Court Opinion

ID: 9463595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:10:29.436383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:10.783335
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part):
In U.S. Bulk Carriers, Inc. v. Arguelles, 400 U.S. 351, 91 S.Ct. 409, 27 L.Ed.2d 456 (1971), the Supreme Court held that § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, which providés for enforcement of grievance and arbitration provisions of collective-bargaining agreements, did not displace the earlier alternative method available to a seaman under 46 U.S.C. § 596, which permits him to sue directly for wages due, invoking federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1333. Thus the seaman was held to have been given an additional remedy which does not preclude his invoking the federal courts as traditional protectors of seamen’s rights since 1790.
The majority agrees with Judge Frankel that Arguelles may be side-stepped in this case on the ground that 46 U.S.C. § 544 expressly precludes a coast-wise seaman, such as the plaintiff here, from availing himself of the rights granted by § 596 to trans-oceanic seamen to sue for penalty wages. Although this conclusion is in my mind far from certain, in view of the checkered legislative history of §§ 544 and 596, see Gardner v. The Danzler, 281 F.2d 719 (4th Cir. 1960), and a respectable argument may be made to the effect that coast-wise seamen have the right to invoke federal jurisdiction over a claim for wages, see Ma-har v. Gartland S.S. Co., 154 F.2d 621 (2d Cir. 1946), I do not believe it necessary to resolve that issue in this case. Whether or not a coast-wise seaman is relegated by *773§ 301 to exhaustion of grievance and arbitration procedures for adjudication of his wage claims in line with the policy favoring arbitration, see Textile Workers v. Lincoln-Mills, 853 U.S. 448, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957); Republic Steel Co. v. Maddox, 379 U.S. 650 (1965), 85 S.Ct. 614,13 L.Ed.2d 580, he still has a time-honored right to obtain a maritime lien to secure his wage claims, which dates back to the Act of July 20, 1790, ch. 29, § 6, 1 Stat. 133, currently expressed in 46 U.S.C. §§ 603-604.1 Nothing in. the union’s collective bargaining agreement with Kowalik’s employer waives or modifies this right.
A seaman claiming wages is entitled, unless the ship’s master shows that the wages claimed have been “paid or otherwise satisfied or forfeited,” to obtain a court order directing issuance of process against the vessel, see 46 U.S.C. § 604. Otherwise the only security available for payment might sail out of the harbor beyond reach of the court’s process before his claim had been reduced to an award or judgment, or the seaman might risk losing his lien by reason of subordination to other intervening creditors or the employer’s bankruptcy. Rather than force the seaman to underwrite these risks, I would permit him to maintain the present action as one for enforcement of his lien to secure his wage claim and exercise the court’s inherent power to stay the action pending the arbitration award. Indeed, implicit in the majority opinion is the concept that, once he had reduced his claim to an award through arbitration, he might invoke federal jurisdiction to enforce the award and his lien rights. I believe he has the right to perfect the lien before obtaining such an arbitration award, just as an Arguelles seaman would have the right to do so before reducing his wage claim to judgment.

. Section 603 provides:
“§ 603. Summons for nonpayment
“Whenever the wages of any seaman are not paid within ten days after the time when the same ought to be paid according to the provisions of title 53 of the Revised Statutes, or any dispute arises between the master and seamen touching wages, the district judge for the judicial district where the vessel is, or in case his residence be more than three miles from the place, or he be absent from the place of his residence, then, any judge or justice of the peace, or any United States commissioner, may summon the master of such vessel to appear before him, to show cause why process should not issue against such vessel, her tackle, apparel, and furniture, according to the course of admiralty courts, to answer for the wages.”
Section 604 provides:
“§ 604. Libel for wages
“If the master against whom such summons is issued neglects to appear, or, appearing, does not show that the wages are paid or otherwise satisfied or forfeited, and if the matter in dispute is not forthwith settled, the judge or justice or United States commissioner shall certify to the clerk of the district court that there is sufficient cause of complaint whereon to found admiralty process; and thereupon the clerk of such court shall issue process against the vessel. In all cases where the matter in demand does not exceed $100 the return day of the monition or citation shall be the first day of a stated or special session of court next succeeding the third day after the service of the monition or citation, and on the return of process in open court, duly served, either party may proceed therein to proofs and hearing without other notice, and final judgment shall be given according to the usual course of admiralty courts in such cases. In such suits all the seamen having cause of complaint of the like kind against the same vessel may be joined as complainants, and it shall be incumbent on the master to produce the contract and log book, if required to ascertain any matter in dispute; otherwise the complainants shall be permitted to state the contents thereof, and the burden of proof of the contrary shall be on the master. But nothing herein contained shall prevent any seaman from maintaining any action at common law for the recovery of his wages, or having immediate process out of any court having admiralty jurisdiction wherever any vessel may be found, in case she shall have left the port of delivery where her voyage ended before payment of the wages, or in case she shall be about to proceed to sea before the end of the ten days next after the day when such wages are due, in accordance with section 596 of this title. This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts.”