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What really keelhauls shipowners is "unseaworthiness"—a doctrine so interpreted by the Supreme Court that a seaman's own negligence can make the shipowner liable. Unseaworthiness covers not only faulty gear that makes a ship unseaworthy, but also faulty use of that gear by the crew—including the libelant. When one seaman dropped a heavy wrench on his toe, he successfully claimed that the wrench was "unseaworthy." Another collected after an "unseaworthy" shipmate beat him up. Still, there are limits. One intrepid seaman who amputated his own hand on the advice of an African witch doctor, and then sued on the ground that he himself was unseaworthy, got a fast judicial brushoff. "Not in this court," snapped the judge.
Strange & Wondrous. The doctrine of unseaworthiness virtually rules out the whole issue of negligence, along with the two classic defenses against it—assumption of risk, meaning the plaintiff's preknowledge of possible injury, and contributory negligence, such as failure to take proper precautions. (Baseball teams use both defenses against fans who get hurt while attempting to catch foul balls.) Moreover, the shipowner's absolute responsibility for seaworthiness is now being rapidly extended to longshoremen—people who are not even on his payroll. Dock-wallopers, unlike seamen, are covered by workmen's compensation, and since they cannot sue their immediate employers (stevedoring companies), they take to admiralty law to sue shipowners, who must in turn sue stevedoring companies for failure to supply "workmanlike services." To maritime employers, at least, this vicious circle is the strongest possible argument for abolishing admiralty injury cases by putting seamen under workmen's compensation.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court last term bolstered the status quo in the case of a longshoreman who had slipped on some coffee beans that had fallen out of defective bags on a Puerto Rican pier. The longshoreman was not injured on the ship; the shipowner knew nothing about the errant beans. Yet the longshoreman sued the shipowner and was upheld. As everyone knows, said the court, a bean bag that fails to contain its beans is unfit and hence unseaworthy.
Understandably, when federal courts display the silver oar that signifies they are sitting in admiralty, judges often find themselves adrift. "The sea," as one judge recently mused, "is a strange and wondrous thing, and equally so is the law it inspires."
* Of which 14.5% stemmed from brawls, the biggest single cause of seamen's injuries.