Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd

• Decision Date: 02 April 1962
• Docket Number: No. 282,282
• Citation: 82 S.Ct. 780,369 U.S. 355,7 L.Ed.2d 798,1962 A.M.C. 276
• Parties: ATLANTIC AND GULF STEVEDORES, INC., Petitioner, v. ELLERMAN LINES, LTD., and the City Line, Ltd
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

369 U.S. 355

82 S.Ct. 780

7 L.Ed.2d 798

ATLANTIC AND GULF STEVEDORES, INC., Petitioner,

v ELLERMAN LINES, LTD., and the City Line, Ltd.

No. 282.

Argued Feb. 20, 1962.

Decided April 2, 1962.

Rehearing Denied May 14, 1962.

See 369 U.S. 882, 82 S.Ct. 1137.

Francis E. Marshall, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

Martin J. McHugh, New York City, for National Ass'n of Stevedores, amicus curiae.

Thomas E. Byrne, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa., for respondents.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the court.

Leighton Board was a longshoreman employed by Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc. Atlantic, the petitioner, performed stevedoring services for respondents. Beard received injuries while helping to discharge bales of burlap from a vessel owned by respondents. These bales, loaded in India, were bound by four parallel one-inch steel bands that petitioner had not placed around the bales but were part of the cargo; and each bale, containing 30 to 40 bolts of burlap, was stowed in tiers. The discharging operation consisted of pulling the bales from their stowed positions to the hatch and then raising them vertically through the hatch and lowering them onto the pier. This was accomplished by using a ring to which six equal-length ropes were attached. A hook was on the end of each rope; and two hooks were used on each bale, three bales being raised in one operation. Beard and his co-workers would signal the winch operator to pull the bales from their stow to a position under the hatch. When the sideways movement had ended, the bales would be raised vertically. After several hours of one unloading operation, two bands of one bale broke. The bale fell, injuring Beard.

The evidence showed that Atlantic played no part in the loading or stowage of this cargo of burlap. There were sixty-three tons of bales in the forward end of the hold destined for New York; and they extended halfway into the space under the hatch. The bales being unloaded were in the after end of the hold. The bale that fell struck the New York cargo and bounded toward Beard, pinning him against the after bulkhead and causing injuries resulting in the amputation of his right leg.

Beard sued respondents in the District Court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, alleging that their vessel was unseaworthy and that they were negligent. Respondents impleaded petitioner, alleging that it was negligent in its manner and method of unloading and asking indemnity from it in case respondents were held liable to Beard. Counsel near the end of the trial agreed upon five special interrogatories, to which the jury responded as follows:

'1. Was unseaworthiness a substantial factor in causing the injuries to the plaintiff?

Yes.

2. Was there negligence on the part of Ellerman Lines, Ltd., which was a substantial factor in causing injuries to the plaintiff?

Yes.

3. In what amount, if any, did you assess the damages to be awarded the plaintiff?

$100,000.

4. If you have answered yes to Interrogatories 1 or 2, did the fault of Ellerman Lines, Ltd., and the City Line, Ltd., arise out of any failure on the part of Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc., to do its work in accordance with the contractual obligation?

No.

5. If you have answered yes to Interrogatory No. 4 was Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc.'s breach of this contract a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries to the plaintiff?

No.

The District Court thereupon entered judgment in favor of Beard against respondents and in favor of petitioner on respondents' claim for indemnity.

On appeal it was argued, inter alia, that a finding of negligence on the part of respondents was warranted because they failed to provide a safe place to work in view of the manner in which the New York cargo was stowed. With this the Court of Appeals agreed. Negligence on the part of respondents, it said, was also established by the knowledge of their chief mate that the use of bale books was a dangerous way to discharge burlap bales, and from evidence that bands on the bales broke in 'roughly between 3 and 5 percent of the bales' during discharging operations. The court said that though the use of bale hooks may have been customary in Philadelphia, such use was not sufficient to relieve respondents of negligence.

It went on to say that there was evidence to show that respondents, by virtue of the manner of loading, were negligent in not affording Beard a safe place to work. It held, however, that since the 'warranty of workmanlike service extends to the handling of cargo * * * as well as to the use of equipment incidental to cargo handling' (Waterman S.S. Corp. v. Dugan & McNamara, 364 U.S. 421, 423, 81 S.Ct. 200, 201, 5 L.Ed.2d 169), petitioner was liable, as a matter of law, to respondents. For if it was negligent for respondents to permit Beard to work in an unsafe place, it was 'equally negligent' for petitioner to handle the cargo in the manner in did, in light of the unsafe place where Beard worked. 289 F.2d 201, 207.

