delivered the opinion of the Court.
. This case, like
Hust
v.
Moore-McCormack Lines,
Respondent was procured from the union hiring hall by petitioner in accordance with the terms of the standard agreement
4
and made available to the master for employment by him. The master is designated by the contract as an agent and employee of the United States. In July of 1945 respondent was signed on the S. S.
Edward B. Haines
at New York by the master of that vessel as second assistant engineer. In the space on the shipping articles entitled “Operating Company on this Voyage” there was written “Cosmopolitan Shipping Co., Inc., as general agent for the United States.” The articles were
In November, 1945, when The Haines was on voyage and either in port or off the coast of China, respondent contracted poliomyelitis. At that time the master exercised “full control, responsibility and authority with respect to the navigation and management of the vessel” as provided in § 3A (d) of the contract. See p. 796, infra. Because of alleged negligence of the master and officers in furnishing proper treatment, he suffered permanent injury from the disease. McAllister sued the petitioner, Cosmopolitan, under the Jones Act. The complaint alleged that Cosmopolitan “managed, operated and controlled” The Haines under a General Agency Agreement with its owner, that McAllister was in the employ of Cosmopolitan, and that his injuries resulted from the negligence of Cosmopolitan, “its agents, servants, and employees” in failing to take precautions against a known poliomyelitis epidemic and in failing to provide proper treatment. The answer denied these allegations. The jury found a verdict for respondent for $100,000.
On appeal the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.
McAllister
v.
Cosmopolitan Shipping Co.,
I.
We are impelled to the conclusion that the Clarification Act affords no basis for distinguishing the present case from the
Hust
case and that the reasoning in the later
Caldarola
case, which we accept as sound, calls for the rejection of the basis of the
Hust
case. The
Hust
case went on the theory that the general agents for the United States under the same standard service agreement were employers of the injured seaman, Hust, for the purposes of liability under the Jones Act.
6
The general agent was found to be liable to the seaman by two steps of reasoning: first, that the overruling of
Fleet Corporation
v.
Lustgarten,
As to the second conclusion, we are unable to perceive in the statutes relating to sailors’ rights or the history
The issue in this case is whether a construction- of the Jones Act carrying out the 'intention of Congress to grant those nety rights to seamen against their employers requires or permits a holding that the general agent under the contract here in question is an employer undér the Jones Act. The decision depends upon the interpretation of the contract between respondent and Cosmopolitan on one hand and that between Cosmopolitan and the United States on the other. We assume, without deciding, that the rule of the
Hearst
case applies, that is, the word “employment” should be construed so as to give protection to seamen for torts committed against them by 'those standing in the proximate relation of employer, and the rules of private agency should not be rigorously ap
It was said in
Hust
that the election of remedies granted seamen injured between October 1, 1941, and the effective date of the Clarification Act, March 24, 1943, indicated that a seaman had broader rights before the Clarification Act than he did after. 328 U. S.- at 725, Part III. The suggestion was that Congress could not have intended to restrict suits against general agents. This statement springs from the Court’s then understanding of the
Brady
case, which we have heretofore considered. The reason for the election given by the Clarification Act was quite different. It was to give seamen employees of the United States through the War Shipping Administration on public vessels or foreign-flag vessels or otherwise
“The various rights and remedies under statute and general maritime law with respect to death, injury, illness, and other casualty to seamen, have been rather fully set forth hereinabove. Under clause 2 of section 1 (a) these substantive rights would be governed by existing law relating to privately employed seamen. The only modification thereof arises from the remedial provision that they shall be enforced in accordance with the provisions of the Suits in Admiralty Act. This procedure is appropriate in view of the fact that the suits will be against the Government of the United States. In such a suit ño provision is made for a jury trial as may otherwise be had in a proceeding such as one under the Jones Act for reasons set forth in the letter of the Attorney General (September 14, 1942).”
See S. Rep. No. 62, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 11-12; S. Rep. No. 1813, 77th. Cong., 2d Sess., p. 6; Hearings before the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fish
The
Caldarola
case,
Hust
was decided June 10, 1946;
Caldarola
June 23, 1947. Certainly from the latter date, the danger of relying on
Hust
was apparent to the world though it must be admitted there was enough uncertainty in the law
n.
A re-examination of the present standard'service agreement will make clear the conclusion set out in Part I of this opinion., 46 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. § 306.44
et seq.
