Becker v. Tidewater, Inc., 01-31420.

CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
Citation335 F.3d 376
Docket NumberNo. 01-31420.,01-31420.
PartiesSeth A. BECKER, Plaintiff-Intervenor Defendant-Appellee, v. TIDEWATER, INC., et al., Defendants, Tidewater Incorporated, Twenty Grand Offshore Incorporated, Tidewater Marine, L.L.C., Defendants-Third Party Plaintiffs-Intervenor Defendants-Appellees-Appellants, R&B Falcon Drilling USA, Inc., Pental Insurance Company, Ltd., Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's Insurance Co., Defendants-Appellants, Hydra Rig, a division of Tuboscope Vetco International, L.P., Defendant-Third Party Defendant-Third Party Plaintiff-Appellee, Hydradyne Hydraulics, Inc., Defendant-Third Party Defendant-Appellee, v. Coflexip Stena Offshore, Inc., Defendant-Third Party Defendant-Appellee, v. Baker Hughes, Inc., Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc., Defendants-Intervenor Defendants-Appellants, and Baker Oil Tools, Inc., a division of Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc., Defendant-Third Party Defendant-Intervenor Plaintiff-Third Party Plaintiff-Appellant, Baker Oil Tools, a division of Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc., Third Party Defendant-Appellant.
Decision Date19 June 2003

James Parkerson Roy (argued), Jamie D. Parker, Domengeaux, Wright, Roy & Edwards, Lafayette, LA, for Becker.

Cliffe E. Laborde, III (argued), James D'Arensbourg Hollier, Laborde & Neuner, Lafayette, LA, for Tidewater Inc., Twenty Grand Offshore, Inc., Tidewater Marine LLC, Pental Ins. Co., Ltd. and Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's Ins. Co.

Robert Emmett Kerrigan, Jr. (argued), Allen F. Campbell, Joseph Lee McReynolds (argued), Joseph Edward Lee, III, Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles, New Orleans, LA, for Baker Hughes Inc., Baker Oil Tools, Inc., Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. and Baker Oil Tools.

Douglas C. Longman, Jr. (argued), George Clifford Plauche', Perret Doise, Lafayette, LA, for Hydra Rig.

Paul Joseph Politz, Lynn Louise White, Taylor, Wellons, Politz & Duhe, New Orleans, LA, for Hydradyne Hydraulics, Inc.

Randall K. Theunissen, Arthur I. Robison, Allen & Gooch, Lafayette, LA, for Coflexip Stena Offshore Inc.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before BENAVIDES, STEWART, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Before the Court are a number of issues stemming from the horrific ordeal of Seth A. Becker, a young man catastrophically injured while at sea on a gravel-packing assignment at an offshore oil rig. In a lawsuit involving multiple defendants and causes of action, the jury sitting in the district court found for plaintiff, awarding him damages in excess of $43 million. A number of issues, the most significant of which being whether plaintiff is a seaman under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. app. § 688 (2000), are before this Court on appeal. Because we determine that plaintiff is not a Jones Act seaman, it is unnecessary to address all but one of the remaining issues. Accordingly, the matter must be, and is, remanded to the district court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

I.

This case concerns injuries sustained while at sea by plaintiff-appellee Seth A. Becker, a 22 year-old who had just finished the fourth year of a five-year program at Montana Tech University, where he was studying mechanical and petroleum engineering. For the summer of 1999, plaintiff accepted a full-time position working for defendant Baker Hughes, Inc. (Baker), as he had done the previous two summers.1

Plaintiff's internship began as the previous two had — plaintiff was assigned to land-based work. Specifically, Baker had planned that plaintiff engage and gain knowledge in a variety of areas over the course of the summer, including oil pumping, screen manufacturing for sand control, repairing fishing tools, and, apparently, foremost, learning directly from Baker's team of regional engineers. Of these activities, only the oil pumping assignments implicated vessels and boating. Still, despite Baker's largely land-based plan for plaintiff, a superior at Baker expressed hopefully that Baker would "try to get [plaintiff] out on a boat" at some point during the summer. Plaintiff spent the first two weeks of the internship working on land in Baker's shop, performing relatively basic tasks such as cleaning and checking equipment that had returned from the field. At a later point, plaintiff was offered the opportunity to observe a gravel-packing operation on a Vastar offshore fixed platform. Before this trip, plaintiff received some brief offshore safety and training information, which included videos, personal instructions, a written safety test, and water survival training. On the trip to the platform, plaintiff was a passenger, although he engaged in work for Baker upon arriving at the platform. As plaintiff returned from this trip, Baker determined that its technology vessel, the M/V REPUBLIC TIDE ("REPUBLIC TIDE") needed two workers to replace two members of the requisite six-person crew who had served at sea for an extended period of time and were in need of time off. Baker assigned plaintiff to the REPUBLIC TIDE, instructing him to "learn as much as you can." Despite plaintiff's intern status, the record reflects that he filled one of the required six positions on the REPUBLIC TIDE, engaged in real work while onboard, and was treated no differently than the other workers on the vessel.

