# Vaughan v. Atkinson

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 25, 1962 · 369 U.S. 527

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422399

## Case

- **Full name:** VAUGHAN v. ATKINSON Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 25, 1962
- **Citations:** 369 U.S. 527; 82 S. Ct. 997; 8 L. Ed. 2d 88; 1962 U.S. LEXIS 2142
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Stewart
- **Judges:** Douglas, Stewart, Frankfurter, White, Harlan
- **Cited by:** 697 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Limited by Baptiste v. Superior Court, 106 Cal. App. 3d 87 (1980).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422399

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding (1) that a sick seaman who is forced to work because his former employer refuses to pay maintenance and cure is not required to set off his earnings against a maintenance and cure award, and (2) that the seaman may recover attorney's fees as damages when the former emp…
- holding that injured seaman was entitled to attorney’s fees and to his wages earned as taxi driver without offset, after factfinding that his employer had negligently remained “si-len[t,j neither admitting nor denying” its duty to pay maintenance and eure for two years
- noting that a medical determination that terminates the right to maintenance and cure . . . should be unequivocal”
- holding that the existence of bad faith can except a lawsuit from the “American rule” that each party is to bear its own costs in litigation

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Stewart,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins,
dissenting.
I agree with the Court that whether earnings received by a disabled seaman prior to his maximum medical recovery are to be credited against the shipowner’s obligation for maintenance is an issue which should not be resolved by a mechanical application of the rules of contract law relating to mitigation of damages. But I cannot agree that in this case the petitioner’s earnings should not have been set off against the maintenance owed to him. Nor can I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the petitioner is entitled as a matter of law to damages in the amount of the counsel fees expended in his suit for maintenance and cure.
The duty to provide maintenance and cure is in no real sense contractual, and a suit for failure to provide maintenance or cure can hardly be equated, therefore, with an action for breach of contract. “The duty ... is one annexed by law to a relation, and annexed as an inseparable incident without heed to any expression of the will of the contracting parties.” Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367, 372 . Moreover, if the seaman’s accountability for earnings were to be determined solely by reference to damage mitigation principles of contract law, the breach of the shipowner’s duty to pay main *535 tenance would become crucial, since without such a breach on his part no duty to mitigate would arise. 1 The assignment of such a dispositive role to the shipowner’s failure to perform his obligation would create an unwarranted incentive for refusing to perform it.
The issue should be decided, rather, with reference to the scope of the duty which the admiralty law imposes. The obligation of a shipowner, irrespective of fault, to provide maintenance and cure to a seaman injured or taken ill while in the ship’s service has lost much of its original significance in this era of relaxed unseaworthiness and negligence concepts. But the obligation is of ancient origin, 2 first recognized in our law in Harden v. Gordon, 11 Fed. Cas. 480 , No. 6,047, and Reed v. Canfield, 20 Fed. Cas. 426 , No. 11,641. 3 The duty was historically imposed in order to alleviate the physical and financial hardships which otherwise would have beset a sick or injured seaman put ashore, perhaps in a foreign port, without means of support, or hope of obtaining medical care. See Harden v. Gordon, supra, at 483 (Story, J.). The law *536 of the sea sought to alleviate these hardships, partly for humanitarian reasons, and partly because of the strong national interest in maintaining the morale and physical effectiveness of the merchant marine. Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525, 528 .
But “[t]he duty does not extend beyond the seaman’s need.” Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, supra, at 531 . It ends absolutely when a point of maximum medical recovery has been reached. Id., at 530 ; Farrell v. United States, 336 U. S. 511 . And when the seaman has not incurred expense, the shipowner has no obligation to make payment. 4 Thus a seaman hospitalized without expense in a marine hospital is not entitled to maintenance and cure for that period. Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, supra, at 531 . Nor must the shipowner pay maintenance to a seaman who convalesces at the home of his parents without incurring expense or liability for his support. Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 46, 50 .
