Prudhomme v. Tenneco Oil Co., 91-4473

• Decision Date: 13 March 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-4473,91-4473
• Citation: 955 F.2d 390
• Parties: Anthony C. PRUDHOMME, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TENNECO OIL CO., Defendant, Booker Drilling Co., d/b/a Grace Offshore Co., Defendant-Appellant. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 390

955 F.2d 390

22 Fed.R.Serv.3d 37

Anthony C. PRUDHOMME, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TENNECO OIL CO., Defendant, Booker Drilling Co., d/b/a Grace Offshore Co., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 91-4473

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 13, 1992.

Rehearing Denied April 13, 1992.

Charles W. Schmidt, III, Fred T. Hinrichs, Christovich & Kearney, New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellant.

J. Michael Stefanski, Edwards, Stefanski, Barousse, Cunningham, Stefanski & Zaunbrecher, Crowley, La., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court For the Western District of Louisiana.

Before JONES, DUHE and WIENER, Circuit Judges.

WIENER, Circuit Judge:

This appeal follows the bench trial of a suit in federal district court brought by Plaintiff-Appellee Anthony C. Prudhomme, and his wife, Henrietta G. Prudhomme, against Tenneco Oil Co. (Tenneco) and Booker Drilling Co. d/b/a Grace Offshore Co. (Booker), a drilling contractor. Prudhomme sought damages against Tenneco and Booker for back injuries he allegedly incurred in a slip-and-fall accident while working on a stationary drilling platform owned by Tenneco, located on the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico offshore Louisiana. Henrietta Prudhomme sought recovery against the same defendants for loss of consortium. Applying Louisiana law as mandated by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, ¹ the district court exonerated Booker of negligence but found it strictly liable for Prudhomme's back injury on the ground that his slip and

                fall was caused by hydraulic fluid that leaked onto the drilling rig's deck from a defective hose attached to equipment belonging to Booker. 2  On appeal, Booker argues that the district court erred in allowing the case to be tried on a theory of strict liability.   And even if the strict liability theory was appropriate, Booker argues, the district court erred in finding that the Prudhommes proved that Booker's equipment was defective, and that this defect caused the accident.   Agreeing with Booker that the district court abused its discretion in allowing the Prudhommes to proceed to trial on a theory of strict liability, we reverse that part of the judgment and affirm the rest, thereby pretermitting consideration of Booker's other assignments of error
                

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

On August 11, 1988, while performing services on Tenneco's platform for his employer, Western Atlas Offshore Co., an intervenor in this case, Mr. Prudhomme slipped and fell in hydraulic fluid on the deck and injured his back. In their original complaint, the Prudhommes brought suit against Tenneco for negligence and strict liability, and against Booker for negligence only.

On October 26, 1990, after the period for discovery had expired, Booker moved for summary judgment. In opposition to this motion, the Prudhommes filed a memorandum stating that, among other things, the source of the hydraulic fluid was a ruptured hose on Booker's equipment. Noting that the Prudhommes' response seemed to raise issues of strict liability not simply negligence, Booker pointed out in a supplemental memorandum that the Prudhommes had never alleged strict liability, and that new claims in strict liability could not defeat its motion for summary judgment. The district court rejected Booker's motion for summary judgment.

On December 21, 1991, shortly before the scheduled date for trial, the Prudhommes filed a motion with the district court for permission to amend their original complaint in order to add a claim in strict liability against Booker. This motion was made after the expiration of the discovery period, after the pre-trial conference, after submission of the Joint Pre-Trial Stipulations, and after the case was set for trial. In a memorandum supporting this amendment, the Prudhommes acknowledged that, while they had always asserted a claim in strict liability against Tenneco, their prior allegations against Booker "did not mention specifically Louisiana Civil Code articles 2322 and 2317, or strict liability."

Booker immediately opposed the Prudhommes' motion to add a claim of strict liability, arguing that delay and prejudice would result from the need to re-open discovery, amend witness and exhibit lists, and prepare and file a new pre-trial stipulation. Booker also pointed out the potential difficulty of locating essential witnesses, records, and physical evidence. Booker noted that the Prudhommes had long been aware of the purported factual basis for a cause of action in strict liability, so amendment could not be justified on grounds of newly discovered facts.

