Court Opinion

ID: 9480190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:40:58.510908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:32.459054
License: Public Domain

LIFLAND, District Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that the $8 rate of maintenance set forth in the collective bargaining agreement is not binding on Barnes and that there must be a congressional determination that collective bargaining is now a more appropriate way to deal with the is*645sue of the ill or injured seamen, if the collectively-bargained rate is to prevail.
I would reach the same result as the three Courts of Appeals1 which have considered this precise question and have held that in the collective bargaining context the common law right of maintenance can be measured by an agreement between the employer and the duly-chosen collective bargaining representative of the employees who possess the right. In my view, the majority does not attempt any accommodation of the policies which are in conflict in this case, as those other courts did.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the right to maintenance does not have its genesis in contract except in the sense that it has its source in a relation which is contractual in origin. I also agree with the conclusion of the majority that the labor laws have not preempted the right of maintenance; it is clear to me, as it is to the majority, that Congress has not spoken “directly” to the traditional right of maintenance in enacting the various laws which comprise the national labor policy.
However, I depart from the view of the majority because it seemingly rejects what to me is an obvious accommodation of the national labor policy and the right of maintenance. The majority reaches the same result that would be reached had Mr. Barnes been a non-union seaman or had there been no mention of the right of maintenance in the collective bargaining agreement, circumstances under which there would be no conflict between the right to maintenance and the national labor policy.
I believe, as did the Courts of Appeal in Gardiner, Macedo and Al-Zawkari, that there is a fair resolution of the conflict between the right of maintenance and the national labor policy where, as here, fair collective bargaining has resulted in a measurement of that right. Collective bargaining has not abrogated the right when it clearly recognizes the right and places a dollar value on the right, in the context of collective bargaining over wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment which results in a myriad of benefits appropriate to the maritime environment.
While Mr. Barnes will receive the few extra dollars to which he has proven his entitlement, in accordance with the holding of the majority, no other unionized seamen in this Circuit may receive anything without proving their actual expenses, perhaps in a law suit such as Mr. Barnes has commenced. At the very least, a negotiated settlement between the seamen and the employer will be necessary in every case. I fail to see how such a negotiated settlement is materially better for the seamen than the settlement negotiated by their union at no additional expense to the seamen. There is no reason why the seamen themselves, through their unions, cannot in the circumstances presented here be relied upon to protect the common law right to maintenance against abrogation.
In my view, the majority has not striven to accommodate the conflict inherent in the facts of this case. I would do so and reverse, given the lack of any challenge to the Union’s discharge of its duty of fair representation.

. Gardiner v. Sea-Land Service, Inc., 786 F.2d 943 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 924, 107 S.Ct. 331, 93 L.Ed.2d 303 (1986); Macedo v. F/V Paul & Michelle, 868 F.2d 519 (1st Cir.1989); Al-Zawkari v. American Steamship Co., 871 F.2d 585 (6th Cir.1989).