worker injured while doing a seaman's work and incurring a seaman's hazards. [38] The controversy here centers not on whether Cavin fits into the category of a Sieracki seaman but on whether the category continues to exist. The unseaworthiness remedy is the product of a complicated history, one of overlapping categories of workers, work, and recovery regimes. Congress passed the LHWCA in 1927 to replace tort damages with a no-fault workers' compensation remedy, primarily because longshore workers were excluded from state compensation remedies due to the (federal) maritime character of their work, and because the Supreme Court had struck down congressional attempts to place longshore workers under these state regimes. [39] But in Sieracki, the Supreme Court held that while the LHWCA protected the longshore employer against tort actions for injuries occurring aboard vessels, it did not protect the vessel owner from unseaworthiness claims, a remedy that entails absolute liability, much like product liability. [40] Sieracki 's new remedy resulted in the vessel owner suing the stevedorethe employer of the workers who were loading the vesselsfor indemnity, which countered the purpose of the LHWCA. [41] To alleviate this problem, Congress amended the LHWCA in 1972 to expand relief for those covered by the Act. [42] At the same time, Congress abolished the unseaworthiness cause of action and the potential for stevedore indemnity that went with it. [43] The 1972 amendments still allow the injured longshore worker to proceed against third parties, but only for negligencenot unseaworthiness. [44] The primary purpose of the 1972 amendment was to place the injured longshore worker `in the same position he would be if he were injured in non-maritime employment ashore ... and not to endow him with any special maritime theory of liability or cause of action....' [45] This purpose suggests that in cases where fault would remain uncompensated under the LHWCAthat is, in cases of non-covered land-based workers who sustain injuries while working aboard a vesselother remedies would be available. If Congress allowed workers covered under the LHWCA to recover against vessel owners for negligence in addition to recovering benefits under the act, why should it strand workers not covered by the act with no coverage at all, or leave them to the hazards of existing state remedies? Courts entertaining unseaworthiness actions since 1972 have split on this question. In Normile, an injured federal longshore worker sued the vessel owner for unseaworthiness. [46] The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff's action, holding that no longshoreman, whether publicly or privately employed, can bring an unseaworthiness action. [47] Normile cited the intent of the 1972 framers to abolish other categories of unseaworthiness which have been judicially established. [48] But Normile did not altogether foreclose the continued existence of unseaworthiness remedies for workers in these other categoriesworkers not covered by the LHWCA. [49] And because the case dealt only with the rights of public longshore workers, who are excluded under the LHWCA [50] but have an independent federal remedy under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA), [51] it had no occasion to consider the rights of workers who would have no federal remedy other than unseaworthiness. Cavin correctly notes that Normile has not been widely followed, even within the Ninth Circuit. [52] The Fifth Circuit's case law is more supportive of the continued viability of unseaworthiness claims and, in our view, is better reasoned. In Aparicio v. Swan Lake, [53] federal harbor workers sued vessel owners for injuries they suffered while working aboard their vessels, alleging that the vessels were unseaworthy. [54] The court held that if a harbor worker is not covered by the LHWCA, the Sieracki cause of action... [is] still seaworthy. [55] It so held even in the face of the exclusive liability provisions of FECA, which applied to the plaintiffs. [56] By its reasoning, then, Aparicio is even more supportive of extending the unseaworthiness remedy to plaintiffs who lack any other federal remedy. As Aparicio points out, the 1972 amendments state that they only apply [i]n the event of injury to a person covered under this Act. [57] Aparicio further points out: The statute manifests no intention to expand the abolition of the Sieracki-Ryan construct beyond the coverage of the LHWCA. We refuse to read into it the abolition of judicially-built remedies as they apply to maritime workers not covered by the LHWCA, including not only FECA-covered employees but those amphibious workers who may be covered only by a state compensation law or who may have no compensation law coverage at all. Had Congress intended to affect the substantive rights of persons not covered by the LHWCA, it could readily have manifested that intention. [58] We find Aparicio persuasive in its basic point that the quid pro quo nature of the 1972 amendments, which provide a compensation regime under the LHWCA in exchange for a bar to unseaworthiness claims, counsels against their extension to those who receive no remedy under the act. [59] We adopt its holding here and conclude that, if the trial court finds no Jones Act liability on remand, Cavin's unseaworthiness claim should nonetheless proceed to trial of phase II issues to the extent that the court does not find it barred by the statute of limitations. [60]