Mortgage Mortgage Lender
252fmortgage Rate Mortagagemortgagelender F Kkkk44 Szh Archives Tag Com Mortgage Mortgage Lender 译网情深 - 打印此主题 - 爱我所爱——法律翻译
252fmortgage Rate Mortagagemortgagelender F Kkkk44 Szh Archives Tag Com Mortgage Mortgage Lender
(emphasis added)). Moreover, the purpose of the statute is to coerce the master or owner to promptly pay seamen's wages, unless there is sufficient cause for non-payment.
Rate nsearchssearchposearchtsearcho Archives Kkkk44 tsearch Archives oyubecaot Archives nsearchi Tag n Szh hsearcht
pe 252fmortgage a Rate tsearch searcha 252fmortgage esyubecaoae Archives nsearchtsearchrcsearchv Archives r Archives b 252fmortgage e 252fmortgage f Tag o Com tyubecaoesearchssearchlsearch r
c Kkkk44 e Rate s 252fmortgage un Rate es Rate t Rate e Rate oyubecaonyubecaorsearchh Mortagagemortgagelender s Szh a Com i 252fmortgage trsearchs Tag searchnsearcht Kkkk44 osearche Rate p 252fmortgage oce Archives d
w Tag e Rate s Kkkk44 a
esearch Tag ee Rate o Kkkk44 nsearchoc Rate 252fmortgage e
alsearchy 252fmortgage ag Com s Com lien, rsearchthsearchr Kkkk44 han wh Rate n Archives thesearchl Com ensearcha Kkkk44 t Rate c
esyubecao searchh Kkkk44 Mortagagemortgagelender an
r 252fmortgage l Szh e Archives he Mortagagemortgagelender v Archives ly Tag o Tag 252fmortgage hsearch searchu Kkkk44 reyubecaoe Tag o Tag r Kkkk44 & Rate 39
s Com o 252fmortgage i Tag i Com n isearch 
ol 252fmortgage ie Com Kkkk44 here, seamen sought to recover unpaid and penalty wages from sale proceeds. Because the delay in wages payment was "due to the insolvency of the owner and the arrest of the vessel, subject to accrued claims beyond its value", the Court held the seamen were not entitled to penalty wages because there was "sufficient cause" for the non-payment of earned wages. It reasoned:
The words "refuses or neglects to make payment ... without sufficient cause" connote, either conduct which is in some sense arbitrary or willful, or at least a failure not attributable to impossibility of payment. We think the use of this language indicates a purpose to protect seamen from delayed payments of wages by the imposition of a liability which is not exclusively compensatory, but designed to prevent, by its coercive effect, arbitrary refusals to pay wages, and to induce prompt payment when payment is possible. Hence we conclude that the liability is not imposed regardless of the fault of the master or owner, or his retention of any interest in the vessel from which payment could be made. It can afford no such protection and exert no coercive force where delay in payment, as here, is due to the insolvency of the owner and the arrest of the vessel, subject to accrued claims beyond its value. Together these obstacles to payment of wages must be taken to be a sufficient cause to relieve from the statutory liability.... Otherwise, it would not be imposed on the owner directly or through his interest in the ship, but only upon the lienors, who are neither within the letter nor the spirit of the statute.
That the liability is not incurred where the refusal to pay is in some reasonable degree morally justified, or where the demand for wages cannot be satisfied either by the owner or his interest in the ship, has been the conclusion reached with practical unanimity by the lower federal courts....
