Sentilles v. Inter-Caribbean Shipping Corp./Concurrence Stewart

Mr. Justice STEWART, concurring.

Cases like this, I am firmly convinced, do not belong in this Court. To review individualized personal injury cases, in which the sole issue is sufficiency of the evidence, seems to me not only to disregard the Court's proper function, but also to deflect the Court's energies from the mass of important and difficult business properly here. All this has been elaborated in extenso by others, and there is no point in repeating or paraphrasing their words. Suffice it to note that I agree with who they have said. See, e.g., Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 524, 77 S.Ct. 443, 459, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (dissenting opinion); Dick v. New York Life Ins. Co., 359 U.S. 437, 447, 79 S.Ct. 921, 927, 3 L.Ed.2d 935 (dissenting opinion).

Yet under our rule, when four members of the Court vote to grant a petition for certiorari, the case is taken. If this rule is not to be frustrated, I can, as presently advised, see no escape from the duty of considering a case brought here on the merits, unless considerations appear which were not apprehended at the time certiorari was granted. In short, on this score I agree with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 559, 77 S.Ct. 443, 478 (dissenting opinion). See Mr. Chief Justice Stone's concurring opinion in Bailey v. Central Vermont R. Co., 319 U.S. 350, at page 358, 63 S.Ct. 1062, at page 1066, 87 L.Ed. 1444.

Upon an independent review of the record in this case, I concur in the result.