Laws were changed a few decades ago for truck drivers. If a trucker with a CDL cooks his books, exceeds his allowed work hours, drives under the influence etc & causes an accident that results in a fatality he will be treated differently by the criminal courts than how an average joe pulling an all nighter trying to get home in a Subaru hatchback. The additional training, tests & licensure the CDL driver goes through says he hold extra responsibilities as a professional driver. It’s like the Good Samaritan laws with CPR/First Aide. An average Joe is protected by them because he isn’t a trained, licensed professional. Once you become a trained, licensed professional who charges for your services you should be held to a higher standard IMO. If a nurse gets drunk, gives a patient the wrong injection causing a death then they are criminally negligent. If you’re drunk & incorrectly give someone CPR resulting in a persons condition to get worse then oh well, at least you tried. We should hold RN’s to a higher standard than unemployed fishing buddies.
We don’t know because we don’t have all the facts.
Not exactly consistent with a previous post:
Kennebec_Captain Super Moderator
I get what your saying here with regards to no advice but the captain is not really making all the decisions. He’s operating the boat to meet requirements of the company. It’s the company that controls what the boat is doing in general.
I agree with that statement 100%. But what if, for example, the facts are that the company is on the record making it very clear that the captain was required to follow the COI?
Professional mariners are likewise held to a higher standard but it’s not because of the Seaman’s Manslaughter Act.
It’s highly doubtful when there is a clear indication that ignoring the COI was part of the company culture by encouraging passengers to board the boats moored next to the office the night prior to departure with no crew in sight, an obvious breach. The captains went along with it but it’s evident that it was a management decision.
This is true. Medical care providers, school teachers, mental health workers & daycare workers are held to a higher standard too. It isn’t because of the “abuse by a caregiver” laws either. It’s just an additional criminal charge for those who choose not to met those higher standards. I’m glad we have special “abuse by a caregiver” laws for criminal caregivers.
Mariners face similar laws aimed at specific acts. Laws regarding oil spills for example.
a busted hip and pelvis and had to stay aboard? and dies 10 days after the operation in a hospital , gads.
i suppose the theory about how much justice one ‘‘can afford’’ comes up also.
i wonder what the mate reading the newspaper thought when the ferry hit the dock? how could he not miss the helm falling asleep?
I was in bed when a slight diesel discharge occurred during refueling in the “River”. Going home crew change day. Although later dismissed, a fucking nightmare for a time. The dock operator opened the valve before my engineers had completed the hookup. I backed my guys up. Marathon Oil cat’s golfed with me until this incident. No regrets. Ate a lot of crawfish at the tournaments they supported.
The Smithsonian channel has a documentary series titled Disasters at Sea with fairly good production values. It shows the other mate with his face buried in a newspaper sitting far to the back of the wheelhouse. He doesn’t appear to be paying attention to anything else. The helmsman may have closed his eyes while standing or if he fell, the sound may have been drowned out by engine noise. It’s a reenactment based on testimony but only people who were on the bridge that day know for sure.
Smithsonian channel is awesome. Watched the “Bow Mariner” incident just this week. could be wrong about the name, Bow Transporter was sistership. Nasty explosion , loss of life, and sinking off the Virginia coast due to improper cleaning of empty wing tanks. New 3rd reluctantly opened all wing tanks under orders from the captain. 1805, darkness required lights on deck. Immediate ignition, That was a case for negligence and manslaughter.
I don’t have a good understanding of legal theory so I can’t really articulate why the law treats civil liability differently then criminal liability or how the line is drawn.
However I don’t think the case has been made as to why this line needs to be drawn for other professions but not for seaman or why mariners require more criminal liability to do their jobs.
That line may be somewhat fuzzy depending on circumstances and the severity of the neglect and its effects. The seaman’s law came into existence in a different era and may not survive the current century.
Some modern commentators have suggested that the peculiar features of maritime limitation of liability have outlived their usefulness, and that the development of insurance and of the modern limited-liability company has radically altered the conditions out of which the shipowners’ privilege originally grew. Although no maritime country has yet gone to the length of abolishing limitation of liability, shipowning interests appear to have become concerned about the possibility of such a development.
This is not about a higher standard, it’s about setting the bar lower for what is a crime.
Should other professions change the laws so that all incidents that caused a death but previously would have been found to be civil negligence now become criminal?
I don’t think so. The lawyer who prosecuted the mate of the M/V Caribbean Sea described it pretty good in the gcaptain article in 2011.
"“Those who operate transport vessels on our waterways have a clear duty to ensure that proper sightlines are maintained at all times, and to obey all other rules of seamanship, so that the risks to others on the water are minimized,” said Memeger. “When that duty is breached and causes death, the Seaman’s Manslaughter Statute allows the federal government to seek criminal sanctions against the vessel operator.”
We’re not making pizzas, mopping office building floors or laying shingles, we’re operating giant floating pieces of metal that can blow up a city block & knock down the world’s largest bridges. We’re given licenses from the government saying we are professionals who can meet these high standards. If it were only mariners who had specific criminal laws aimed at us I would feel we were being singled out but we’ve already agreed other professional have their own safety standards to meet or face their own specific criminal charges.
The Seaman’s Manslaughter Act doesn’t have any professional standards.
Maybe it’s, “Don’t be so negligent that you kill somebody”? Or at least don’t be so negligent that calling the deaths unpreventable, an “accident” or an “act of God” pisses people off & makes them mad at you?
That’s the whole point. It’s a bedrock principle of law that higher levels of negligence deserves more severe punishment. The Act doesn’t follow that principle.
I perceive the act as unfair because it only applies to seamen.
The problem with the reduced requirement of negligence.
If I forget my glasses. I have neglected to bring my glasses.
Negligence can be simply having forgotten something. Or forgotten to do something.
Criminal negligence is not simply having forgotten or made a mistake.
It is some kind of gross negligence.
The example given of the pilot who chose not to disclose his medication which was a cause of an accident.
Most people would agree this was Gross negligence. He intentionally covered up his condition and medication the result of this easily foreseeable.
Some one who forgotten to take some medication and had an accident.
Has also neglected to take medication.
Would a reasonable person consider this to be criminal?
In any other industry this would not meet the requirements for a criminal act.
Negligence includes a lot of things many of us would regard a mistake or error.
I don’t know anyone who has never made an error.
Gross negligence is a much higher test.
I don’t think any of us would suggest seamen should be immune from charges of gross negligence.
Which is required for other people.
So you guys who don’t like the Seamen Manslaughter Act, what do you think the tugboat mate on his electronics in the lower wheelhouse, the lying ferry boat pilot & negligent diveboat skipper who killed all those people deserve to be charged with? For me, their guilt is pretty obvious & having a law specific for mariners who commit manslaughter keeps it pretty simple.
Also, do you guys have a problem with all criminal charges aimed at all individual professional industries or just the Seaman’s Manslaughter Act? It never hurt my feeling any when a CNA was given the extra criminal charge of “abuse by a caregiver” on top of “assault” when they were caught on video beating up an elderly person in their care.