Seamen have traditionally been regarded as ‘wards’ of the admiralty court and often treated with the tenderness of a guardian.1 As a ‘protected’ class, seamen have been afforded remedies in the most bizarre circumstances, from jumping out a brothel window ashore, to taking a fall while cavorting in a shoreside dance hall. A seaman who was accidentally shot by another seaman aboard ship, however, did not fare so well.
The seafaring life is not easy. Seamen spend weeks or months at sea and sometimes have only hours ashore to enjoy some of life’s simple pleasures that may otherwise be unavailable aboard ship. The seaman’s proclivities ashore are well documented by even the most unlikely of sourcesstate and federal judges. Courts historically have used such terms as “poor and friendless” and apt to acquire “habits of gross indulgence, carelessness and improvidence”2 to describe seamen and not condemn behavior that might be unacceptable in other walks of life.
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