Court Opinion

ID: 9447102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:25:37.150236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:53.985221
License: Public Domain

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge.
I dissent. I would affirm. Section 1441(a) (2) requires that the applicant for citizenship shall have “served honor*446ably or with good conduct for an aggregate period of five years on any vessel described in section 325(a) of the Nationality Act of 1940 * * * ” We all agree that the crucial word here is “served.” And we all agree that absent the three year period of hospitalization Cawley would lack seven months arid twenty-six days of the requisite five years of service. However, the majority holds that this period of hospitalization may be included in determining the aggregate five year period of service. This conclusion is reached by first postulating that Cawley would have been entitled to maintenance and cure from the owners of the M/V Chant for a period longer than seven months and twenty-six days. Proceeding from this hypothesis my colleagues then assert that a seaman is in the service of his ship throughout the period that he may thereafter receive maintenance and cure.
I do not follow along in adopting the second step of this argument. Though it is true, of course, that a seaman has to have been “in the service of the ship” to entitle him to maintenance and cure from the shipowner, see, e. g., Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 1943, 318 U.S. 724, 726, 63 S.Ct. 930, 87 L.Ed. 1107, it is not also true that during a period of time when the seaman, away from shipboard, is receiving maintenance and cure he is “in the service of the ship.” I believe my colleagues in reaching the result they have reached confused the employment situation necessary to entitle a seaman to maintenance and cure with the situation where the seaman, as here, is unemployed, and the maintenance and cure payments are continued because of the shipowner’s undisputed continuing obligation to furnish maintenance and cure.1 Indeed it is well recognized that the shipowner’s obligation to furnish maintenance and cure may continue long after the seaman’s term of service has expired. See Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, 1938, 303 U.S. 525, 529-530, 58 S.Ct. 651, 82 L.Ed. 993. Thus, even if Cawley were entitled to maintenance and cure during his hospitalization this fact is irrelevant to whether he is eligible for citizenship under section 1441(a) (2), for it is clearly irrelevant in determining whether this period of hospitalization constitutes service on a vessel.
It is all very well to say that convalescence in a United States hospital exposes the convalescent to scrutiny as to his moral character equal to the opportunity for scrutiny which would have been presented had the convalescent remained on shipboard. Perhaps this is true. The statute, however, provides only that the applicant for citizenship shall have five years of service on a vessel. I think the statute needs no gloss upon it to make its intent clear, and I believe that we should read it as it stands.

. The case of Reed v. Canfield, C.C.Mass. 1832, 20 Fed.Cas. 426, No. 11,641, dealt primarily vrith the length of time the shipowner was obligated to continue payments for maintenance and cure. Nevertheless, the owner also contended that the right to maintenance and cure did not exist if the seaman were injured when the ship was in its home port. The court summarily rejected this contention, and the language my colleagues quote has reference to this issue. It has no bearing on the issue presented here.