Yes, the court must use the special sea law rules. Mr. Hawn was injured on a ship in a U.S. waterway, so this is a 'sea law' case. Sea law has its own, fairer rule about fault: instead of getting nothing if you're partly to blame, the court just reduces your winnings by how much you were to blame. It would be unfair if you won or lost simply based on which courtroom you filed your case in. Also, since Hawn was doing a job sailors traditionally do to prepare a ship for a voyage, he deserves the same special legal protection sailors get, which requires the shipowner to provide a safe ship.

No, the court should have used the state's rules. Hawn's lawyer filed the case as a regular lawsuit under Pennsylvania state law. In Pennsylvania, if you're at all to blame for your accident, you lose. The court shouldn't be allowed to mix and match rules from different legal systems. Besides, Hawn wasn't a sailor; he was a carpenter hired to *fix* the ship. A shipowner shouldn't have to promise a ship is safe to the very person they hired to make it safe.

Yes, sea law rules apply, but the court should have stopped after deciding just one thing. The jury found that the ship was unsafe ('unseaworthy'), and under sea law, that's enough for Mr. Hawn to win. The court didn't need to discuss all the other legal reasons he could win. By talking about negligence, the main opinion created confusion about other complicated legal questions that weren't necessary to decide the case.

Yes, he can still get money. Old rules that would stop him from getting any money just because he was also careless don't work for boat cases. We look at each case to decide how much fault each person has and reduce the money accordingly. Also, it doesn't matter that Hawn wasn't a regular sailor - he was doing work that sailors usually do, so he gets the same protection. The ship owners have to make sure the ship is safe for everyone doing sailor-type work, not just actual sailors. And we use special boat laws for this, not regular state laws.

No, he shouldn't get money. This decision mixes up different types of laws in a confusing way. Hawn was careless, and the laws of Pennsylvania, where he got hurt, say that should stop him from getting money. Also, it's not fair to treat Hawn like a sailor when he's not one. Sailors have a much tougher job with more risks, and that's why they get special protection. We shouldn't give the same protection to people who just come on the ship to do repairs.

Yes, he should get money, but I'm not sure about all the reasons. I agree that Hawn can get money because the ship wasn't safe, which is a special rule for boats. But I'm not sure if we should also say he can get money because the owners weren't careful. That's a complicated question that we don't need to answer right now. We should be careful not to make too many new rules without thinking about them more.

Yes. Federal maritime law, including its comparative negligence rule, governs a maritime tort claim, and state law cannot deprive a person of substantial admiralty rights. Hawn was injured on navigable waters while working on a ship, making his action a maritime tort which is under the dominant control of federal law. The common-law rule of contributory negligence is incompatible with modern admiralty practice, which uses a more flexible rule of comparative negligence that mitigates damages. Applying Pennsylvania's rule would frustrate the equal justice principle of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins by making a litigant's substantive rights dependent on whether the case is filed on the 'law side' or 'admiralty side' of the federal court. The Court also reaffirmed Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, holding that the warranty of seaworthiness extends to workers like Hawn who perform tasks traditionally done by seamen and are essential to the ship's voyage, regardless of their specific job title.

No. Because Hawn brought his suit on the law side of the federal court based on diversity of citizenship, the law of Pennsylvania should govern the tort claim. Under Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, federal courts in diversity cases must apply state substantive law. Pennsylvania law at the time held that contributory negligence was a complete bar to recovery, which the jury found Hawn guilty of. The majority's decision improperly scrambles common-law negligence principles with admiralty doctrines. Furthermore, extending the warranty of seaworthiness to a repairman employed by an independent contractor is an illogical expansion of precedent; a shipowner should not have to warrant a ship's seaworthiness to the very person hired to make it seaworthy.

Yes. The judgment should be affirmed, but solely on the basis of the unseaworthiness claim, to which federal maritime law clearly applies. The jury made a separate finding that the ship was unseaworthy, and under admiralty law, contributory negligence only mitigates damages rather than barring recovery. This is a federally created right, making state law irrelevant under Erie. The Court's opinion goes too far by deciding the separate negligence claim, which raises a difficult and unnecessary question of whether the Sieracki decision, which granted longshoremen seamen's unseaworthiness rights, also intended for them to retain a right to sue for negligence—a right which seamen themselves lacked against shipowners before the Jones Act.

Yes. The harsh rule of common law under which contributory negligence wholly barred an injured person from recovery is incompatible with modern admiralty policy and practice. Admiralty has developed a more flexible rule allowing consideration of contributory negligence in mitigation of damages as justice requires. The rights of an injured person on navigable waters are determined by federal maritime law, not state law, even when the injury occurs within a state's territorial waters. The warranty of seaworthiness extends to longshoremen and harbor workers performing work traditionally done by seamen, as established in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki. Hawn's need for protection from unseaworthiness was neither more nor less than that of stevedores or seamen working on the ship. The fact that Sieracki upheld the right of workers like Hawn to recover for unseaworthiness does not justify an argument that the Court thereby eliminated their long-recognized right to recover in admiralty for negligence.

No. This decision confuses maritime law with common and statutory tort law, undermining the integrity of maritime law as a separate system. The plaintiff's contributory negligence under Pennsylvania law, where the injury occurred, should bar recovery. The expansion of the warranty of seaworthiness to include individuals like Hawn, who are not seamen, is unjustified. There is a sharp differentiation between the rights of seamen and harbor workers, based on differences in risk and working conditions. Congress preserved this distinction when it enacted the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. Extending the warranty of seaworthiness to a repair crew working for an independent contractor is illogical and without precedent.

Yes, but with reservations. While affirming the judgment based on unseaworthiness, it is unnecessary to decide whether Hawn could also recover for negligence. The right of seamen to recover for unseaworthiness is peculiarly a cause of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins is irrelevant in that unseaworthiness is a federally created right. The decision in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, which extended the right to recover for unseaworthiness to longshoremen, raises doubts about whether longshoremen can still recover against a shipowner for negligence. This complex question should not be decided prematurely without mature submissions by counsel.

Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn

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