Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation v. Matherne
| Decision Date | 25 June 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 21105.,21105. |
| Citation | 348 F.2d 394 |
| Parties | JONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORPORATION and Insurance Company of North America, Appellants, v. Eustace J. MATHERNE et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Carl J. Schumacher, Jr., Lemle & Kelleher, Dermot S. McGlinchey, David L. Campbell, New Orleans, La., for appellants.
Jack W. Thompson, Jr., Jacob J. Meyer, New Orleans, La., Ted J. Borowski, Houma, La., Gerard M. Dillon, John V. Baus, Francis J. Mooney, Jr., Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre, New Orleans, La., for appellees, Clark Equipment Co. and Liberty Mut. Ins. Co.
Before RIVES, Circuit Judge, and CHRISTENBERRY and MORGAN, District Judges.
Eustace J. Matherne was a carpenter-foreman employed in the building of a high school at Houma, Louisiana. On September 7, 1960, he was struck on the head by a falling boom of a Michigan T-20 crane and was horribly injured. This action was originally filed in June 1961 to recover damages for his personal injuries, but death from the injuries and ensuing complications intervened in March 1963. His widow and nine children were substituted as parties plaintiff.
The falling boom had been released by the fracture or cracking of a "Jal Klamp" fitting on one of its pendant lines supporting the boom. The action was brought against Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, the manufacturer of the Jal Klamp, and against Clark Equipment Company1 from whom Matherne's employer had purchased the pendant line and affixed Jal Klamp in May 1959.
At the end of a three-day trial, which impresses us as a model of skill and ability on the part of the district judge and of all the trial counsel, the jury returned a special verdict as follows:
The judgment entered on the verdict was for damages totaling $215,900, but there is no suggestion that the amount was excessive. There being no complaint as to the judgment in favor of the defendant Clark Equipment Company and its insurer, the appeal as to them has been dismissed. Jones & Laughlin and its insurer contend that there is no sufficient evidence to support the jury's findings that Jones & Laughlin was negligent and that its negligence was the proximate cause of the accident. In the alternative, they insist that the district court committed reversible errors in the admission of evidence and in its charge to the jury.
The evidence was without dispute that the Jal Klamp was manufactured by Jones & Laughlin, that the fracture or cracking of the Jal Klamp allowed the boom to fall, that the boom struck Matherne, and that the resultant injuries ultimately caused his death. The only matters in dispute were whether the breaking of the Jal Klamp was the result of negligence in its manufacture, and whether Matherne was guilty of contributory negligence which proximately caused the accident.
The Jal Klamp is a mechanical splice made of aluminum alloy, cold-pressed upon wire rope to hold a loop in the rope. Jones & Laughlin obtained the aluminum alloy from its suppliers in oval shapes into which the alloy had been formed by the aluminum producer through a process called extrusion.2 The aluminum alloy is put in stock at Jones & Laughlin's factory in Muncie, Indiana. As orders come in for Jal Klamp fittings, the proper size of oval is taken out by one of the employees to correspond with the size of wire rope to be used. The wire rope is wrapped around an eye or thimble, and inserted with the oval properly placed into a hydraulic press. Under tremendous pressure, three hundred to five hundred tons, the aluminum alloy is cold-formed into and through the strands of the wire rope so that the aluminum alloy which was in the shape of an oval becomes in the shape of a cylinder, approximately four inches long, completely enclosing the loose end of the rope and forming a mechanical splice to complete the loop. Both ends of the rope or of the pendant line are then subjected to a proof test of approximately double the load for which the pendant line is intended. After the proof test the pendant line and affixed Jal Klamp are again visibly inspected.
From the time Matherne's employer purchased the crane in December 1958 and from the time of its purchase of the ten foot pendant line in May of 1959 to the time of the tragic accident, only one person had been permitted to operate the crane, one Bryant Smith. Mr. Smith testified that in the cab of the crane there appeared a schedule of limiting capacities of rated loads with which the crane can be safely operated, and that he had never exceeded the rated loads shown on that chart.
Those capacities are determined at eighty-five per cent of tipping load.3 The safety factor in the Jones & Laughlin pendant lines and affixed Jal Klamp is 5 to 1; that is, the line should not break under tension less than five times the rated load.
Both the district court and this Court must consider the evidence in its strongest light in favor of the party against whom a motion for directed verdict or for judgment n. o. v. is made, and must give that party the advantage of every fair and reasonable inference which the evidence justifies.4 It is enough to say that, after a careful reading and consideration of the evidence, we conclude that no useful purpose will be served by an elaborate discussion of the evidence. The jury could reasonably believe from the evidence that the fractures in the Jal Klamp were ductile fractures rather than fatigue fractures which might have arisen from subsequent use, that the pendant lines had not been overloaded or misused after they left the factory, that the cracks were along the weak direction of the metal which might be expected from the original extrusion operation, that the cracks probably started at the time of the proof load or test at Jones & Laughlin's factory, and that the subsequent visual test was not sufficient to disclose the cracks. In brief, the jury could reasonably find that Jones & Laughlin negligently allowed the Jal Klamp to go to the distributor in a dangerously defective condition.
The defense of contributory negligence pleaded before Matherne's death was simply: "And now, alternatively, defendants plead contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff in bar to recovery herein." The issue as framed in the pretrial order was equally broad. The burden of proof is controlled by state law.5 Under Louisiana law the burden of proving contributory negligence of the plaintiff rests upon the defendant6
Two of Matherne's fellow employees testified that in safety meetings conducted by their union the employees were warned not to go under the boom when the crane is operating, that Matherne attended the safety meetings and knew that safety rule.
Shortly before the accident occurred, the crane operator, Smith, had picked up the first bucket of concrete, about three-fourths of a yard of concrete. Smith graphically described the accident as follows:
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