Anderson v. Lorentzen

• Decision Date: 12 March 1947
• Docket Number: No. 176,Docket 20480.,176
• Citation: 160 F.2d 173
• Parties: ANDERSON et al. v. LORENTZEN, Director of Shipping and Curator of Royal Norwegian Government, et al. ROBERTSON v. SAME. DE PINTO v. SAME. SCIANLEPORA v. SAME.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

160 F.2d 173 (1947)

ANDERSON et al. v. LORENTZEN, Director of Shipping and Curator of Royal Norwegian Government, et al. ROBERTSON v. SAME. DE PINTO v. SAME. SCIANLEPORA v. SAME.

No. 176, Docket 20480.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued February 11, 1947.

Decided March 12, 1947.

Nathan Baker, of Hoboken, N. J. (John B. O'Neill, of Jersey City, N. J., of counsel; Benjamin H. Siff, of New York City, on the brief), for plaintiffs.

Haight, Griffin, Deming & Gardner, of New York City (J. Ward O'Neill and John Osnato, Jr., both of New York City, of counsel), for defendants.

Before SWAN, CHASE, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

CHASE, Circuit Judge.

Fourteen stevedores employed by the Northern Dock Company brought suits in the District Court for the Southern District of New York against Oivind Lorentzen, as the owner of the "S. S. Hoegh Silvercloud," in his capacity as Director of Shipping and Curator of the Royal Norwegian Government doing business as The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission; and against the Kerr Steamship Company, Inc., a Delaware corporation, the owner's agent, to recover damages for personal injuries. Jurisdiction was based on diversity. The suits were consolidated for trial and appeals from the judgments were argued together. Six of the plaintiffs were injured while unloading cargo from the "Hoegh Silvercloud" at Pier 3, Hoboken, New Jersey, in November 1943, and each of these recovered a judgment. From those judgments the defendants have appealed. Eight of the plaintiffs who worked on the dock, but not in unloading the cargo, failed to recover and they have appealed. The suits were tried to a jury which returned verdicts on which the judgments were entered.

The plaintiffs were injured in the following way. Those who worked unloading cargo contracted a dermatitis caused by handling leaky steel drums containing cashew nut liquid which had leaked out upon and around some of the drums and to the deck where they were stored. The others became infected while working on the dock with gear which had been used in the discharge of the drums and which, as well as the dock, had been contaminated by the leaking liquid.

The Northern Dock Company knew that cashew nut liquid was a corrosive which might cause a dermatitis if it came into contact with the skin and had a supply of special cream at the dock for its employees to use as a preventative. Apparently the plaintiffs were not told to use it and, in any event, neither of the defendants supplied anything of the sort or warned the plaintiffs of the danger.

The defendants-appellants have argued that, since the employer of the stevedores who unloaded the liquid was aware of the danger, they were under no duty to warn those who worked for that independent contractor. We cannot agree. The defendants-appellants not only owed the duty to provide a seaworthy ship on which these stevedores who unloaded the cargo might work, Seas Shipping Co. Inc. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, but they owed them, as invitees, or business visitors, the duty to provide a reasonably safe place to do their work. Fodera v. Booth American Shipping Corp., 2 Cir., 159 F.2d 795. This duty was non-delegable and persisted despite any concurrent duty on the part of the stevedoring company. Vanderlinden v. Oivind Lorentzen, 2 Cir., 139 F.2d 995; LaGuerra v. Brasileiro, 2 Cir., 124 F.2d 553; Grillo v. Royal Norwegian, 2 Cir., 139 F.2d 237; Sciolaro v. Asch, 198 N.Y. 77, 91 N.E. 263, 32 L.R.A., N.S., 945. To the extent that the deck was made dangerous by the presence of the liquid which had leaked out upon it the deck itself was an unsafe place to work and it was at least the duty of the defendants to warn the...