Ramirez v. Carolina Dream, Inc. ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-2109
SANTOS RAMIREZ,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
CAROLINA DREAM, INC.,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Stahl and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Matthew Viveiros, with whom Hunt & Viveiros, LLC was on brief,
for appellant.
Joseph A. Regan, with whom Sean P. Scanlon and Regan & Kiely
LLP were on brief, for appellee.
July 28, 2014
LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. Appellant Santos Ramirez, a
seaman, became ill while working aboard a fishing vessel and was
immediately hospitalized when he returned to shore. Shortly
thereafter, he was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a serious blood
condition that prevented him from returning to work as a seaman. He
subsequently brought this personal injury action against his
employer, seeking a remedy under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104,
and general maritime law. The district court granted summary
judgment for the defendant, Carolina Dream, Inc., on each of
appellant's alleged causes of action. On appeal, Ramirez
challenges only dismissal of his maritime claim for maintenance and
cure, arguing that he is entitled to that remedy until he reaches
"maximum medical recovery." Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 531
(1962). Because we agree that the record would permit a factfinder
to find that appellant is entitled to maintenance and cure, we
vacate the district court's ruling and remand for further
proceedings.
I.
A. Factual Background
In recounting the facts, which we present in the light
most favorable to appellant Ramirez, see, e.g., Adamson v.
Walgreens Co., 750 F.3d 73, 76 (1st Cir. 2014), we borrow liberally
from the district court's clear and succinct recitation.
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Ramirez had been a crew member on the commercial fishing
boat F/V DEFIANT for about eight years when, in December 2008,
rough seas during a scallop fishing trip off the New Jersey coast
bounced the vessel and caused him to strike his jaw against his
bunk. He sustained a laceration inside his mouth, felt dizzy the
next day, and began to feel weak and sick to his stomach about
three days after the incident. Although appellant asked to be
brought ashore, the captain refused and instructed him to perform
his duties until the end of the trip.
Appellant's condition worsened before the vessel returned
to its home port in Seaford, Virginia, several days later, and his
wife took him directly from the dock to a hospital emergency room
for treatment. He remained hospitalized for about a month, was
discharged in mid-January 2009, but then was readmitted to a
different hospital a week later because of continuing symptoms.1
He was then diagnosed with aplastic anemia, "[a] rare and serious
condition" that occurs when the body stops producing sufficient new
1
The district court noted appellant's assertion that he was
admitted to the first hospital "due to a serious infection,"
although none of the medical reports submitted in this case
explicitly identify his problem as an infection. Appellant's
records from the first hospital, the Sentara Careplex Hospital in
Hampton, Virginia, were not introduced in the district court,
although two documents reporting his treatment at that hospital are
included in his appendix on appeal. Reports from doctors at the
second facility, the Medical Center of Virginia Commonwealth
University in Richmond, focused on his blood disorder. In reaching
our decision, we have not relied on the records submitted for the
first time on appeal.
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blood cells. See Mayo Clinic Staff, "Aplastic Anemia, Definition,"
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/aplastic-
anemia/basics/definition/con-20019296 (last visited July 9, 2014).
One of appellant's treating doctors reported that the
exact cause of appellant's disease would likely remain unknown --
"as is the case in many occurrences of aplastic anemia" -- but the
doctor noted his history of hepatitis C, a typical "culprit of
aplastic anemia." Before the trip during which he became ill,
appellant had experienced no symptoms and "was doing [his] work
well." Ramirez states in his brief that he continues to undergo
treatment for aplastic anemia and remains unable to work.
Ramirez filed this action in August 2011 alleging
negligence under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104, and maritime
claims of unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure. He asserts
that his injury "and the delay in receiving the proper medical
treatment" caused "a serious infection that lead to [a]plastic
[a]nemia." In opposing summary judgment, he averred that a
factfinder could reasonably infer "manifestation of [his] aplastic
anemia during his service to the FV DEFIANT." As noted above,
appellant on appeal has challenged only the summary judgment for
Carolina Dream on his cause of action for maintenance and cure. We
thus limit our analysis to that claim.
