Fitzgerald v. American Trading & Production Corp.

As best I can fathom it from the record, the opinion and order of the Appellate Division dismissing the complaint proceeds on a misconception of the letter and spirit of maritime law.

To initiates in the law of the sea this is not a complex case. The plaintiff’s decedent, Carl P. Blume, master of a tanker owned by defendant was swept overboard in rough weather during a voyage across the Pacific from the United States to India. This action for wrongful death brought on theories of unseaworthiness and negligence, was anchored in the main on allegations that (1) on the day Blume lost his life the…