Opinion ID: 689218
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the calculation of tips as unearned wages

Text: 36 Having determined that for maintenance and cure purposes Flores's wages includes his tips, we turn to the question of how to calculate the unearned tips. Once again, we consider the principles underlying the maintenance and cure remedy and the analogous situation under workers' compensation law. 37 The seaman's action for maintenance and cure may be seen as one designed to put the sailor in the same position he would have been had he continued to work: the seaman receives a maintenance remedy, because working seamen normally are housed and fed aboard ship; he recovers payment for medical expenses in the amount necessary to bring him to the maximum cure; and he receives an amount representing his unearned wages for the duration of his voyage or contract period. Because in Flores's case, unearned tips are not predetermined and are not paid by the employer, the most principled way to calculate the tips he would have earned is to assume that Flores's average weekly tips for the work he performed on each ship was the amount of tips he would have earned each week had he stayed on each ship. Such an assumption is used in workers' compensation cases that allow inclusion of tips. E.g., Senor T's, 131 Ariz. at 362, 365, 641 P.2d at 850, 853 (affirming inclusion of $400-per-month tip income in average monthly wage). We have no reason to assume otherwise. 38 Therefore, the district court should first determine for each of the two ships the average amount of tips Flores received weekly before he had to leave the ship. The court should add $10.40 (the $45-per-month salary divided by four and one-third weeks in each month) to that average weekly amount. The resulting figure should be multiplied by the number of weeks Flores was unable to work on that ship until the end of his contract. The trial court should subtract from that total the amount Carnival has already paid Flores as his unearned wages. 39