281 U.S. at 55-56 (citations omitted; emphasis added). The decisions referenced by Collie are discussed infra.
Because the owner's insolvency and the arrest of the vessel, taken together, were held in Collie to constitute sufficient cause for wages non-payment, the subsequent above-emphasized statement that, otherwise, the penalty would be imposed only on the lienors, is dictum. Moreover, the above-emphasized statement that "liability [for penalty wages] is not incurred ... where the demand for wages cannot be satisfied either by the owner or his interest in the ship", id. at 56, implies that liability for penalty wages is incurred when the wages demand can be satisfied either by the owner or his interest in the ship, i.e., when the owner does not have "sufficient cause" for non-payment of earned wages. All but one of the cases cited by Collie support that implication.(8)
Most of them held seamen were not entitled to recover penalty wages because the owner or master had sufficient cause for wages non-payment, or delay in payment. See Feldman v. American Palestine Line, Inc. (The President Arthur), 25 F.2d 1002, 1003 (S.D.N.Y. 1926); The Trader, 17 F.2d 623, 626 (E.D.S.C. 1926); The Acropolis, 8 F.2d 110, 110 (E.D.N.Y. 1923) (holding that owner's bankruptcy constituted sufficient cause for non-payment, but stating in dictum that, because "the intent of the statute is to punish the refusal or neglect of the master or owner, and is personal to them[,] therefore subsequent lienors should not have the fund to which they must look for payment depleted to pay a penalty which, if even properly allowable, should be paid by the master or owner" (emphasis added)); Villigas v. United States, 8 F.2d 300, 301 (E.D.N.Y. 1922); The Sentinel, 152 F. 564, 565 (E.D.N.Y. 1907); The Amazon, 144 F. 153, 155 (W.D. Wash. 1906); The Sadie C. Sumner, 142 F. 611, 612 (D. Mass. 1905); The Express, 129 F. 655, 656 (S.D.N.Y. 1904); The George W. Wells, 118 F. 761, 763 (D. Mass. 1902); The Alice B. Phillips, 106 F. 956, 956 (S.D.N.Y. 1901); The Gen. McPherson, 100 F. 860, 864 (D. Wash. 1900); The Wenonah, 29 F. Cas. 697, 701 (D. Me. 1875).
In others, because non-payment was held to be without sufficient cause, penalty wages were allowed; but none of those cases involved competing liens against vessel sale proceeds. See Gerber v. Spencer, 278 F. 886, 889-90 (9th Cir. 1922); Burns v. Fred L. Davis Co., 271 F. 439, 444 (1st Cir. 1921); Pacific Mail S.S. Co. v. Schmidt, 214 F. 513, 520 (9th Cir. 1914), rev'd, 241 U.S. 245 (1916); The City of Montgomery, 210 F. 673, 676 (S.D.N.Y. 1913). Cf. The Lake Galewood, 21 F.2d 987, 988-89 (D. Md. 1927) (although master and owner had sufficient cause for delay in payment, penalty wages allowed because wages were not tendered unconditionally), aff'd, 25 F.2d 1020 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 278 U.S. 637 (1928).
The only case cited in Collie that refused to allow penalty wages recovery from vessel sale proceeds, without relying on finding sufficient cause, is The Moshulu, 276 F. 35 (N.D. Cal. 1921). The court's order allowed penalty wages; but, on entry, the court had no knowledge of other outstanding liens against the proceeds. Thereafter, the court disallowed the penalty wages, stating:
[N]either the master nor the owner has any interest in the fund now in the registry of the court resulting from the sale of the vessel. To allow the penalties would be to transfer the burden thereof from the master and owner to the lienholders and the mortgagee. This I do not believe was ever contemplated, or intended, by Congress in enacting the statute in question.
Id. at 36. Thus, The Moshulu is the only case that supports the Bank's contention that, whether the owner has an interest in the sale proceeds is the determinative factor, not whether there was sufficient cause for wages non-payment when they became due.
The Collie dictum has been treated as persuasive in several cases. Nadle v. M.V. Tequilla, 1973 A.M.C. 909 (S.D.N.Y. 1973), held that, because the sale proceeds were less than the preferred ship mortgage lien, the penalty wages statute was "presumptively not applicable, for the burden would fall 'only upon the lienors who are neither within the letter nor the spirit of the statute'". Id. at 912 (quoting Collie, 281 U.S. at 56) (emphasis added). Nevertheless, the court held the penalty wages claims in abeyance, and referred the case to the magistrate judge to determine whether the owner was solvent when the vessel was arrested, stating:
It may be, of course, that if the shipowner is not insolvent recourse may be had against its other assets by the preferred ship mortgagee under his judgment in personam. In that event it may appear that the failure to pay wages was, indeed, "without sufficient cause" and that the remaining proceeds from the sale of the vessel would exceed the amount of the maritime liens making a portion available to the crew without imposing the penalty on the lienors.
The matter will, therefore, be referred to [the magistrate] to take evidence and report on the single issue of whether the owner ... was solvent at the time of arrest and now has available assets to satisfy the claim of [the mortgagee] and leave enough for a penalty on behalf of the wage claimants.
Id. (emphasis added).
And, George v. Kramo Ltd., 796 F. Supp. 1541 (E.D. La. 1992), citing Collie, held the equitable owner of a vessel, which was the parent corporation of the legal owner and the seaman's employer, was not liable for penalty wages. Id. at 1545-47. See also Schoenbaum, admiralty and Maritime Law, Vol. 1, § 6-4, at 248 (penalty wages statute places "obligations only on 'the master or owner' of a vessel, not other parties who may be involved such as lenders" (emphasis added)).
