Bible v. Chevron Oil Company, Civ. A. No. 68-382.

• Decision Date: 30 December 1969
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 68-382.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
• Parties: James H. BIBLE, Plaintiff, v. CHEVRON OIL COMPANY, the California Company Division, & American Chain and Cable Company, Inc., Wright Hoist Division, Defendants.

308 F. Supp. 312

James H. BIBLE, Plaintiff, v. CHEVRON OIL COMPANY, the California Company Division, & American Chain and Cable Company, Inc., Wright Hoist Division, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 68-382.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

December 30, 1969.

John R. Martzell, Kenneth W. Manuel, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff.

Henry D. McNamara, Jr., of Mouton, Roy Carmouche & Hailey, Metairie, La., for defendant, American Chain & Cable Co., Inc.

RUBIN, District Judge:

On August 17, 1966, James Bible, an employee of Houma Welders, Inc., was working as a welder's helper on a fixed platform located in the Gulf of Mexico about one mile offshore from Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. An opening in the deck of the platform near its southeast corner was being decked and that part of the structure was being reinforced with ten inch steel beams to support a compressor. Bible was standing near the opening, holding one end of a rope; the other end was tied to a beam being lowered by him and his co-workers into place in the opening. It is contended that a mechanical device, known as a come-along, which was being used in lowering the beam, failed, the beam fell, and Bible was jerked by the rope. He collided with a co-worker, and both fell through the opening. Bible fell about fifty feet from the platform deck to the water below. Before striking the water he struck a metal brace that formed a part of the platform's substructure. The brace projected from the platform into the water but the portion that the plaintiff struck was not submerged. As a result of the fall Bible suffered fractures of his left leg and hip area.

Suit was filed against Chevron Oil Company, the owner of the platform, and American Chain and Cable Company, Inc., (American Chain), the manufacturer of the come-along, for damages based on maritime tort, on February 26, 1968. American Chain has filed a motion to dismiss and for summary judgment on the basis that the suit is a non-maritime diversity suit controlled entirely by Louisiana law and the one-year Louisiana prescriptive period, LSA-C.C. Art. 3536, applies; hence the action must be dismissed.

The accident happened about one mile from the Louisiana coast in Louisiana waters; therefore the provisions of the Submerged Lands Act relative to the Outer Continental Shelf do not apply. 43 U.S.C. §§ 1301, 1331, 1333(a).¹ Compare, Pure Oil Company v. Snipes, 5 Cir. 1961, 293 F.2d 60 where a similar accident occurred on a fixed platform located 65 miles off the Louisiana coast and the court found the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1333(a), applicable.

The plaintiff contends that admiralty rules, including the doctrine of laches, apply here because "the accident and injury culminated in the navigable waters of the Gulf of Mexico." But this statement misapprehends the criterion to be applied.

A tort is maritime and therefore falls within the admiralty jurisdiction only if "the substance and consummation of the injury that gave rise to the cause of action took place upon navigable water." The Plymouth, 1865, 70 U.S. (3 Wall.) 20, 35, 18 L.Ed. 125. "The whole, or at least the substantial cause of action, arising out of the wrong, must be complete within the locality upon which the jurisdiction depends — on the high seas or navigable waters." 70 U.S. (3 Wall.) at 36. This is the general rule applied to injuries involving several jurisdictions reported by the Restatement of Conflicts, § 377, which states:

"The place of wrong is in the state where the last event necessary to make an actor liable for an alleged tort takes place."

Explaining this rule the Note to it, Restatement of Conflicts, page 455, observes:

"Except in the case of harm from poison, when a person sustains bodily harm, the place of wrong is the place where the harmful force takes effect upon the body.

"Such a force is first set in motion by some human being. It is quite immaterial in what state he set the force in motion. It must alone or in cooperation with other forces harm the body of another. The person harmed may thereafter go into another state and die from the injury or suffer other loss therefrom. The place where this last event happens is also immaterial. The question is only where did the force impinge upon his body."²

This appears to be a correct statement of the rule usually applied in tort law. It is apparently the rule applied to a landwater accident in the Supreme Court decision in T. Smith & Son v. Taylor, 1928, 276 U.S. 179, 48 S.Ct. 228, 72 L.Ed. 520. That case concerned a decedent who was standing on a piece of equipment resting solely on the wharf, an extension of land, when he was struck by a sling loaded with cargo, and knocked into the water. Some time later he was found dead. Suit was brought under the Louisiana Compensation Law exclusively for the death that occurred in the water; no claim was made for the injuries sustained on the wharf. The Court held that the cause of action arose on land and state law was applicable,³ saying:

