Foster v. Destin Trading Corp.

I dissent from the majority opinion because I believe that the vessel in question was indeed unseaworthy. Plaintiff is entitled to recover a mitigated amount of damages due to his own negligence in helping to create the unseaworthy condition.

*830The majority properly points out that the nature of the duty owed by a vessel owner to furnish a seaworthy vessel is-absolute and nondelegable. Moreover, a determination of a shipowner’s liability for the unseaworthiness of its vessel is completely divorced from the concepts of negligence and independent of its duty under the Jones Act to exercise…