Court finds injured seaman entitled to damages for failure to pay benefits (June 25, 2009)

A divided Supreme Court held today that a seaman injured on the job can sue to recover punitive damages when the owner of the vessel denies “maintenance and cure” payments.

Edgar L. Townsend slipped and fell, injuring his shoulder and clavicle while a shipboard worker on Motor Tug in July 2005. According to Townsend, Atlantic Sounding Co., Inc., and Weeks Marine, Inc., the owners of the vessel, told him that they would not provide him with maintenance and cure, which covers medical care, a living allowance and wages for seamen who become ill or are injured while serving aboard a vessel.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida found in favor of Townsend, citing a controlling appeals court decision in Hines v. J.A. LaPorte, Inc., which permits a seaman to recover punitive damages when an employer arbitrarily and willfully refuses to pay maintenance and cure.

In appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, Atlantic Sounding Co.,
Inc., and Weeks Marine, Inc., point to a later Supreme Court decision, which states that recovery for non- pecuniary loss in the wrongful death of a seaman was not available under general maritime law.

In August 2007, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed to allow the punitive damages claim.

“The central question here is whether we may depart from our prior ruling in Hines, based on the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Miles; we conclude that we may not,” the panel stated. “That the reasoning of an intervening high court decision is at odds with that of our prior decision is no basis for a panel to depart from our prior decision.”

On June 25, a divided Supreme Court affirmed the case with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the 5-4 majority.

"Because punitive damages have long been an accepted remedy under general maritime law, and because nothing in the Jones Act altered this understanding, such damages for the willful and wanton disregard of the maintenance and cure obligation should remain available in the appropriate case as a matter of general maritime law," Justice Thomas wrote, adding:

"Limiting recovery for maintenance and cure to whatever is permitted by the Jones Act would give greater preemptive effect to the Act than is required by its text ... or any of this Court's other decisions interpreting the statute."

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.

Question presented: Whether a seaman may recover punitive damages for the willful failure to pay maintenance and cure.