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B. The Doctrine of Maintenance and Cure
The owner of a vessel has a duty to pay maintenance and
cure to a seaman "who [is] injured or fall[s] ill while 'in service
of the ship.'" Whitman v. Miles, 387 F.3d 68, 72 (1st Cir. 2004)
(quoting LeBlanc v. B.G.T. Corp., 992 F.2d 394, 396 (1st Cir.
1993)); see also Atl. Sounding Co. v. Townsend, 557 U.S. 404, 413
(2009); Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 531.2 "Maintenance" refers to the
cost of food and lodging during the period of illness or recovery
from injury, and "cure" covers the reasonable medical expenses
incurred for the seaman's treatment. Atl. Sounding, 557 U.S. at
413; Whitman, 387 F.3d at 71.
The remedy of maintenance and cure is deliberately
expansive, see Vella v. Ford Motor Co., 421 U.S. 1, 4 (1975)
(noting the "breadth and inclusiveness of the shipowner's duty"),
and it is not "restricted to those cases where the seaman's
employment is the cause of the injury or illness," Calmar S.S.
Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.S. 525, 527 (1938) ["Taylor"]. "[T]he
obligation can arise out of a medical condition such as a heart
2
The requirement that a seaman be "serving the ship" at the
time of his illness or injury, Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc.,
531 U.S. 438, 441 (2001), means that he must be "generally
answerable to its call to duty rather than actually in performance
of routine tasks or specific orders." Farrell v. United States,
336 U.S. 511, 516 (1949). Hence, a seaman who is injured or taken
ill while off the ship may nonetheless be eligible for maintenance
and cure. Cf. Haskell v. Socony Mobil Oil Co., 237 F.2d 707, 709-
10 (1st Cir. 1956) (distinguishing between brief shore leaves and
"protracted vacations" in holding that maintenance and cure is
inapplicable to the latter).
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problem, a prior illness that recurs during the seaman's
employment, or an injury suffered on shore." 1 Thomas J.
Schoenbaum, Admiralty & Maritime Law § 6-29, at 380 (4th ed. 2001);
see also Haskell v. Socony Mobil Oil Co., 237 F.2d 707, 709 (1st
Cir. 1956) ("[I]t arises when [the seaman] is taken ill from
whatever cause during a voyage.").
The doctrine is "so broad" that the seaman's "negligence
or acts short of culpable misconduct . . . will not relieve the
shipowner of the responsibility." Vella, 421 U.S. at 4
(alterations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Messier v. Bouchard Transp., 688 F.3d 78, 82 (2d Cir. 2012) (noting
that maintenance and cure "is a far more expansive remedy" than
workers' compensation); DiBenedetto v. Williams, 880 F. Supp. 80,
86 (D.R.I. 1995) ("[M]aintenance and cure may still be awarded
plaintiff notwithstanding a pre-existing condition as long as that
condition is not deliberately concealed and is not disabling at the
time the seaman signs on for the voyage."). The wide scope of the
duty springs from the status of seamen as "emphatically the wards
of the admiralty," Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 485 (C.C.D.
Me. 1823) (No. 6,047) (Story, J.), and advances multiple purposes,
among them to protect seamen "from the hazards of illness and
abandonment while ill in foreign ports" and to induce maritime
employers to guard against safety and health risks. Taylor, 303
U.S. at 528 (citing Harden, 11 F. Cas. at 483).
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The shipowner's ancient duty to provide
maintenance and cure for the seaman who
becomes ill or is injured while in the service
of the ship derives from the "unique hazards
(which) attend the work of seamen," and
fosters the "combined object of encouraging
marine commerce and assuring the well-being of
seamen." . . . [The shipowner's duty] "has
few exceptions or conditions to stir
contentions, cause delays, and invite
litigations."
Vella, 421 U.S. at 3-4 (quoting Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318
U.S. 724, 727 (1943); Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511, 516
(1949)).
The duty of maintenance and cure applies until the seaman
has fully recovered or is "so far cured as possible," Farrell, 336
U.S. at 518 -- the latter alternative taking into account that the
seaman's condition might stabilize short of full health. The
obligation to pay maintenance and cure is thus described as
extending until the seaman "reaches maximum medical recovery."
Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 531; see also, e.g., Haskell, 237 F.2d at 709
(explaining that "cure" is "cure in the sense of care until medical
science can do no more"); Robert Force, Federal Judicial Center,
Admiralty & Maritime Law 94 (2d ed. 2013) (defining the cutoff
point as "when the condition is cured or declared to be incurable
or of a permanent character").
