Court Opinion

ID: 9639260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:09:51.831512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:34:34.827878
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
There is much temptation to affirm this decree; yet I cannot see how we can do so without recognizing an exception to a well-settled principle — a principle moreover which it seems to me desirable to preserve intact. As my brothers agree, it is generally accepted law that in all matters relating to “the internal economy or discipline” of a ship “the law of the flag” controls. I have gathered in the margin * a number of decisions which invoke this principle in varying applications; nobody disputes it; and it seems to me most undesirable, except for some pressing reason of domestic policy, to disregard it. It is a hardship to owners, and it may be to seamen, to have their legal relations depend upon the accident of the port of call at which the ship puts in; it is impossible to adjust affairs to constantly shifting standards, some of which will favor one party, some, another. Moreover— and this, I think, we should treat most seriously — it must often be irritating to the state of the flag for the state of a port of call to insist that its own notions of what is just between owner and crew shall supersede those satisfactory to the first state. There are occasions, of course, when the state of the port has an overriding interest in insisting upon its own ideas; but in the case at bar the question does not touch a breach of our peace, or, as I shall try to show, an object in which it can be supposed that we have any interest. If so, I submit that we should demand the clearest warrant before we substitute the Jones Act — primarily at any rate a local statute — for the pertinent law of Greece.
As I have just said, I can discover no reason of policy or of authority for displacing that law. My brothers believe that not to impose upon a foreign owner the same liability towards foreign seamen that he is under towards American seamen, may result in favoring the employment of the first, and in handicapping that of the second. I could see force in that, if we could impose the same liability upon foreign owners, regardless of where the injury occurred. If that were true, a plausible argument could be made that it would handicap the employment of American seamen, to exempt the owner from liability to foreign seamen who suffered injuries on his ship. Even so, I have some doubt how far this would really count, but I shall assume provisionally that it would be of enough importance to be a factor in the mind of Congress. The decision we are now making will not end this handicap, if it exists. We cannot fix the liabilities of foreign owners to foreign seamen for injuries occurring at sea, or in other ports than our own; at least, nobody suggests that the Jones Act does so. All we shall accomplish is to hold that, whenever a foreign seaman happens to be injured in one of our ports, he may recover whenever an American seaman might recover. Considering how small a proportion of the injuries which occur on ship-hoard are likely to happen in our own ports, I cannot help feeling that as a corrective of any putative handicap to the employment of Americans, this is much too tenuous to count.
Further, unless we are to overrule The Paula, 2 Cir., 91 F.2d 1001, liability in these circumstances will hereafter depend upon whether the foreign seaman signs on in a United States port or abroad: certainly that should not be critical. Of course it would be critical, if the ordinary doctrine of conflict of laws obtained, but we have the most categorical declaration in The Belgenland, supra, that in all that relates to a maritime contract the law of the flag prevails. If the decision now to be made is to stand, we should frankly overrule The Paula, so capricious will be the result if we *140do not. And if we do overrule it, I should think, as I have already suggested, that it might perceptibly nettle those maritime powers whose ships frequent our shores, and which may, with warrant, believe that we should not attempt to take from them the power to adjust, contrary to their desires, legal relations with which we have no concern.
My brothers’ main reliance appears to be Patterson v. The Eudora, 190 U.S. 169, 23 S.Ct. 821, 47 L.Ed. 1002, and Strathearn S. S. Co. v. Dillon, 252 U.S. 348, 40 S.Ct. 350. 64 L.Ed. 607. The second can at once be ruled out. When Congress added to the proviso that “the courts of the United States shall be open to such seamen for its enforcement,” I do not see how the court could escape concluding that foreign seamen were intended. As applied to that statute, unlike the one at bar, there was a good reason for this. It might create a substantial preference for foreign seamen as against American seamen, if thfe statute did not apply to both, for it would then result that an American who saw a better berth in a United States port might desert with the loss of only half his wages, while a foreigner must lose all. Considering the proclivity of all seamen to leave the ship at a port where a better chance offers, this added inducement to desertion might be a consideration of genuine importance. As to Patterson v. The Eudora, supra, I agree that it is practically certain that some of the libellants were foreigners. However, the point was not discussed — indeed it was not even alluded to — -and it does not seem to me that we should treat it as a decision. All the court was really concerned about was whether Congress could constitutionally make the act against crimping seamen apply to foreign ships. Besides, considering the fact that the prepayments condemned would be made ashore in our ports, that was a wrong actually taking place within our borders, a circumstance which might well have been thought to prevail over the fact that it also affected the relations of foreign owners to foreign seamen. Finally, I do not read the opinion in that case as holding that the title of the act is never in any way relevant to its interpretation; on the contrary, all the court meant was that in that particular case the plain language of the act itself forbade the title to be taken as controlling.
In closing it is perhaps well to notice that, although the assault took place ashore, the only question is whether Bouritis’s undoubted liability is to be imputed to the ship’s owner. Certainly that falls within the “internal economy or discipline” of the ship: so far, I understand that we are all at one.

 The Scotland, 105 U.S. 24, 26 L.Ed. 1001; The Belgenland, 114 U.S. 355, 5 S.Ct. 860, 29 L.Ed. 152; United States v. Rodgers, 150 U.S. 249, 14 S.Ct. 109, 37 L.Ed. 1071; Cunard S. S. Co. v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 100, 43 S.Ct. 504, 67 L.Ed. 894, 27 A.L.R. 1306; Thompson Towing & Wrecking Association v. Mc Gregor, 6 Cir., 207 F. 209, 217-219; Rainey v. New York & P. S. S. Co., 9 Cir., 216 F. 449, 454, L.R.A.1916A, 1149; The Hanna Nielsen, 2 Cir., 273 F. 171; Grand Trunk R, Co. v. Wright, 6 Cir., 21 F.2d 814; Cain v. Alpha S. S. Corp., 2 Cir., 35 F.2d 717.