Several other post-Collie cases have refused to impose penalty wages liability on a party other than the owner or master. In Caldwell v. Solus Ocean Sys., Inc., 734 F.2d 1121 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1019 (1984), cited by the district court, a seaman brought an in personam action against his employer to recover penalty wages. Our court held that, because the employer was neither the owner nor master of the vessel on which the seaman served, he could not recover penalty wages from the employer. Id. at 1121. To the same effect is Sam v. Keystone Shipping Co., 913 F. Supp. 514 (S.D. Tex. 1996), in which a seaman filed an in personam action to recover penalty wages from his employer, which managed, for the vessel's owner, the vessel on which the seaman served. The court granted summary judgment for the employer, stating:
By its plain language, the penalty wage statute imposes liability only upon the vessel's owner or master. It does not impose liability upon the master's employer or the injured seaman's employer.... Accordingly, the [sued employer], who is neither the master nor the owner of the vessel, as a matter of law cannot be liable for penalty wages pursuant to ... the plain language of the statute.
Id. at 515-16 (emphasis added). Contra Smith v. Western Offshore, Inc., 590 F. Supp. 670, 674-77 (E.D. La. 1984) (seamen could not sue non-employer vessel owner in personam for wages, but were entitled to recover wages and penalty wages from their employer in personam).
In Caparelli v. Proceeds of Freight, 390 F. Supp. 1345 (S.D.N.Y. 1974), also cited by the district court, seamen asserted an in rem claim against freight proceeds and an in personam claim against the bank, which held a first preferred ship mortgage and was claimed to possess or control those proceeds; they also sought leave to amend their complaint to assert a penalty wages claim against the bank. Id. at 1347. In denying the requested amendment, the court stated:
[The bank] was not a master or owner, but a mortgagee. Plaintiffs concede that they have found no case in which liability for double wages has been applied to a mortgagee. Since there appears no basis on which to hold [the bank], as holder of a first preferred mortgage on each of the vessels, liable for penalty wages ..., [the seamen's] motions to amend ... are denied.
Id. at 1351 (emphasis added).(9)
As noted, the seamen maintain that, for determining whether their penalty wages lien can be enforced against the proceeds, the district court should have focused on whether Golden Lines had sufficient cause for wages non-payment when due. In support, they rely on the Supreme Court's most recent case concerning the penalty wages statute, Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564 (1982).
Griffin involved an in personam action by a seaman against the vessel owner, which was also his former employer. The district court found the owner's refusal to pay earned wages was without sufficient cause, but imposed the wages penalty only for the period of nonpayment during which the seaman was unemployed.
The Supreme Court stated that the statute provided for payment of the wages penalty upon satisfaction of two conditions:
First, the master or owner must have refused or failed to pay the seaman his wages within the periods specified. Second, this failure or refusal must be "without sufficient cause." Once these conditions are satisfied, however, the unadorned language of the statute dictates that the master or owner "shall pay to the seaman" the sums specified "for each and every day during which payment is delayed."
Id. at 570 (emphasis in original). The Court thus concluded that district courts have no discretion to limit the period during which the penalty is assessed, and that its imposition is mandatory for each day of delay unless further delay is justified by sufficient cause. Id. at 574-75 & n.9, 577. Accordingly, the seaman recovered over $300,000 for the owner's delay in paying but $412.50 in wages. Id. at 574-75.
Griffin is not particularly helpful in resolving the issues in this case, because, unlike the present in rem action, it was an in personam action against the vessel owner. Moreover, unlike the case at hand, it did not involve competing liens against sale proceeds insufficient to satisfy those liens.
Based on the facts at hand, and our exhaustive review of the statutes and related jurisprudence, the district court held correctly that the penalty wages statute's plain language precludes enforcement of the penalty wages liens at issue against the sale proceeds. The statute imposes liability for such wages only on the vessel master or owner. Its purpose is to coerce them to promptly pay seamen's wages. When, as here, sale proceeds are insufficient to satisfy all of the liens against the vessel, the owner has no interest in those proceeds. Therefore, because it
h252fmortgage Rate Mortagagemortgagelender F Kkkk44 Szh Archives Tag Com Mortgage Mortgage Lender 译网情深 - 打印此主题 - 爱我所爱——法律翻译o Mortgage Mortgage Lender
x252fmortgage Rate Mortagagemortgagelender F Kkkk44 Szh Archives Tag Com Mortgage Mortgage Lender 译网情深 - 打印此主题 - 爱我所爱——法律翻译e y Mortgage Mortgage Lender Mortgage Mortgage Lender