An examination of the terms of the contract and the actual conduct of the parties under this agreement, so far as shown by the record, demonstrates that the United States had retained for the entire voyage the possession, management,, and navigation of the vessel and control of the ship’s officers and crew to the exclusion of the general agent. Under , the General Agency Agreement the general agent is appointed by the United States “as its agent and not as an independent contractor, to manage and conduct the business of vessels assigned to it.” Art. I. The general agent agrees “to manage and conduct the business for the United States, in accordance with such directions, orders, or regulations as the latter has prescribed, or from time to time may prescribe.” Art. 2. The general agent engages itself to “maintain the vessels in such trade or service as the United States may direct,” to “collect all moneys due the United States” under the agreement, to “equip, victual, supply and maintain the vessels, subject to such directions, orders, regulations and methods of supervision and inspection as the United States m'afy from time to time prescribe,” Art. .3A, to “arrange for the repair of the vessels” and \ to “exercis^ reasonable diligence in making inspections an^ obtaining
“(d) The General Agent shall procure the Master of the vessels operated hereunder, subject to the approval of the United States. The Master shall be an agent and employee of the United States, and shall have and exercise full control, responsibility and authority with respect to the navigation and management of the vessel. The General Agent shall procure and make available to the Master for engagement by him the officers and men required by him to fill the complement of the vessel. Such officers and men shall be procured by the General Agent through the usual channels and in accordance with the customary practices of commercial operators and upon the terms and conditions prevailing in the particular service or services in which the vessels are to be operated from time to time. The officers and members of the crew shall be subject only to the orders of the Master. All such persons shall be paid in the customary manner with funds by the United States hereunder.”
It is thus seen that the duties of the respondent were expressly and intentionally limited to those of a ship’s husband who has been engaged to take care of the shore-side business of the ship and who has no part in the actual management or navigation of the vessel. This view is reinforced by the considerations which led to the establishment of the War Shipping Administration to control “the operation, purchase, charter, requisition, and use of all ocean vessels under the flag or control of the United States.”
15
Secrecy, speed, and efficiency of oper
Two types of service agreements were drafted — the General Agency Agreement, with which we are presently concerned, and the Ber th Agency Agreement.
16
The general agent has the responsibility of husbanding the vessel and his duties are to victual, supply, maintain, and repair the ship. The duties of the berth agent relate primarily to the handling and loading of cargo and other port services such as wharfage and pilotage needed by the vessel. In foreign ports the berth agent also takes care of the husbanding services. There is necessarily a certain overlapping of duties, but to avoid any conflict of authority both the general agent and the berth agent were made subject to “such directions, orders, or regulations* as the [United States] has prescribed, or from time to time may prescribe.”
17
This division of duties between
Even the discretion vested in the agents was decreased by the master contracts which the United States executed for the furnishing of numerous services and supplies required by the vessels. 18 There were also detailed instructions issued by the War Shipping Administration as to the terms of the contracts which the agents were authorized to enter into, 19 and these contracts were required to be executed in the name of the United States as principia!. 20
At the time of the wartime requisition of the privately owned merchant fleet, the government administrative agencies concerned gave careful study to the question of whether the crews were to be employees of the shipping companies or of the United States.
21
There were outstanding many collective bargaining agreements between the private shipping companies and the maritime unions. It was manifestly undesirable to disturb these existing agreements and for the Government to negotiate new
Previously existing collective bargaining agreements were adhered to so that seamen’s, conditions of employment would be disrupted as little ¿s possible by the change-over occasioned by government requisition of the vessels. See the War Shipping Administration’s over-all collective bargaining arrangement with the nine princi
The shipping articles summarized above, pp. 785-786, complied with the tenor of the General Agency Agreement by making it clear that respondent was an employee of the' United States. In order to pay the crew and the other expenses incidental to the operation of the ship, the War Shipping Administration deposited funds in a special joint bank account set up in the name of the agent “as general agent for the War Shipping Administration.” From this special account the general agent drew the funds and turned them over to the master to pay the crew. No money of the general agent was used for this purpose or in the operation of the vessel.
Thus the cases and an analysis of the relations established by the standard form agreement lead to the con
Reversed.
Notes
46 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. § 306.44.
41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688, which provides in pertinent part:
“Any seaman who shall suffer personal- injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to .railway employees shall apply; . . .” •
57 Stat. 45,50 U. S. C. App. § 1291.
See text, p. 796r infra.
Under 46 U. S. C. §§ 564, 565,713, the crewman signs "the shipping articles in the presence of’ a United States .Shipping Commissioner who certifies • that the crewman fully understands the contents of the instrument.
Note 2, supra.
As §33 shows on its face, a seaman has the advantages of the Act only against his employer.
Panama R. Co.
v.
Johnson,
It should be noted that a concurring opinion added to the grounds given in the Court’s opinion an argument that Moore-McCormack was owner
pro hac vice.
