Opinion of the Court. 362 U.S. See Benedict, The Law of American Admiralty (6th ed., 1940), Vol. I, § 83; Robinson, Admiralty Law (1939), p. 303 et seq. Perhaps the clearest expression appeared in Judge Augustus Hand's opinion in The H. A. Scandrett, 87 F. 2d 708: "In our opinion the libelant had a right of indemnity for injuries arising from an unseaworthy ship even though there was no means of anticipating trouble. "The ship is not freed from liability by mere due diligence to render her seaworthy as may be the case under the Harter Act (46 U. S. C. A. §§ 190-195) where loss results from faults in navigation, but under the maritime law there is an absolute obligation to provide a seaworthy vessel and, in default thereof, liability follows for any injuries caused by breach of the obligation." 87 F. 2d, at 711. In 1944 this Court decided Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96. While it is possible to take a narrow view of the precise holding in that case," the fact is that Mahnich stands as a landmark in the development of admiralty law. Chief Justice Stone's opinion in that case gave an unqualified stamp of solid authority to the view that The Osceola was correctly to be understood as holding that the duty to provide a seaworthy ship depends not at all upon the negligence of the shipowner or his agents. Moreover, the dissent in Mahnich accepted this reading of The Osceola and claimed no more than that the injury in Mahnich was not properly attributable to unseaworthiness. See 321 U. S., at 105–113. In Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, the Court effectively scotched any doubts that might have lingered 11 I. e., as simply overruling the decision in Plamals v. The Pinar Del Rio, 277 U. S. 151, that unseaworthiness cannot include "operating negligence." See Gilmore and Black, op. cit., supra, at 317. 539 Opinion of the Court. after Mahnich as to the nature of the shipowner's duty to provide a seaworthy vessel. The character of the duty, said the Court, is "absolute." "It is essentially a species of liability without fault, analogous to other well known instances in our law. Derived from and shaped to meet the hazards which performing the service imposes, the liability is neither limited by conceptions of negligence nor contractual in character. . . . It is a form of absolute duty owing to all within the range of its humanitarian policy." 328 U. S., at 94-95. The dissenting opinion agreed as to the nature of the shipowner's duty. "[D]ue diligence of the owner," it said, "does not relieve him from this obligation." 328 U. S., at 104. From that day to this, the decisions of this Court have undeviatingly reflected an understanding that the owner's duty to furnish a seaworthy ship is absolute and completely independent of his duty under the Jones Act to exercise reasonable care. Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406; Alaska Steamship Co. v. Petterson, 347 U. S. 396; Rogers v. United States Lines, 347 U. S. 984; Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 348 U. S. 336; Crumady v. The J. H. Fisser, 358 U. S. 423; United Pilots Assn. v. Halecki, 358 U. S. 613. There is no suggestion in any of the decisions that the duty is less onerous with respect to an unseaworthy condition arising after the vessel leaves her home port, or that the duty is any less with respect to an unseaworthy condition which may be only temporary. Of particular relevance here is Alaska Steamship Co. v. Petterson, supra. In that case the Court affirmed a judgment holding the shipowner liable for injuries caused by defective equipment temporarily brought on board by an independent contractor over which the owner had no control. That decision is thus specific authority for the proposition that the shipowner's actual or constructive knowledge of the unseaworthy condition is not essential to his liability. FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. 362 U.S. That decision also effectively disposes of the suggestion that liability for a temporary unseaworthy condition is different from the liability that attaches when the condition is permanent.12 There is ample room for argument, in the light of history, as to how the law of unseaworthiness should have or could have developed. Such theories might be made to fill a volume of logic. in this Court over the last for argument as to what the law is. What has evolved is a complete divorcement of unseaworthiness liability from concepts of negligence. To hold otherwise now would be to erase more than just a page of history. But, in view of the decisions 15 years, we can find no room What has been said is not to suggest that the owner is obligated to furnish an accident-free ship. The duty is absolute, but it is a duty only to furnish a vessel and appurtenances reasonably fit for their intended use. The standard is not perfection, but reasonable fitness; not a ship that will weather every conceivable storm or withstand every imaginable peril of the sea, but a vessel reasonably suitable for her intended service. Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 348 U. S. 336. The judgment must be reversed, and the case remanded to the District Court for a new trial on the issue of unseaworthiness. Reversed and remanded. MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER join, dissenting. No area of federal law is judge-made at its source to such an extent as is the law of admiralty. The evolution of judge-made law is a process of accretion and erosion. We are told by a great master that law is civilized to the 12 The persuasive authority of Petterson in a case very similar to this one has been recognized by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Poignant v. United States, 225 F. 2d 595. 539 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. extent that it is purposefully conscious. Conversely, if law just "grow'd" like Topsy, unreflectively and without conscious design, it is irrational. When it appears that a challenged doctrine has been uncritically accepted as a matter of course by the inertia of repetition-has just "grow'd" like Topsy-the Court owes it to the demands of reason, on which judicial law-making power ultimately rests for its authority, to examine its foundations and validity in order appropriately to assess claims for its extension. Our law of the sea has an ancient history. While it has not been static, the needs and interests of the interrelated world-wide seaborne trade which it reflects are very deeply rooted in the past. For the most part it has not undergone the great changes attributable to the emergence and growth of industrialized society on land. In the law of the sea, the continuity and persistence of a doctrine, particularly one with international title-deeds, has special significance. The birth of the current doctrine of unseaworthiness, now impressively challenged by Chief Judge Magruder's opinion under review, can be stated precisely: it occurred on May 29, 1922, in Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255. The action was brought in the Washington state courts by Sandanger, an employee of Carlisle, who was injured while working on its motorboat on a sixor eight-hour trip. The injury occurred when he lighted fuel from a can on board marked "coal oil" in order to start a cookstove, and it exploded. It appeared thereafter that the can had mistakenly been filled with gasoline. In a suit based on a claim of negligence, Sandanger won a verdict on a finding of negligence, which was challenged in the Supreme Court of Washington on the ground that the exclusively applicable maritime law did not afford relief by way of compensation for negligent injury of an employee. The Washington court held that an 541680 O-60-39 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. 362 U.S. injury caused by a negligently created unseaworthy condition was compensable, even when, under the rule laid down in The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, negligent injury without unseaworthiness would not be. 112 Wash. 480, 192 P. 1005. The matter was dealt with in this Court in the few lines innovating the rule of absolute liability: "we think the trial court might have told the jury that without regard to negligence the vessel was unseaworthy when she left the dock . . . and that if . one of the crew received damage as the direct result thereof, he was entitled to recover compensatory damages." 259 U. S., at 259. (The full text is quoted in the margin.') No explication accompanied this dogmatic pronouncement on an issue not presented by an issue of the affirmed judgment. It was strangely deemed sufficient to rely on the unelaborated citation of two cases in this Court (The Silvia, 171 U. S. 462, 464, and The Southwark, 191 U. S. 1, 8) which were concerned not with the rights of seamen but with the shipowner's liability for cargo damage. The abrupt, unreasoned conclusion was reached without benefit of argument: the parties had presented the case solely on the basis on which the action was instituted and in the terms in which it had been decided by the Supreme Court of Washington-liability founded on negligence. Neither our own investigation nor that of the parties here has disclosed a single case in an English or an American court prior to Sandanger in which the absolute duty to 1 "Considering the custom prevailing in those waters and other clearly established facts, in the present cause, we think the trial court might have told the jury that without regard to negligence the vessel was unseaworthy when she left the dock if the can marked 'coal oil' contained gasoline; also that she was unseaworthy if no life preservers were then on board; and that if thus unseaworthy and one of the crew received damage as the direct result thereof, he was entitled to recover compensatory damages." |