The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the judgment in favor of Beard and against respondents on the issue of negligence (without reaching the question of unseaworthiness), but reversed the judgment in favor of Atlantic. The case is here on a petition for certiorari. 368 U.S. 874, 82 S.Ct. 122, 7 L.Ed.2d 76.

We might agree with the Court of Appeals had the questions of fact been left to us. But neither we nor the Court of Appeals can redetermine facts found by the jury any more than the District Court can predetermine them. For the Seventh Amendment says that 'no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.'

The requirements of the Seventh Amendment were brought into play in this case, even though a stevedoring contract is a maritime contract.¹ Since 'loading and stowing a ship's cargo' is part of the 'maritime service,' a stevedore can recover against his employer in admiralty for the latter's negligence (Atlantic Transport Co. of West Virginia v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52, 61, 34 S.Ct. 733, 735, 58 L.Ed. 1208), on the conditions provided in the Longshoremen's Act, 33 U.S.C. § 905, 33 U.S.C.A. § 905. And when the shipowner is held liable, it may in the same suit recover over against the stevedoring company on the stevedore contract in order to prevent needless multiplicity of litigation. American Stevedores v. Porello, 330 U.S. 446, 456, 67 S.Ct. 847, 852, 91 L.Ed. 1011.

Congress since 1789, in giving Federal District Courts original jurisdiction of civil cases in admiralty, has saved 'to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.' 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), 28 U.S.C.A. § 1333(1). Therefore, a suit for breach of a maritime contract, while it may be brought in admiralty, may also be pursued in an ordinary civil action,² since, unlike the proceeding in The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, 18 L.Ed. 397, it is a suit in personam. 'Where the suit is in personam, it may be brought either in admiralty or, under the saving clause, in an appropriate non-maritime court, by ordinary civil action.' Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty (1957), p. 36. And such suits on the law side are not restricted to enforcement of common-law rights but extend as well to maritime torts. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 88—89, 66 S.Ct. 872, 874, 90 L.Ed. 1099.

This suit being in the federal courts by reason of diversity of citizenship carried with it, of course, the right to trial by jury. As in cases under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688 (Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 350 U.S. 523, 76 S.Ct. 608, 100 L.Ed. 668; Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U.S. 370, 77 S.Ct. 415, 1 L.Ed.2d 404) and under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. (Tennant v. Peoria & P.U.R. Co., 321 U.S. 29, 64 S.Ct. 409, 88 L.Ed. 520; Ellis v. Union Pacific R. Co., 329 U.S. 649, 653, 67 S.Ct. 598, 600, 91 L.Ed. 572; Dice v. Akron, C. & Y.R. Co., 342 U.S. 359, 72 S.Ct. 312, 96 L.Ed. 398; Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493), trial by jury is part of the remedy. Thus the provisions of the Seventh Amendment, noted above, are brought into play. Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, 350 U.S. at 524, 76 S.Ct. at 609. As we recently stated in another diversity case, it is the Seventh Amendment that fashions 'the federal policy favoring jury decisions of disputed fact questions.' Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Elec. Cooperative, 356 U.S. 525, 538, 539, 78 S.Ct. 893, 901, 2 L.Ed.2d 953. And see Herron v. Southern Pac. Co., 283 U.S. 91, 94 95, 51 S.Ct. 383, 384, 75 L.Ed. 857.

In answer to interrogatories Nos. 4 and 5 the jury found that petitioner had not failed to perform its contractual obligation to respondents. The contract provided that petitioner should do the work 'with every care and due dispatch to the satisfaction' of the owners. In its charge to the jury the District Court said that the owner had a duty to provide longshoremen a safe place to work; and it left to the jury whether respondents had warning that the method of unloading was unsafe and whether the manner of loading the cargo by respondents made this an unsafe place for Beard to work. It left to the jury respondents' contention that, if anyone was negligent in leaving the New York cargo in the place where it was and in not shifting it, it was petitioner's negligence, not theirs. It also charged the jury on petitioner's liability, should Beard be found to have established his case. It referred the jury to the contract saying petitioner was obliged 'to unload and discharge this cargo of burlap with the utmost care.'

The Court of Appeals held that the jury had been charged too restrictively, that their attention had been called only to the manner of using the hook. The trial judge did indeed charge:

'You must answer the question, was that a reasonable and safe method of operation for the...