U.S.: Maintenance and Cure - Recent Developments

December 2001

(Sea Venture Volume 20)

The ancient U.S. admiralty duty of "maintenance and cure" imposes on an employer an obligation in favour of a seaman who, while in the service of the vessel, becomes ill or injured or whose condition is exacerbated for any reason. Maintenance is a per diem living allowance and cure is the payment of therapeutic, medical and hospital expenses. The employer remains responsible for providing these benefits until the seaman has attained maximum medical improvement.

In the recent case of Claudia Duarte v Royal Caribbean Cruises ¹, the Eleventh Circuit further clarified the extent of a Jones Act employer’s maintenance and cure responsibilities. A Florida appellate court held that a seaman in Miami receiving maintenance and cure who was subsequently seriously hurt in an automobile accident was still "in the service of the ship" and was, therefore, entitled to maintenance and cure for the additional injuries incurred.

The appeal court, in reversing the trial court’s decision, found that the maintenance and cure duty should not be "narrowly confined or whittled down by restrictive and artificial distinctions which could be seen as defeating it’s broad and beneficial purpose". On the basis that Duarte was already receiving maintenance and cure at the time of the car accident and had yet to achieve a plateau of recovery, the court found that the claimant was still "in the service of the vessel" and was thus entitled to her benefits.

In Tucker v Crounse Corp ² a district court in the Sixth Circuit considered the claimant’s motion for an immediate and retroactive increase in maintenance and cure.

The claimant had signed a collective bargaining agreement which provided, in part, that the employer was to pay half of the employee’s regular salary for up to six months for any "on the job, lost time accidental injury". The defendant relied on this language and argued that, having fulfilled this contractual obligation, no further salary monies were due.

In granting the claimant’s motion for a retroactive increase in maintenance and cure, the Court concluded that under the law of the Sixth Circuit a shipowner could not abrogate the responsibility to pay maintenance and cure by contract. The court ruled that the defendant must make payment of the half-salary sums until such time as the claimant had reached maximum medical improvement.³

As has historically been the case, both of these recent decisions have shown that in the maintenance and cure arena a court is likely to adopt a pro-crewmember stance.

¹ 761 So.2d 367 (Fla 3DCA 2000)
² 2001 AMC 854
³ Interestingly, the "half-salary" amount does not appear to have been in issue (as opposed to the period for which the employer was obliged to pay).