Franklin Vasquez v. Yii Shipping Company, Ltd.

559 F. App'x 841
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 14, 2014
Docket12-16395
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 559 F. App'x 841 (Franklin Vasquez v. Yii Shipping Company, Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Franklin Vasquez v. Yii Shipping Company, Ltd., 559 F. App'x 841 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

This appeal requires us to decide whether the district court erred when it dismissed a seaman’s complaint against his Bahamian employer because the employer lacked a base of operations in the United States. Franklin Vasquez sued YII Shipping Company, Ltd., for negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104, unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and failure to treat after he suffered an injury on a vessel in Bahamian waters. YII Shipping moved to dismiss the complaint *842 for forum non conveniens. YII Shipping argued that federal maritime law did not apply to Vasquez’s complaint. In support of that argument, YII Shipping alleged that it did not have a base of operations in the United States because it derived only 15 percent of its income from shipping cargo between Florida and the Bahamas, Bahamian citizens owned 60 percent of the company, a Bahamian citizen and resident ran the daily operations of the company, and the company was incorporated and had its principal place of business in the Bahamas. The district court dismissed Vasquez’s complaint based on forum non conveniens. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Vasquez, a resident of the Dominican Republic, worked for YII Shipping as a member of the crew aboard the merchant vessel Yeocomico, a cargo ship registered in Honduras and owned by YII Shipping. In 1999, YII Shipping interviewed and hired Vasquez in Port Dania, Florida, where he signed his initial employment contract. Vasquez signed his later employment contracts, including the contract that governed his employment when his injury at work occurred, in the Bahamas.

YII Shipping is incorporated in the Bahamas, and its principal place of business is Nassau, Bahamas. Between 2005 and 2009, dozens of companies based in the United States hired YII Shipping to ship merchandise from Florida to the Bahamas. YII Shipping rents warehouse space in Port Everglades, Florida, where it directs customers to send their cargo. From June 24, 2004, through December 13, 2009, vessels owned or chartered by YII Shipping made 241 visits to ports of the United States. YII Shipping derives approximately 15 percent of its total income from shipping between the United States and the Bahamas.

Four shareholders own YII Shipping. Libson Higgs owns two of the five shares of YII Shipping, which amounts to a 40 percent interest in the company. Libson is a dual citizen of the United States and the Bahamas and resides in Hollywood, Florida. Libson retired from YII Shipping in 2002 and plays no role in the daily operations of the company. Vaughn Higgs, Libson’s son, manages YII Shipping and owns a single share of the company. Vaughn is a Bahamian citizen and resides in the Bahamas, although he maintains a phone number and mailing address in Florida for personal use. Two other Bahamians own the remaining two shares.

YII Agency, Inc., a Florida corporation, exclusively manages YII Shipping as its sole client, and YII Shipping pays YII Agency for its management services. YII Agency maintains its offices and agents in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and YII Shipping has, at times, listed the Fort Lauder-dale address of YII Agency as its own address. Libson owns YII Agency and signed the office lease for YII Agency, and Vaughn oversees the bank accounts for YII Agency. But YII Shipping does not direct the rate calculations charged by YII Agency.

In June 2007, Vasquez suffered severe burns to the left side of his body from an explosion on the Yeocomico while it was docked in Freeport, Bahamas. Vasquez first received treatment in the Bahamas, then in the Dominican Republic, and finally in Florida, two months after the accident and on his own initiative. The Yeo-comico had sailed exclusively inter-island routes in the Bahamas when Vasquez’s accident occurred and had done so for the previous two years.

Vasquez first filed his suit in a Florida court, but that court dismissed his complaint based on the doctrine of forum non *843 conveniens under Florida law. A Florida court of appeals affirmed the dismissal.

Vasquez then filed a complaint against YII Shipping in the district court, which dismissed the complaint based on the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Vasquez v. YII Shipping Co., Ltd., 692 F.3d 1192, 1195 (11th Cir.2012); see D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). We vacated that dismissal. Vasquez, 692 F.3d at 1195. We concluded that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine was inapplicable because of differences between the Florida doctrine of forum non conveniens and the corresponding federal doctrine. Id. at 1195-96. And we concluded that the analysis by the district court of forum non conveniens was incomplete. Id. at 1199. We remanded for the district court to “consider all of YII’s business contacts with Florida and with the rest of the United States in determining whether the base of operations requirement as well as all other factors have been fulfilled pursuant to [Hellenic Lines Ltd. v. Rhoditis, 398 U.S. 306, 90 S.Ct. 1731, 26 L.Ed.2d 252 (1970) ].” Id. at 1200.

On remand, the district court correctly identified the following seven factors to determine whether federal maritime law applied: the place of the wrongful act, the flag under which the ship sails, the allegiance of domicile of the injured party, the allegiance of the defendant shipowner, the place of the contract between the injured party and the shipowner, the accessibility of a foreign forum, and the law of the forum. Lauritzen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571, 583-92, 73 S.Ct. 921, 928-33, 97 L.Ed. 1254 (1953). As we required in our mandate, the district court also considered the eighth factor identified by the Supreme Court in Rhoditis and found that YII Shipping did not have a “substantial base of operations” in the United States. The district court also alluded to its earlier ruling that the other seven factors “weigh heavily against applying the maritime law of the United States, including the Jones Act.” The district court ruled that federal maritime law did not apply to Vasquez’s complaint and dismissed based on forum non conveniens.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

Three standards of review apply to this appeal. First, we review for clear error the finding of the district court that YII Shipping did not have a substantial base of operations in the United States. Membreño v. Costa Crociere S.P.A., 425 F.3d 932

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559 F. App'x 841, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/franklin-vasquez-v-yii-shipping-company-ltd-ca11-2014.