Court Opinion

ID: 9842871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:20:20.855507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:01.385251
License: Public Domain

GIBSON, District Judge
(concurring and dissenting in part).
*501I concur as to that part of the majority opinion that upholds the validity of the release as to damages.
But with great temerity — and all respect to the great and learned Courts of the Second and Ninth Circuits which have held that a seaman may, in appropriate circumstances, release his rights as to future maintenance and care (See Bonici v. Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, 2 Cir., 103 F.2d 437, certiorari denied 1939, 308 U.S. 560, 60 S.Ct. 106, 84 L.Ed. 471, and Clinton v. United States, 9 Cir., 254 F.2d 409), I must dissent.
As Justice Story so picturesquely stated many years ago — seamen are “wards of the admiralty * * * ” or such as “young heirs, dealing with their expectancies, wards with their guardians, and cestui que trust with their trustees.” Harden v. Gordon, 11 Fed.Cas. at pages 480, 485, No. 6,047. Justice Story’s description of seamen and their relationship to the shipowner are quoted with approval by Justice Black in the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., Inc., 317 U.S. 239, 246, 63 S.Ct. 246, 87 L.Ed. 239.
Our Supreme Court in Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.S. 525, at pages 530, 531, 58 S.Ct. 651, at page 654, 82 L.Ed. 993, had this to say: “The award of a lump sum in anticipation of the continuing need of maintenance and cure for life or an indefinite period is without support in judicial decision. Awards of small amounts to cover future maintenance and cure of a kind and for a period definitely ascertained or ascertainable have occasionally been made.”
In this instance, the Trial Court, after approving the jury’s verdict upholding the release as to damages, held as a matter of law that the release was also effective as to future maintenance and cure. The Trial Court made no careful examination and analysis of the need of the appellant for future maintenance and cure for a definite ascertainable period. Yet the evidence discloses that within one week after the plaintiff signed the general release (May 8, 1956), he became an inpatient at the U. S. Marine Hospital, and remained such until June 20, 1956. This was for treatment for the injury received as a seaman. He continued to receive outpatient or inpatient treatment for this injury until discharged from this hospital on August 23, 1956, as “not fit for duty.”
The Calmar case further states, 303 U.S. at pages 531, 532, 58 S.Ct. at page 655, that the “seaman’s recovery must therefore be measured in each case by the reasonable cost of that maintenance and cure to which he is entitled 'at the time of trial, including, in the discretion of the court, such amounts as may be needful in the immediate future for the maintenance and cure of a kind which can be definitely ascertained.
“The court below has made no findings sufficient to enable us to fix the amount which respondent is entitled to recover. The decree is accordingly reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion, and without prejudice to any later suit by respondent to recover maintenance and cure to which he may then be entitled.”
Certainly if a court may not approve any award for future maintenance and cure without careful consideration, how may one uphold the right of a seaman— as a ward — a young heir — or a cestui que trust of a court to happily and blithely, and mayhap filled with too much beer, release his rights to future maintenance and cure at a time well ahead of that when an intelligent finding can be made as to his future need of maintenance and cure.