Since the limited purpose of maintenance is to make the seaman whole, it would logically follow that there should be no such duty for periods when the seaman, though not yet at the point of maximum cure, either does in fact obtain equivalently gainful employment or is able to do so. 5 Moreover, no rule which keeps able workers idle can *537 be deemed a desirable one. 6 But there are countervailing policies involved in resolving the issue. The adequate protection of an injured or ill seaman against suffering and want requires more than the assurance that he will *538 receive payments at some time in the indefinite future. Payments must be promptly made, at a time contemporaneous to the illness or injury. And for this reason the maintenance remedy should be kept simple, uncluttered by fine distinctions which breed litigation, with its attendant delays and expenses. See Farrell v. United States, 336 U. S. 511, 516 . A shipowner should therefore not be encouraged to withhold maintenance payments in the hope that economic necessity will force the seaman back to work and thereby reduce the shipowner’s liability. Moreover, maintenance payments are designed to meet the living expenses of the seaman until maximum cure is reached. The ultimate goal is the recovery of the seaman, and this requires the avoidance of pressures which would force him to obtain employment which hinders his recovery. 7
The need for prompt payment and the desirability of avoiding any rule which might force a seaman back to work to the detriment of his recovery might well require that no compulsion to seek employment be placed on a convalescing seaman, and that a setoff be allowed only with respect to actual, as opposed to potential, earnings. But this question is not presented by the record before us. Similarly, it may well be that a seaman should not be held to account for actual earnings to a shipowner whose dereliction in making payments compels the seaman, as *539 a matter of economic necessity, to obtain gainful employment. But that question is not presented by the present case either, for there is no showing here that the seaman’s return to work was brought on by economic necessity. So far as the record before us indicates, the petitioner’s return to work was completely voluntary, and not the result of the shipowner’s failure to pay maintenance. Holding the seaman accountable for his earnings in such circumstances carries out the basic purpose of making the seaman whole, and creates neither an undue incentive for withholding payments, nor pressure compelling a premature return to work. I therefore think that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were right in holding that the petitioner was not entitled to maintenance for the period during which he was gainfully employed as a taxicab driver. 8
The second issue presented in this case is whether the petitioner should have been awarded damages in the amount of the counsel fees incurred in bringing his action for maintenance and cure. The Court held in Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, supra, at 371, that “[i]f the failure to give maintenance or cure has caused or aggravated an illness, the seaman has his right of action for the injury thus done to him, the recovery in such circumstances including not only necessary expenses, but also compensation for the hurt.” But neither the Cortes decision, nor any other that I have been able to find, furnishes a basis for holding as a matter of law that a seaman *540 forced to bring suit to recover maintenance and cure is also entitled to recover his counsel fees. Cortes dealt with compensatory damages for a physical injury, and the opinion in that case contains nothing to indicate a departure from the well-established rule that counsel fees may not be recovered as compensatory damages. McCormick, Damages, § 61.
However, if the shipowner’s refusal to pay maintenance stemmed from a wanton and intentional disregard of the legal rights of the seaman, the latter would be entitled to exemplary damages in accord with traditional concepts of the law of damages. McCormick, Damages, § 79. While the amount so awarded would be in the discretion of the fact finder, and would not necessarily be measured by the amount of counsel fees, indirect compensation for such expenditures might thus be made. See Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363, 371 . On this issue I would accordingly remand the case to the District Court, so that the circumstances which motivated the respondents’ failure to make maintenance payments could be fully canvassed.
McCormick, Damages, §§158-160; Restatement, Contracts, § 336 (1); 5 Corbin, Contracts, § 1041.
