Court Opinion

ID: 9657384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:24:02.064331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:44.388992
License: Public Domain

W. J. Caprathe, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the lead opinion in all respects except that I would also hold that plaintiff has a viable claim for maintenance and cure benefits going back as far as three years before the filing of the lawsuit.
In Pelotto v L & N Towing, 604 F2d 396, 401 (CA 5, 1979), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held:
The rule of res judicata (and collateral estoppel), recognizable in admiralty, is subject to the substantive limitation that seamen have always been accorded the right to bring serial suits to collect maintenance payments as they come due.
Likewise, in Cooper v Diamond M Co, 799 F2d 176, 179 (CA 5, 1986), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held:
Seamen have always been accorded the right to *163bring suit, including serial suits, to collect maintenance and cure benefits, as they become due. . . .
These cases indicate that maintenance and cure is a cause of action that is of a continuous nature, and, thus, the plaintiff can initiate a maintenance and cure claim for benefits in a series of lawsuits until the plaintiff is cured or until he is deemed permanently disabled.
The present case is distinguishable from the case of McKinney v Waterman S C Corp, 925 F2d 1 (CA 1, 1991). In McKinney, the plaintiff sued in part for maintenance and cure and the action was dismissed when the defendant filed for bankruptcy almost two years after the accident occurred. Although the bankruptcy stay precluded the plaintiff from filing his claim for three years, the plaintiff waited almost 2½ years after the bankruptcy case was dismissed before he refiled his maintenance and cure action. The federal district court held that laches barred the maintenance and cure claim because it found that the plaintiff failed to exercise due diligence because he waited eight years after the accident took place to sue. There was never a previous adjudication determining that the plaintiff in the McKinney case was entitled to maintenance and cure benefits for the injury he received eight years previously.
In the present case, the plaintiff was injured on November 4, 1986, and he sued in federal court on January 20, 1987. A judgment was subsequently entered on April 25, 1988, and it ordered that the plaintiff receive maintenance and cure benefits.
Therefore, because the plaintiff in the present case had a previous judgment for maintenance and cure based upon the November 4, 1986, injury, I believe laches does not preclude the plaintiff from pursuing another claim for maintenance and cure *164benefits as long as the trier of fact is satisfied that he is incapacitated from this same injury and the incapacity is not of a permanent character. Although the lead opinion cites Cooper, supra, to support its contention that the plaintiffs claim is barred by laches because the plaintiff waited over three years after the federal judgment to file the instant lawsuit, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cooper held on page 179:
"Maintenance is a per diem living allowance, paid so long as the seaman is outside the hospital and has not reached the point of 'maximum cure.’ ”... "The Supreme Court has long recognized the importance of these remedies . . . and has declared that the doctrines of maintenance and cure are to be liberally construed to benefit the seaman.” . . . "When there are ambiguities or doubts, they are resolved in favor of the seaman.” (Citations omitted.)
I disagree that the maintenance and cure claim should be dismissed.