Pino v. Protection Maritime Insurance Company

Ernest Enos (defendant) owned insurance companies. Fourteen seamen (plaintiffs) alleged Enos blacklisted them from employment by demanding higher insurance premiums from the owners of vessels on which they worked, tortiously interfering with their employment rights. The seamen sued Enos in admiralty federal court. Enos required vessel owners to submit a settlement sheet listing every crew member after every fishing trip. If any seaman who created a special risk of loss was aboard, Enos increased the vessel owners’ premiums. This caused the high-risk seamen difficulty in securing employment. Enos testified he did not use objective criteria or statistical guidelines in setting premiums. The court found that Enos set premiums on a subjective, ad hoc basis. The court held that eight of the seamen were designated high risk not for legitimate risk-related reasons, but because they filed personal-injury claims against Enos. The court found that Enos purposefully disrupted employment relationships between the seamen and boat owners and that Enos knew the consequences of his practices for the seamen’s employment prospects. The court adopted the Restatement (First) of Torts § 766 in holding that Enos’s intentional tortious interference with the seamen’s employment relationships was not privileged. The court granted the seaman an injunction, which enjoined Enos from charging any additional premiums to vessel owners who employed any of the eight prevailing seamen and from refusing to insure any vessel that did not provide a settlement sheet. Enos appealed, claiming a legitimate purpose of covering his insurance risks. Enos argued the injunction prohibited him from raising the premiums for any of the eight prevailing seamen even for justified reasons. Enos also objected to the prohibition against requiring settlement sheets because it interfered with collecting information regularly used in assessing premiums for all seamen, not merely the eight prevailing seamen.