Martha Jordan v. States Marine Corporation of Delaware, a Corporation

Mrs. Jordan, a citizen of Oregon, appeals from a summary judgment dismissing before trial her complaint in a diversity suit against appellee, a Delaware ship-owning corporation, hereafter States Marine. Her complaint seeks recovery for loss of consortium and sexual intercourse resulting from the injury to her sailor husband caused by the States Marine’s negligence on the high seas on a voyage from California to Japan while he was a seaman employed on its steamship Cotton State, she then being in Oregon, the place of their marital domicile.

For purposes of the summary judgment ordering dismissal it is assumed that States Marine was negligent and that its negligence was the proximate cause of the damage to Mrs. Jordan. It is stipulated that the injured seaman, Johnnie Jordan recovered the sum of $12,666.75 plus costs in an action in the Oregon State Courts under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688 and that he has received $14,000.00 in return for signing a full release of any and all additional claims he may have against States Marine arising out of the same injury.

It is not claimed that the above judgment or the above release affects the rights of Mrs. Jordan to recover for damage…