12. Personal Injuries.—
Passenger carriers by water are subject to the same general liabilities of carriers by land. The highest degree of care for the safety of the passenger is required of the ship and negligence is presumed where an injury is sustained on board. It is the duty of the vessel to protect its passengers from harm by reason of defects in construction or acts of the ship's company or other passengers. Actions for damages may be brought against the ship or the owner. An injured passenger is entitled to at least the same degree of care and attention that a member of the crew is and may have an additional claim if this is neglected. The cases exhibit a wide range of injuries on shipboard for which recoveries have been allowed; thus, where a sailor carelessly fell from the foretopmast upon a passenger, a libel was sustained; so where a passenger was thrown from his berth by the pitching of the ship in a storm, through absence of a protecting board; so for failure to accord to a passenger respectful treatment by the officers and crew; for failure properly to protect exposed parts of machinery and openings in the deck; failure to provide a sufficient supply of wholesome food; furnishing unsanitary drinking water; and, indeed, for the negligence of those conveying passengers to and from the ship or on excursion trips on shore when advertised as a part of the voyage in question. The ship is required to have a doctor on board for the care of passengers but, when due care has been exercised in his selection, there is no liability for his mistakes or negligence in his professional work.
Cases abound illustrative of these principles. For example the old cases of Behrens v. Furnessia, 35 Fed. 798, and the City of Panama, 101 U. S. 453, in both of which passengers were injured by falling down open hatchways, which were customarily kept closed, and the more modern case of Dempster Shipping Co. v. Pouppirt, 125 Fed. 732, where the plaintiff while on deck was struck by a beam which was being thrown overboard. In the two cases first mentioned plaintiffs recovered damages, it being considered that under the circumstances the ship was negligent in leaving open and unguarded hatchways which were customarily kept closed and over which passengers were accustomed to pass. In the case last cited plaintiff failed to recover because it appeared that he had voluntarily placed himself in dangerous proximity to boards that were being swung over the side. The law is quite fully reviewed in these cases. In the City of Panama, it was said:
Owners of vessels, engaged in carrying passengers, assume obligations somewhat different from those whose vessels are employed as common carriers of merchandise. Obligations of the kind in the former case are, in some few respects, less extensive and more qualified than in the latter, as the owners of the vessel carrying passengers are not insurers of the lives of their passengers, nor even of their safety; but in most other respects the obligations assumed are equally comprehensive and even more stringent....
Passengers must take the risk incident to the mode of travel which they select, but those risks in the legal sense are only such as the utmost care, skill and caution of the carrier, in the preparation and management of the means of conveyance are unable to avert.
In the case of Shipping Co. v. Pouppirt, the court quoted with approval the following language from Railway Co. v. Myers, 80 Fed. 361:
If a passenger of mature age leaves the place which he knows has been provided for him, and, without any occasion for so doing, or to gratify his curiosity, goes to another, where the dangers are greater, or places himself in a dangerous attitude, which he was not intended to assume, or if he disobeys any reasonable regulation of the carrier, it should be held that he assumes whatever increased risk of injury is incurred in so doing.