57 Stat/45, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1291:
“(a) officers and members of crews (hereinafter referred to as ‘seamen’) employed on United States or foreign flag vessels as employees of the United States through the War Shipping Administration shall, with respect to (1) laws administered by the Public Health Service and the Social Security Act, as amended by subsection (b) (2) and (3) of this section; (2) death, injuries, illness, maintenance and cure, loss of effects, detention, or repatriation, or claims arising^ therefrom not covered by the foregoing clause (4); and (3) collection of wages and bonuses and making of allotments, have all of the rights, benefits, exemptions, privileges, and liabilities, under law applicable to citizens of the United States employed as seamen on privately owned and operated American vessels. Such seamen, because of the temporary wartime character of their employment by the War Shipping Administration, shall not be considered as officers or employees of the United States for the purposes of the United States Employees Compensation Act, as amended; the Civil Service Retirement Act, as amended; the Act of Congress approved March 7, 1942 (Public Law 490, Seventy-seventh Congress); or-the Act entitled ‘An Act to provide benefits for the injury, disability, death, or detention of employees of contractors with the United States and certain other persons or reimbursement therefor’, approved December
See the discussion of the
Brady
case at
Newsboys,
Labor Board
v.
Hearst Publications,
But compare
Robinson
v.
Baltimore &
L.
O. R. Co.,
“We are of the opinion that Congress used the words ‘employé’ and ‘employed’ in the statute in their natural sense, and intended to describe the conventional relation , of employer and employe.”
Hull
v.
Philadelphia & Reading R. Co.,
It is much the same type of problem as was presented in
Bartels
v.
Birmingham,
Eor a full discussion see the dissent in
Hust
v.
Moore-McCormack,
For the background of the statutory distinctions drawn between public vessels and merchant vessels, see
Canadian Aviator, Ltd.
v.
United States,
Although Congress has not enacted legislation to make entirely clear the remedies of W. S. A. seamen against the United States for torts, there has been an effort to do so. H. R. 4873, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., sought to do so by amending the Suits in Admiralty Act, § 5, 41 Stat. 525, 526, so as to make the remedy in admiralty of that act exclusive as to the same subject matter so as to protect the general agent from suits such as Hust or Caldarola. The bill was passed by the House June 8, 1948, 94 Cong. Rec. 7388-89, but was not passed by the Senate. H. R. 483 and 4051 of the 81st Cong., 1st Sess., to the same effect, are.now pending. In H. R. Rep. No. 2060 on H. R. 4873, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., the Committee on the Judiciary said, p. 2:
“Then the Supreme Court on June 23,1947, handed down its decision in
Caldarola
v.
Eckert
(
Executive Order 9054 of February 7, 1942, issued under the First War Powers Act of December 18, 1941, 55 Stat. 838. 3 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. 1086.
Promulgated by the Administrator, War Shipping Administration, in General Order No. 21, Sept. 22, 1942, and Supp. 4 thereto, Dec. 29, 1943. 7 Fed. Reg. 7561; 8 Fed. Reg. 17512. -
Article 2 of the General Agency Agreement, form GAA 4-4-42, and Article 2 of the Berth Agency Agreement, form BA 12-29-43.,
Examples of such contracts are contained in the record of
Caldarola
v.
Eckert,
For example, see Operations Regulations Nos. 27 (towage contracts); 84 (duties of berth agents, general agents, and agents); 97 (bunker oil contracts); 99, Supp. 1 and 2 (pilferage).
General Order No. 42 of the War Shipping Administration, 9 F. R. 4110.
See letter of April 28, 1947, from the General Counsel of the Maritime Commission to the Department of Justice.
See the Statements of Policy of May 4 and May 12, 1942, issued by the War Shipping Administration and the various maritime unions. WSA Operations Regulation No. 1.
Article 3A (d) of the General Agency Agreement, set out in text of opinion at p. 796.
Operations- Regulations No. 15, Directive No. 2, issued by the War Shipping Administration provided: “The Master of a vessel has full discretion in signing on crew members and may reject any person seeking employment .... Records shall be kept of the names of those rejected and of the reason for rejection and shall be submitted to the port office of the Recruitment and Manning Organization of the War Shipping Administration in the port in which the rejection occurs.”
See Restatement, Agency, § 79, comment (a).
See letter of October 20, 1942, from the War Shipping Administration to the National Labor Relations Board, and the reply of October 26, 1942, record, pp. 43-51, in No. 360, Fink v. Shepard Steamship Co., post, p. 810.
H. R. Rep. No. 107, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 23-24.