Rather than contend with Booker's opposition at the risk of losing their scheduled trial date, the Prudhommes filed a motion on January 16, 1991 asking the district court to dismiss their second supplemental and amended complaint, which asserted strict liability. The district court complied, ordering that complaint dismissed.

Between the date of the district court's dismissal order (January 18, 1991) and the date of trial (April 3, 1991), the issue of Booker's strict liability was never again raised or mentioned in any pleadings or filings by the Prudhommes or by the court. Nevertheless, at pre-trial conference on the morning of trial, the district court announced, sua sponte it appears, that it would consider the Prudhommes' strict liability claim against Booker. Booker protested Immediately upon commencement of the trial, Booker objected once again to any consideration of a claim against it in strict liability, reiterating the foregoing sequence of events and stating that

but the district court refused to relent. (The record and the briefs to this court do not say precisely what transpired during that pre-trial conference, except that the court advised Booker that while its objection would be noted, trial would commence that morning and would include consideration of Booker's strict liability.)

[w]e don't have an expert to prove there wasn't a defect. We assumed all along that this was a case solely on negligence.... We are prepared to try a case in negligence. We are not particularly prepared to try a case in strict liability,...."

The district court responded, "Your exception is noted, and it's overruled."

During the two-day trial, the Prudhommes adduced no evidence of a defect in the hydraulic hose beyond the bare fact that it developed a leak and spilled hydraulic fluid on the area of the metal deck where Mr. Prudhomme slipped and fell. Booker adduced testimony, on the other hand, that the hose had been inspected frequently and recently, was in good shape immediately prior to the leakage, and was re-used as soon as the broken segment was removed. Based solely on the fact that the hose broke, the district court found that the hose was defective, and that this defect caused the spilled fluid that, in turn, caused Mr. Prudhomme's accident. The district court found Booker strictly liable but not negligent. The court also assessed Mr. Prudhomme's fault at fifty percent, for failure to look where he was walking.

II. ANALYSIS

A. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review the district court's decision to allow the trial to proceed, over Booker's objections, on the basis of strict liability for abuse of discretion. ³ That court's factual findings that the rupture of the hydraulic hose, in and of itself, proved its defectiveness and that the fluid leak caused the accident are reviewed for clear error. ⁴ Conclusions of law by the district court are subject to plenary review. ⁵

B. PROCEEDING TO TRIAL ON STRICT LIABILITY

The district court has broad discretion in the management of its docket and the trial of lawsuits pending before it--and appropriately so. In particular, the trial court's broad discretion in granting out-of-time motions to file supplemental and amended pleadings is so recognized as to require no citation. In fact, the appellate courts and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure encourage liberality in granting such motions, as illustrated by Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 (Rule 15) and the notes of the Advisory Committee pertaining to it. But the issue of granting tardy motions to permit the filing of amendments to pleadings is not the real issue before us in this appeal. Rather, we consider a substantially different matter: whether here the district court abused its discretion when, on the very morning of trial, it permitted the claimant to seek recovery on the basis of strict liability even though, some three months before the trial, the district court itself had ordered the dismissal of the Prudhommes' motion to amend their complaint to add a cause of action in strict liability.

In their brief to this court, the Prudhommes treat the instant issue as a simple matter of the district court's discretion concerning the facts and theories reflected by pleadings and related filings. But none of the cases cited by the Prudhommes comprehends facts even closely approximating a situation in which a party, in moving to If the nature of this case were the same as those cited by the Prudhommes, in which the only issue is the district court's discretion in finding references in the complaint and other pleadings sufficient to put the defendant on notice for purposes of Fed.R.Civ.P. 8 (Rule 8), or the binding effect of pre-trial stipulations under Fed.R.Civ.P. 16 (Rule 16), the abuse of discretion standard might well interdict our reversal of the district court. Gossamer as is the thread of a strict liability claim against Booker in the fabric of this case, it might nevertheless have been sufficient to fall within the broad ambit of the district court's discretion. ⁷ But, as noted above, the procedural history of this case--the motion to amend, opposition, motion to withdraw, and district court's dismissal order--lifts this case out of the realm of the ordinary and distinguishes it from those cases relied upon by the Prudhommes.

amend, states that a cause of...