The REPUBLIC TIDE was owned by defendant Tidewater, Inc., but had been time-chartered by Baker to service oil wells during gravel pack operations. Baker had used Tidewater's vessel as its offshore technology pumping vessel since November or December 1998 and had specially modified it, installing tanks, generators, pumps, and a high pressure winch system, which included a hydraulic power unit, reel, hydraulic piping, 300 feet of 6-1/2-inch steel coflex hose, and various other kinds of sophisticated equipment. This equipment, which was owned, operated, and maintained by Baker, permitted Baker to use the REPUBLIC TIDE for high pressure pumping operations competitive with those of other vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.

For this particular mission on the REPUBLIC TIDE, Baker scheduled a twelve-hour trip to the R&B Falcon/Cliffs Rig 153 ("Cliffs Rig 153"), located in the Gulf of Mexico and owned by defendant Cliffs Drilling Co. and operated by defendant R&B Falcon Drilling USA, Inc. (collectively "Falcon"). En route to Cliffs Rig 153, the master of the REPUBLIC TIDE and Tidewater employee, Captain Daniel Givens, provided plaintiff a minimal orientation, which took no more than fifteen minutes and consisted only of the general safety instructions — for instance, the location of life preservers and where to abandon ship.

Things began to go terribly wrong on the first day of the mission. When the REPUBLIC TIDE arrived at Cliffs Rig 153, the vessel was unable to drop anchor successfully and therefore its location had to be maintained using bow-thrusters, a fact of which plaintiff and the other crew members were not notified. To begin preparing for the gravel pack operation aboard the rig, the Baker employees, including plaintiff, unwrapped the REPUBLIC TIDE's coflex hose and ran it from the REPUBLIC TIDE to Cliffs Rig 153. Although the winch system to which the hose was connected had a component manufacturer-installed emergency disconnect function, the manner in which the hose had been unwrapped would prevent this mechanism from triggering. There was no other way to disconnect the hose quickly and the record reflects that senior employees of Baker, Tidewater, and Falcon all recognized this potential danger.

To perform work on the rig, the Baker crew was lifted in a basket up to the rig floor. Shortly thereafter, the REPUBLIC TIDE lost its bow-thrust and it became uncertain how long the vessel could hold its position. As a result, the coflex hose needed to be disconnected from the rig, and plaintiff and two other Baker employees were ordered to leave the rig floor and go to the main deck to perform this task. As plaintiff attempted to knock the coflex hose's connections loose, the REPUBLIC TIDE began to move.

Second-in-command on the REPUBLIC TIDE, Captain Steven Lachney, was at the helm as the vessel drifted. With the stern moored to the rig by two six-inch ropes, Captain Lachney saw the six-inch rope tied to the port stern snap. Without warning anyone, Captain Lachney powered the port engine in reverse and the starboard engine in forward, causing the six-inch rope tied to the starboard stern also to snap. This, in turn, caused the REPUBLIC TIDE to surge away from the rig, jerking the coflex hose tight and pinning plaintiff against the catwalk backstop. The REPUBLIC TIDE continued to swing in the strong current and the thick coflex hose, which had pinned plaintiff, began sawing through his legs to the point that they were almost entirely severed from his body. After sustaining this injury and losing nine pints of blood, plaintiff, who had remained conscious throughout the ordeal, was evacuated.

Plaintiff spent six weeks in the hospital, where he almost died. The parties stipulated that plaintiff's total medical bills — including those incurred during his hospital stay — amounted to $487,920.48. During the time at the hospital, plaintiff's legs were amputated below the knee, leaving a great deal of scar tissue. Furthermore, plaintiff endured bone infections and will require additional surgeries on his legs, potentially culminating with above-the-knee amputations, which will exacerbate plaintiff's condition considerably. As a result of this accident, plaintiff suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain disorder, depression, low self-esteem, phantom pain, stump pain, neuropsychological, psychological, and emotional problems, short-term memory loss, concentration problems,...

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