Donovan v. Esso Shipping Co.

152 F. Supp. 347, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3397
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedMay 29, 1957
DocketCiv. A. 839-55
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 152 F. Supp. 347 (Donovan v. Esso Shipping Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Donovan v. Esso Shipping Co., 152 F. Supp. 347, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3397 (D.N.J. 1957).

Opinion

WORTENDYKE, District Judge.

This is an action brought by a seaman under the Jones Act (46 U.S.C.A. § 688) to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff on February 5, 1954, in the service of the defendant’s vessel, Esso Binghamton, on navigable waters within the jurisdiction of this Court. Under a separate count in the same action plaintiff seeks from the defendant owner expenses for maintenance and cure under the principles of Admiralty.

At the time of the accident plaintiff was 21 years of age and an ordinary seaman on board defendant’s vessel. He had been employed on this and other similar vessels owned by the defendant for a period of almost four years. His injuries resulted from contact with a boom with which he was struck when it fell as a proximate result of his loosening and removing from a cleat some of the turns of the topping lift which supported it and to which the topping lift had been fastened while the boom had been used by representatives of an independent contractor in hoisting certain articles of heavy machinery aboard the vessel. Because of the absence of any evidence tending to show negligence or unseaworthiness on the part of defendant or its vessel proximately causal of the plaintiff’s injuries, the cause of action under the Jones Act was dismissed at the close of the plaintiff’s case on liability.

Over the objection of the plaintiff the Court thereupon discharged the jury and, sitting in Admiralty, received the evidence on the cause of action for maintenance and cure.

There is no doubt that plaintiff suffered severe injuries, which have resulted in substantial and permanent disability. Although plaintiff is precluded from performance of the duties of a seaman, there was medical evidence that he is capable of participating in gainful employment not involving physical exertion imposing strain upon the lower back, right hip and right lower extremity. Despite absence of any specific evidence of direct or indirect trauma to the plaintiff’s head, a neuropsychiatrist who examined him just a year after the accident testified that, in addition to the concededly neurological orthopedic disability and the neurological changes manifested in the right lower extremity, he found symptoms which he interpreted in the aggregate as indicative of a post-concussion syndrome.

At the time of trial plaintiff still required the assistance of a cane in walking, and was wearing a brace on his right lower leg. Since the accident he has made several attempts to resume employment, but because of difficulty with his right leg he was unable to continue at any one job for more than five months.

[349]*349Immediately after the accident, on February 5, 1954, plaintiff was hospitalized in Bayonne (New Jersey) Hospital and placed under the care of Dr. Francis Boyle. Hospitalization terminated on May 19, 1954, after which the plaintiff continued to receive office treatments from Dr. Boyle which extended over a year, at least twice weekly, until August 11, 1955, when Dr. Boyle discharged the plaintiff as having reached maximum cure. In December, 1956, the plaintiff was again hospitalized, this time for about eight days, for palliative treatment of a neuritis of the right leg, which was deemed to be a sequel of his original injuries. Since his latest release from the hospital he has resumed reception of periodic office treatments from Dr. Boyle. These treatments have continued up to and including the time of trial, and have been and will continue to be rendered gratuitously.

Plaintiff concedes that defendant has expended for his benefit in excess of $11,922 by way of maintenance and cure since the date of the accident. That total may be broken down as follows: $2,732.41 for the initial hospitalization through May 19, 1954; $1,609 for doctors’ services up to the date when plaintiff was discharged as having reached maximum cure; $4,060 for nursing services; $1,271 to the plaintiff’s mother in consideration of her attendance upon him at home after his return from the hospital; and $2,250 in cash payments to the plaintiff.

A seaman injured in the service of a vessel is entitled to care and maintenance at her expense. The Osceola, 1903, 189 U.S. 158, 23 S.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760; The Mars, 3 Cir., 1907, 149 F. 729. The ship-owner’s obligation to render medical assistance and treatment continues “for a reasonable time,” not limited by the duration of the voyage, but does not extend beyond the “ ‘expense of effecting a cure by ordinary medical means,’ ” and does not include “ ‘extraordinary medical treatment or treatment after cure effected as completely as possible in a particular case.’ ” The Bouker No. 2, 2 Cir., 1917, 241 F. 831, 835 (quoting from The C. S. Holmes, D.C., 209 F. 970). More recently (1948) the Supreme Court of the United States in Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511, at page 519, 69 S.Ct. 707, at page 711, 93 L.Ed. 850, has indicated that the right of a seaman to maintenance and cure “does not hold a ship to permanent liability for a pension, neither does it give a lump-sum payment to offset disability based on some conception of expectancy of life.” The Court in Farrell limited the liability for maintenance and cure to the time when the maximum cure possible has been effected. That decision expressly disclaimed any intention to overrule Calmar Steamship Corp. v. Taylor, 1938, 303 U.S. 525, 58 S.Ct. 651, 82 L.Ed. 993, which sets forth the present criterion in these cases. “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 and for a period which can be definitely ascertained.” Calmar Case, 303 U.S. at page 531, 58 S.Ct. at page 655.

Plaintiff, of course, had the burden of sustaining his claim for maintenance and cure by the evidence offered in support thereof. The San Antonio, D.C.Pa.1931, 1 F.Supp. 221, affirmed 3 Cir., 61 F.2d 623. Appraising the evidence in a light most favorable to plaintiff’s contentions, we are impelled to the conclusion that when his attending orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Boyle, discharged him from treatment on August 11, 1955, maximum improvement of the disability resulting from the injuries which he had sustained in the service of defendant’s vessel had then been achieved. Although the second hospitalization in December 1956 involved an expense in the amount of $147.90, that treatment was for the relief of a pressure neuritis secondary to an old injury, and moreover, the evidence fails to show whether or not the cost of that second hospitalization was [350]*350reimbursed by the defendant as part of the maintenance and cure payments which defendant concededly and voluntarily made. There is a similar absence of evidence tending to show that the expense of the foot braces which plaintiff was compelled to wear as a result of the injuries which he sustained in the service of the vessel was not included in the voluntary payments by the defendant to the plaintiff or for his account.

After he had completed his testimony on plaintiff’s principal claim for indemnity, Dr. Boyle was recalled by the plaintiff in support of the claim for maintenance and cure.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Edwards v. Statton & Statton Co.
215 So. 2d 387 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1968)
Leocadio v. Lykes Bros. Steamship Co.
282 F. Supp. 573 (E.D. Louisiana, 1968)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
152 F. Supp. 347, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/donovan-v-esso-shipping-co-njd-1957.