Court Opinion

ID: 9444560
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:16.510875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:55.284138
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge, and McLAUGH-LIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
We are of the opinion that rehearing before the court en banc should be granted because we think the release executed by Thompson was invalid. As was held by the Supreme Court in Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., Inc., 1942, 317 U.S. 239, 63 S.Ct. 246, 87 L.Ed. 239, discussed by the court in this case and in German v. Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp., 3 Cir. 1948, 169 F.2d 715, a seaman’s release is not binding if any misrepresentation is made by the shipowner in negotiating the settlement. In this case the negotiator for the shipowner, Barron, told Thompson that Thompson had “a weak case” both as to measure of damages and the law. As a matter of fact Thompson had suffered more serious injury than his, Thompson’s, doctor had realized and Barron’s statement to Thompson was probably innocent though it worked damage to Thompson’s cause. Thompson is a Negro with but slight formal education, who had suffered a se*563vere head injury and had developed psychoses. D X 2 indicates that about the time he executed the release he was in a confused state of mind. As the opinion of this court reveals, Barron premised his statement that Thompson had a weak case on the law on the asserted conclusion that he could recover from the shipowner only because of the shipowner’s negligence and not on the theory that the ship was unseaworthy because of the vicious propensities of the member of the crew who had attacked Thompson.
This was not a correct statement of the law even as it existed at the time the release was executed. While Keen v. Overseas Tankship Corp., 2 Cir., 1952, 194 F.2d 515, was not decided at that time, Judge Learned Hand said in that decision that under prior precedents the question of whether a deficiency in the quality of a crew constituted unseaworthiness was res integra.3 Judge Hand’s statement was correct. Quite apart from history and niceties of language, Barron’s statement as to the status of the law was incorrect and if he did not know this he should have for no decided case lay against Thompson.
Barron’s conduct was subject to the inference, which the court below in effect drew, that he was trying to procure a release from an ignorant and confused seaman on terms most favorable for his client, the shipowner. Barron made use of the sort of language which claim adjustors are accustomed to use when dealing with a claimant with whom they are entitled to negotiate at arm’s length. But • Thompson was a seaman, a ward of the admiralty, and it is clear, as the District Court found in substance, that he was overreached.

. Cf. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co. v. Boudoin, 5 Cir., 1954, 211 F.2d 618. The Supreme Court in 1955 sustained the Second Circuit view. Mr. .Dístico Douglas said: “We see no reason to draw a line between the ship and the gear on the one hand and the ship’s personnel on the other. * * * A vessel bursting at the seams might well be a safer place than one with a homicidal maniac as a crew member.” Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., 1955, 75 S.Ct. 382, 385.