The earliest codifications of the law of the sea provided for medical treatment and wages for mariners injured or falling ill in the ship’s service. These early maritime codes are, for the most part, reprinted in 30 Fed. Cas. 1171 -1216. See Arts. VI and VII of the Laws of Oleron, 30 Fed. Cas. 1174 -1175; Arts. XVIII, XIX, and XXXIII of the Laws of Wisbuy, 30 Fed. Cas. 1191 , 1192; Arts. XXXIX and XLV of the Laws of the Hanse Towns, 30 Fed. Cas. 1200 ; and Title Fourth, Arts. XI and XII, of the Marine Ordinances of Louis XIV, 30 Fed. Cas. 1209 . These provisions may also be found reprinted in 2 Norris, The Law of Seamen, § 537. Other provisions rather similar to the present maintenance and cure remedy may be found in the Ordinances of Trani, Art. X, 4 Black Book of the Admiralty (Twiss’ ed. 1876) 531; The Tables of Amalphi, Art. 14, 4 Black Book of the Admiralty (Twiss’ ed. 1876) 13.
See Gilmore and Black, Admiralty, 253.
See Stankiewicz v. United Fruit S. S. Corp., 229 F. 2d 580 ; Williams v. United States, 228 F. 2d 129 ; Dodd v. The M/V Peggy G., 149 F. Supp. 823 ; Nunes v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 129 F. Supp. 147 , affirmed as to this point, 227 F. 2d 619 ; Ballard v. Alcoa S. S. Co., Inc., 122 F. Supp. 10 ; Gilmore and Black, Admiralty, 266; 2 Norris, The Law of Seamen, § 568.
Similarly, there is generally no duty to make payments for cure if marine hospital service is available, and a seaman seeks hospitalization elsewhere. United States v. Loyola, 161 F. 2d 126 ; United States v. Johnson, 160 F. 2d 789 ; Marshall v. International Mercantile Marine Co., 39 F. 2d 551 ; Zackey v. American Export Lines, Inc., *537 152 F. Supp. 772 ; Benton v. United Towing Co., 120 F. Supp. 638 . See Kossick v. United Fruit Co., 365 U. S. 731, 737 ; Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525, 531 . In exceptional circumstances, however, where adequate treatment is not available at a marine hospital, expenses incurred for hospitalization elsewhere may be chargeable to the shipowner. Williams v. United States, 133 F. Supp. 319 , aff’d, 228 F. 2d 129 .
Actual earnings during a period prior to maximum cure have been allowed as an offset against maintenance payments in many reported cases, usually without discussion. Rodgers v. United States Lines Co., 189 F. 2d 226 ; Inter Ocean S. S. Co. v. Behrendsen, 128 F. 2d 506 ; Loverich v. Warner Co., 118 F. 2d 690 ; Colon v. Trinidad Corp., 188 F. Supp. 97 ; Scott v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 152 F. Supp. 104 ; Benton v. United Towing Co., 120 F. Supp. 638 , aff’d, 224 F. 2d 558 ; Steinberg v. American Export Lines, Inc., 81 F. Supp. 362 ; Burch v. Smith, 77 F. Supp. 6 ; The Eastern Dawn, 25 F. 2d 322 . In Wilson v. United States, 229 F. 2d 277 , the court held, after discussion, that the shipowner should be permitted to offset potential earnings, the seaman having failed to establish that he could not have secured work. The seaman had done some work during the period, and had not sought maintenance for the days he was actually employed. The same court subsequently ruled that under Wilson a recuperating seaman must account for actual earnings. Perez v. Suwanee S. S. Co., 239 F. 2d 180 .
In three cases setoff of actual earnings has been denied. In Yates v. Dann, 124 F. Supp. 125 , the district judge found that the seaman had been “in need” throughout the whole period and should not be “penalized” because he returned to work. The case was reversed on other grounds, 223 F. 2d 64 , the court sustaining the ruling of the District Court on this point with the statement that “the circumstance that appellee was forced by financial necessity to return to his regular employment is not legally a bar to his recovery.” 223 F. 2d, at 67 . See also Hanson v. Reiss Steamship Co., 184 F. Supp. 545, 550 (“Liability for maintenance and cure does not necessarily cease when the injured person obtains gainful occupation where such *538 employment is compelled or induced by economic necessity.”); Meirino v. Gulf Oil Corp., 170 F. Supp. 515, 517 (“The fact that libellant returned to work because of economic necessity while he was in need of medical care and attention does not deprive him of his right to maintenance and cure.”).
A seaman whose condition is actually aggravated by reason of the shipowner’s dereliction in making maintenance and cure payments may of course seek damages above and beyond the maintenance and cure payments due. Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367 . But the availability of this remedy does not detract from the importance of avoiding the harmful effects of a premature return to work.
I would, however, remand the case to the District Court for recomputation of its award. Maintenance is a day-by-day concept, and in my view maintenance should be reduced or denied only as to days during which the petitioner was gainfully employed. Instead, the District Court computed the total amount of maintenance due, and then deducted the total amount earned by the petitioner. Compare Perez v. Suwanee S. S. Co., 239 F. 2d 180 , with Wilson v. United States, 229 F. 2d 277 . See the full discussion of this aspect of the problem in Note, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 316, 320-321.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422399. Public record. Not legal advice.