With these legal principles in mind, we now examine the
district court's conclusion that appellant did not adduce
sufficient evidence to support a claim for maintenance and cure.
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II.
Summary judgment is appropriate only if the record shows
no genuine dispute of material fact and the moving party is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a);
Hicks v. Johnson, No. 13-1741, 2014 WL 2793806, at *2 (1st Cir.
June 20, 2014). Our review of the district court's grant of
summary judgment is de novo. Hicks, 2014 WL 2793806, at *2.
Appellant asserts that he is entitled to maintenance and
cure until he has reached maximum recovery from aplastic anemia,
which he contends has not yet occurred. The district court
rejected his entitlement to any maintenance and cure on the ground
that appellant failed to produce evidence that the disease arose
during his service on the F/V DEFIANT -- "[o]ther than asserting
that he was in 'normal health' prior to the fishing voyage and
hospitalized upon returning to port." The court's rationale
reflects a too-narrow view of both the facts and the vessel owner's
responsibility.
As detailed above, appellant began feeling weak and dizzy
shortly after he sustained an injury onboard the F/V DEFIANT, and
he required more than a month's hospitalization immediately after
disembarking. A doctor's report stated that he was admitted to a
second hospital "due to continued symptoms" a week after he was
initially discharged, at which time he was diagnosed with aplastic
anemia. Hence, the record shows that appellant became ill during
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the December 2008 fishing voyage and remained ill continuously
through the time he was determined to have the blood condition.
Before that voyage, appellant had been working regularly and
without symptoms, notwithstanding a history of hepatitis C.
As appellant emphasizes, the facts here resemble those
considered by the Supreme Court in Taylor. In that case, a seaman
who obtained medical treatment after stubbing his toe in the ship's
boiler room was diagnosed with Buerger's disease, an incurable
illness that affects the arteries and veins. 303 U.S. at 526. The
Court took for granted that the seaman was entitled to maintenance
and cure even though the disease was found to be unrelated to the
foot injury. See id. at 528-29. The Court focused, instead, on
the duration of the duty. It noted widespread recognition that a
seaman who is hurt or becomes ill while serving the ship may
receive maintenance and cure "for a reasonable time after the
voyage," but it acknowledged that most cases so holding involved a
work-related disability. Id.
The Court nonetheless held that the right to maintenance
and cure "may outlast the voyage" even when "the efficient cause of
the injury or illness was [not] some proven act of the seaman in
the service of the ship." Id. at 529. Among its rationales, the
Court invoked "the liberality" that admiralty courts give to rules
"devised for the benefit and protection of seamen who are its
wards," and it noted the undesirable consequences of a contrary
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conclusion: "The practical inconvenience and attendant danger to
seamen in the application of a rule which would encourage the
attempt by master or owner to determine in advance of any
maintenance and cure, whether the illness was caused by the
employment, are manifest." Id. at 529-30.
The Supreme Court thus confirmed that maintenance and
cure is available for a disabling illness whether or not that
illness, though discovered during treatment for an onboard injury,
resulted from the injury. Moreover, as noted above, it does not
matter if an incapacitating illness preexisted the seaman's
maritime employment, so long as the condition was not deliberately
concealed or disabling when the seaman joined the ship's service.
See Messier, 688 F.3d at 84; Schoenbaum, supra, at 380. The
inquiry is not one of causation, but of timing: did the illness for
which the seaman seeks maintenance and cure begin or become
aggravated while he was "serving the ship"? Lewis v. Lewis & Clark
Marine, Inc., 531 U.S. 438, 441 (2001).3 Here, then, the question
for purposes of summary judgment is whether a factfinder could
3
The Court in Taylor went on to consider the proper duration
for the maintenance-and-cure duty in such instances and settled on
the now well established principle of maximum medical recovery.
See 303 U.S. at 530 ("We can find no basis for saying that, if the
disease proves to be incurable, the duty extends beyond a fair time
after the voyage in which to effect such improvement in the
seaman's condition as reasonably may be expected to result from
nursing, care, and medical treatment.").
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conclude that Ramirez suffered from aplastic anemia while still in
service to the FV/DEFIANT.
