## Facts

- Oscar Matute, a Honduran seaman, worked as an oiler aboard the cargo vessel THE LLOYD BERMUDA.
- Procoast Navigation, a German corporation, owned the vessel and hired the captain and crew, including Matute.
- Lloyd Bermuda Lines, Ltd. (LBL), a Bermudan corporation, was the vessel’s exclusive time charterer; it used the cargo capacity and selected destinations but did not control navigation or the crew.
- Trans-Mar Agencies, Inc. (TMA), a New Jersey corporation, served as LBL’s general U.S. agent and handled logistical/administrative tasks.
- Matute developed a serious right-eye condition while aboard, complained to Procoast officers, and ultimately received treatment in Bermuda and New York, but suffered severe and permanent impairment.
- Matute alleged LBL and TMA failed to provide timely and adequate medical care, invoking Jones Act and general maritime theories (including maintenance and cure-related duties).
- After his employment ended, TMA arranged his return to Honduras.
- Matute’s earlier Jones Act maintenance-and-cure suit against Procoast was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
- Matute sued LBL and TMA in federal court; after roughly five months of discovery, the district court granted summary judgment for defendants, finding Matute’s remedy lay only against the owner.

## Issues

1. Whether a time charterer and its U.S. agent can be treated as the vessel’s owner pro hac vice or the seaman’s employer for Jones Act liability and related maritime duties.
2. Whether the record created a genuine dispute that the time charterer or its agent owed and breached a general maritime duty to provide or secure adequate medical care.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for LBL and TMA.
- LBL, as a time charterer without control of the vessel’s navigation or crew, was neither owner pro hac vice nor Matute’s employer for Jones Act purposes.
- TMA’s administrative and logistical activities did not establish an employment relationship with Matute.
- The record did not support that LBL or TMA assumed a maritime duty to provide or supervise medical care for Matute.
- On the undisputed charter structure and allocation of responsibilities, Matute’s recourse was against the vessel owner/employer, not the time charterer or its agent.

## Legal Principles

- A conventional time charter that leaves possession, navigation, and crew control with the owner does not make the charterer an owner pro hac vice or the seaman’s employer.
- Jones Act employment turns largely on the right to control the seaman’s work; administrative facilitation (paperwork, visas, travel arrangements) is insufficient without operational control.
- Duties such as maintenance and cure and provision of medical care ordinarily rest with the seaman’s employer/shipowner; a time charterer or agent bears such duties only if it expressly or impliedly assumes them.
- Summary judgment is appropriate where discovery reveals no evidence beyond a standard time-charter arrangement and no specific undertaking by the charterer or agent to provide medical care.

## Conclusion

The court held that a time charterer and its general agent were not liable under the Jones Act or general maritime law for a seaman’s medical-care claims when the owner retained control of the vessel and crew and the charterer and agent did not assume the shipowner’s crew-related duties.


Matute v. Lloyd Bermuda Lines, Ltd., 931 F.2d 231 (3d Cir. 1991)