Court Opinion

ID: 9447525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:37:04.541804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:04.868291
License: Public Domain

HARTIGAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I do not agree with my colleagues that the district court should be affirmed.
In my opinion the record indicates that the charge given on defendant’s duty to the plaintiff could be, and very likely was, misapprehended by the jury. Because of the district court’s decision to combine the theories of negligence and unseaworthiness the plaintiff was entitled to a charge on negligence which would spell out an absolute duty on defendant to furnish plaintiff a safe place to work. Although the charge given did state that defendant’s duty was to *33provide a reasonably safe place for plaintiff to work, the district judge’s concluding statement of the law on the duty owed plaintiff was: “[D]id they [the owners of the vessel] take the normal, ordinary precautions to insure the safe arrival of that cargo, and also, did they take reasonable precautions toward the men who were about the ship. If they did, that is all they owed him.”
The term “precautions” introduces an element of fulfillment of the duty of a vessel owner by means other than providing a reasonably safe place to work. This element is given greater prominence by reason of its position at the end of the charge. The last statement of the court to the jury is very often the best remembered and it is likely to be the most influential. I believe that this ambiguity as to defendant’s duty is prejudicial error.
There is evidence in the record from which one might conclude reasonably that the jury was concerned in its deliberations with “precautions” taken for the safety of the seamen. Midway through its deliberations the jury submitted to the judge the question: “When the cargo was inspected by the Maritime before the departure was this inspection for the benefit of the cargo or the personnel or both?” One juror stated to the court: “I think behind this is the question, perhaps, of the attachment of this inspecting group. Is it a Government inspection group or is it an insurance group?”
My colleagues suggest that, if this inquiry seeks to ascertain anything more than the existence of insurance,1 it seeks to find out if an independent expert inspecting on behalf of the seamen had seen the deck as loaded and regarded it as safe. This, of course, is one possible explanation of the jury’s question. But that question may also indicate that the jury’s main concern was with the fact of an inspection on behalf of the seamen’s safety, i. e., a precaution for their safety.2 Under circumstances of an ambiguous statement of defendant’s duty and the indication of possible misconstruction by the jury, I believe that plaintiff is entitled to a new trial and clearer instructions on the nature of defendant’s duty.
The district court awarded maintenance and cure only until June 1, 1959. My colleagues acknowledge that the testimony of defendant’s own witness would support liability for further medical treatment, if there had been charges for such treatment. This apparently means that, in their opinion, the testimony indicates plaintiff on May 22, 1959 had not yet been so far cured as possible. Nevertheless, they affirm the district court’s award on the basis that maintenance may be a separate matter and that there must be reasonable bounds to awards for maintenance and cure. The normal duration of liability for maintenance is the same as that for cure. Gilmore and Black, Admiralty, pp. 267-68 (1957). Although in various circumstances maintenance may be a separate question from expenses of medical treatment, e. g., convalescence or free medical care, the traditional role of maintenance has been as an incident to medical cure. Where further medical treatment is indicated, and is within the bounds of reasonableness, I do not believe that maintenance can properly be denied, unless the seaman has no expenditures of this nature. Maintenance can be tailored to fit the *34actual situation of living expenses incident to the medical cure. Gilmore and Black, Admiralty p. 266. See also Koslusky v. United States, 2 Cir., 1953, 208 F.2d 957. I believe that the district court’s cut off date of June 1, 1959 is clearly erroneous and should be reversed.

. Reading the two questions together, it would seem that the jury was interested in knowing if the inspection was a safety precaution on behalf of the seamen or only on behalf of the cargo. Existence of insurance doesn’t seem to me to be the jury’s concern here.

. Under either interpretation of the jury’s question, the jury was concerned with the issue of an inspection on bebalf of the seamen’s safety, i.e., a precaution for their sake. Whether the jury was concerned with the question of inspection itself or only in connection with an independent opinion of the reasonable safety of the deck is debatable, but the ambiguity of the jury’s question is all the more reason to view the charge critically to see if it was sufficiently clear.