Cox v. Roth, 348 U.S. 207 (1955)

348 U.S.
207
75 S.Ct. 242
99 L.Ed. 260
Bessie B. COX and John G. Thompson, as Administrators of

the Estate of Sid Cox, Deceased, et al., Petitioners,
v.
Arthur ROTH, as Administrator of the Estate of James Dean,
Deceased.
No. 40.
Argued Nov. 16, 1954.
Decided Jan. 10, 1955.
Mr.
Douglas D. Batchelor, Miami, Fla., for petitioners.
Mr. Jacob Rassner, New York City, for respondent.
Mr. Justice CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The main question presented in this case is whether an action under the Jones
Act survives the death of the tortfeasor. In Nordquist v. United States Trust
Co., 188 F.2d 776, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit answered this
question in the affirmative. In the instant case the Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit answered it in the negative, but allowed recovery on the basis of state
law, 210 F.2d 76. We granted certiorari in order to resolve this conflict. 347
U.S. 1009, 74 S.Ct. 864.
Jim Dean was employed as a seaman on the M. V. Wingate, owned and

operated by Captain H. C. Farrington and Sid Cox, citizens of the United States
and residents of Florida. The Wingate sailed on or about December 22, 1949,
from Matanzas, Cuba, and while on the high seas foundered and was lost.
Captain Farrington's body was washed ashore on the Cuban coast, but no trace
was found of Dean or the vessel. Sid Cox died in January 1951 of causes
bearing no relation to the disaster.
In October 1952, the respondent, as the administrator of the estate of Jim Dean,
brought this action against the petitioners in the United States District Court for
the Southern District of Florida. The complaint, brought under the Jones Act,
41 Stat. 1007, 46 U.S.C. 688, 46 U.S.C.A. 688, alleged that Dean was a
member of the crew of the Wingate and had lost his life through the negligence
of its owners. The petitioners Cox and Thompson are the administrators of the
estate of Sid Cox, while Henrietta and Howard Farrington are the distributees
of H. C. Farrington. The estates of Cox and Farrington had been probated and
that of Farrington closed before this action was filed. Respondent filed no
notice of claim in either estate proceeding within the 8-month period required
by 733.16 of the Florida statutes, F.S.A.
The primary difficulty in this case stems from the fact that Congress, in passing
the Jones Act, did not specifically enumerate the rights of seamen, but merely
extended to them the same rights granted to railway employees by the Federal
Employers' Liability Act. While the latter Act contained no clause specifically
providing for the survival of actions against deceased tortfeasors, it did provide
that the claim of the employee could be prosecuted against 'the receiver or
receivers or other persons or corporations charged with the duty of the
management and operation of the business of a common carrier.' 35 Stat. 66, 45
U.S.C. 57, 45 U.S.C.A. 57. Since railroads are rarely, if ever, owned by
individuals, and since they are subject to various regulations which prevent
their discontinuing business, a clause permitting suit against the personal
representative of the individual owner of a railroad was unnecessary. See 41
Stat. 477, 49 U.S.C. 1(18), 49 U.S.C.A. 1(18). Congress fully provided for
the corporate analogues of death when it provided that suit might continue
against the receiver or successor corporation of the railroad. But where seamen
covered by the Jones Act work aboard vessels owned by individuals, literal
application of the words of the F.E.L.A. would result in the denial of recovery
against the personal representative of the tortfeasor. This, we feel, would
frustrate the congressional purpose of 'the benefit and protection of seamen who
are peculiarly the wards of admiralty.' The Arizona v. Anelich, 298 U.S. 110,
123, 56 S.Ct. 707, 711, 80 L.Ed. 1075. The Jones Act, in proving that a seaman
should have the same right of action as would a railroad employee, does not
mean that the very words of the F.E.L.A. must be lifted bodily from their
context and applied mechanically to the specific facts of maritime events.
Rather, it means that those contingencies against which Congress has provided
to ensure recovery to railroad employees should also be met in the admiralty
setting. Applying such a rule here, we conclude that Congress, having provided
that railroad employees could recover regardless of the 'survival' of the
tortfeasor railroad, intended that the death of the tortfeasor should not defeat
recovery under the Jones Act. As the Court said in Markham v. Cabell, 326
U.S. 404, 409, 66 S.Ct. 193, 195, 90 L.Ed. 165, 'The policy as well as the letter
of the law is a guide to decision. Resort to the policy of a law may be had to
ameliorate its seeming harshness or to qualify its apparent absolutes * * *. The
process of interpretation also misses its high function if a strict reading of a law
results in the emasculation or deletion of a provision which a less literal reading
would preserve.' The extreme harshness of the old common-law rule abating
actions on the death of the tortfeasor flies in the face of the expressed
congressional purpose to provide for 'the welfare of seamen.' The Jones Act 'As
welfare legislation * * * is entitled to a liberal construction to accomplish its
beneficent purposes.' Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. v. McAllister, 337 U.S. 783,
790, 69 S.Ct. 1317, 1321, 93 L.Ed. 1692. Since the decision here is confined to
an interpretation of the Jones Act, there is no need to consider the 'slender basis'
for the general admiralty rule against such survivorship of actions. See Just v.
Chambers, 312 U.S. 383, 387, note 4, 61 S.Ct. 687, 691, 85 L.Ed. 903.
Nevertheless, in considering the harshness of the rule sought to be imposed
under the Jones Act, we do note that advancing civilization and social progress
have brought 43 of our States to include in their general law the principle of the
survival of causes of action against deceased tortfeasors, and that such
recovery, rather than being exceptional, has now become the rule in almost
every common-law jurisdiction. See the discussion by Roscoe Pound on death
statutes as part of the general law, 13 NACCA L.J. 188189 (May 1954).
5
Petitioners make the further claim that even if the Jones Act is interpreted to
allow an action to proceed against the personal representatives of the
tortfeasors, this suit must fail because respondent did not comply with the
Florida statute governing the distribution of decedents' estates. The short
answer to this is that Congress, within its constitutional power, decreed a 3-year
statute of limitations uniformly throughout the Nation, Panama R. Co. v.
Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 392, 44 S.Ct. 391, 396, 68 L.Ed. 748, and no state
statute can diminish this period.
Affirmed.

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348 U.S.

Bessie B. COX and John G. Thompson, as Administrators of

Jim Dean was employed as a seaman on the M. V. Wingate, owned and

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