The facts outlined above readily permit such an
inference. Ramirez presented evidence that he boarded the ship
feeling well and able to work, but left very ill. His medical
history includes a known trigger for aplastic anemia. Given his
deteriorating health while in the ship's service, his history of
hepatitis C, and the short interval between the onset of illness
and the diagnosis, a factfinder reasonably could conclude that the
dizziness and weakness that appellant experienced on the vessel
were the first noticeable and debilitating symptoms of the aplastic
anemia. Although the record does not contain medical evidence
substantiating appellant's contention that the delay in treatment
for his mouth laceration caused "a serious infection" that in turn
triggered the aplastic anemia, he is not obliged to prove a cause-
and-effect medical basis for the disease. See Taylor, 303 U.S. at
527. Rather, as we have explained, the duty to pay maintenance and
cure "arises when [the seaman] is taken ill from whatever cause
during a voyage." Haskell, 237 F.2d at 709.
Moreover, in keeping with the breadth of the duty to
provide maintenance and cure, the Supreme Court has stated that, in
evaluating the shipowner's liability, "ambiguities or doubts . . .
are resolved in favor of the seaman." Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 532.
At a minimum, a factfinder could conclude on the record before us
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that aplastic anemia was the most likely reason for appellant's
deteriorating condition while on the ship, with the disease
manifesting as a result of the injury to appellant's jaw or
happening to coincide with the injury.
Our decision in Whitman v. Miles, cited by the district
court, is not to the contrary. The plaintiff in that case was
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis ("MS") after experiencing various
physical symptoms (including fatigue, numbness, and incontinence)
while working as a cook on a ship. The vessel owner conceded his
general duty to provide maintenance and cure, but the parties
disputed the duration of the duty and its application to the
seaman's specific treatment for depression. See 387 F.3d at 71-74.
We declined to determine whether the depression was a
symptom of MS or a separate ailment because, regardless, the seaman
would not be entitled to maintenance and cure based on that
disorder. Id. at 74. We explained that, if depression were viewed
as a distinct ailment, it did not provide a basis for maintenance
and cure because the seaman had "failed to produce any evidence
that she began to suffer from depression while in the service of
the ship." Id. Alternatively, if the depression were treated as
a symptom of MS, she would have no claim for additional
compensation because the employer already had paid maintenance and
cure up to the point of maximum medical recovery. Id.; see also
id. at 72 ("The testimony of the doctors for both parties leaves no
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genuine issue of material fact that [the plaintiff's] treatment
. . . would not reverse her symptoms or improve her condition
beyond the point of maximum medical recovery.").
Thus, in Whitman, the maintenance and cure claim that we
rejected for evidentiary insufficiency involved either a second,
possibly separate medical condition or an attempt to extend
benefits beyond the previously identified cutoff point for the
remedy. Here, by contrast, the recognized triggers for aplastic
anemia, together with the evidence of physical symptoms experienced
by appellant onboard the vessel, provide sufficient support for a
finding that his aplastic anemia arose or became aggravated during
his service on the ship and, hence, triggered the duty of
maintenance and cure.
The impact of our decision, however, may be modest. At
oral argument, appellant's counsel reported that appellee Carolina
Dream paid maintenance and cure to his client through the date of
the district court's summary judgment ruling in August 2013. As we
have explained, appellant is entitled to maintenance and cure only
while he is "moving toward recovery," In re RJF Int'l Corp. for
Exoneration from or Limitation of Liab., 354 F.3d 104, 106 (1st
Cir. 2004), up to the point of "maximum medical recovery," Vaughan,
369 U.S. at 531. Although Ramirez asserts that his condition has
not yet stabilized, the record on that issue is undeveloped and our
decision here does not foreclose summary judgment on the ground
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that the employer has satisfied its obligation. We note, however,
that even after achieving maximum medical cure, a seaman may
"reinstitute a demand for maintenance and cure where subsequent new
curative medical treatments become available." Force, supra, at
94; see also Farrell, 336 U.S. at 519 (noting that the seaman may
be able to recover, "in a new proceeding," the costs of "future
treatment of a curative nature" and "for maintenance while
receiving it"); Messier, 688 F.3d at 82 (quoting Force and citing
Farrell).
Accordingly, we remand this case to the district court
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
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