"Plaintiff in error argues that as no claim was made for injuries sustained while deceased was on land and as the suit was solely for death that occurred in the river, the case is exclusively within the admiralty jurisdiction. But this is a partial view that cannot be sustained. The blow by the sling was what gave rise to the cause of action. It was given and took effect while deceased was upon the land. It was the sole, immediate and proximate cause of his death. The G. R. Booth, 171 U.S. 450, 460, 19 S.Ct. 9, 43 L.Ed. 234. The substance and consummation of the occurrence which gave rise to the cause of action took place on land. The Plymouth, supra." 276 U.S. at 182, 48 S.Ct. at 229.

Conversely, when a disembarking passenger fell from a gang plank to a dock, the passenger's cause of action was held to be maritime. The Admiral Peoples, 1935, 295 U.S. 649, 55 S.Ct. 885, 79 L.Ed. 1633. The cause of action, that case said, "arose from the breach of duty owing to her while she was still on the ship and using its facility for disembarking." 295 U.S. at 652, 55 S.Ct. at 887.

The "place of harmful force on the body" rule had earlier been applied in The Strabo, E.D.N.Y.1898, 90 F. 110, affirmed, 2 Cir. 1900, 98 F. 998, where a ladder that was not properly secured to a ship's rail fell and libelant was thrown to the dock as he attempted to leave the vessel. Admiralty jurisdiction was sustained, the court observing:

"If a seaman, by the master's neglect, should fall overboard, would this court entertain jurisdiction if the seaman fell in the water, and decline jurisdiction if he fell on the dock or other land? The inception of a cause of action is not usually defined by such a rule. * * * The act or omission which puts in force the primary hurtful agency does not constitute the cause of action; for, until such force takes effect injuriously upon the person * * * of some one, there is a mere naked breach of duty, and the case is damnum absque injuria; but, where the breach of duty puts in motion agencies that come in actual injurious collision with the person * * * of another to whom the duty was due, the cause of action at once arises, and the locality of the tort is fixed, however much the physical injury may be aggravated by subsequent occurrences, which may be regarded as continuations of the original wrongful act, and its immediate operation, and in a sense as incidents thereof." 90 F. at 113.⁴

In affirming the District Court in that case the Circuit Court of Appeals said:

"The cause of action originated and the injury had commenced on the ship, the consummation somewhere being inevitable. It is not of vital importance to the admiralty jurisdiction whether the injury culminated on the stringpiece of the wharf or in the water." 98 F. at 1000.

A similar principle was applied by the Fifth Circuit many years ago in L'Hote v. Crowell, 5 Cir. 1931, 54 F.2d 212, when a longshoreman who had been working on a wharf putting bales in a sling climbed into the sling on the last load to board the vessel and was fatally injured when the sling hit the rail or side of the ship knocking him off the load back onto the wharf. The court held that he had finished his work on the wharf and was under the control of an instrumentality of the ship. Similarly, when a longshoreman working on the deck of a vessel was struck by a swinging hoist and thrown onto a wharf, the cause of action was held to be maritime. Minnie v. Port Huron Terminal Co., 1935, 295 U.S. 647, 55 S.Ct. 884, 79 L.Ed. 1631.

The Restatement rule is cited and applied in Jordan v. States Marine Corporation of Delaware, 9 Cir. 1958, 257 F.2d 232. There the wife of a seaman brought suit against the shipowner for a maritime injury to her husband, claiming loss of consortium and sexual intercourse. Her husband had signed a release but she had not, and she set forth her right under the law of her domicile, Oregon, to recover for loss of consortium. Her contention was, "`the injury she sustained was in the State of Oregon, the place of the parties' marital domicile, which granted her a substantive right to recover for interference with her consortium by third parties.'" 257 F.2d at 233 (Emphasis in original).

Mrs. Jordan cited and relied on the Restatement. But the court construed the "last event" to mean "the last act on board the vessel causing the injury to the husband." 257 F.2d at 233.

Thus analyzed it is clear that the tort that serves as a basis for Bible's claim was a platform tort, governed by the law of the platform. This was Louisiana law because the platform was in...