Colonna Shipyard v. Dunn

• Decision Date: 30 October 1928
• Citation: 151 Va. 740
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: COLONNA SHIPYARD, INCORPORATED v. J. F. DUNN.

Page 740

151 Va. 740

COLONNA SHIPYARD, INCORPORATED v. J. F. DUNN.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

October 30, 1928.

1. ADMIRALTY — Exclusive Jurisdiction of United States Courts — Mechanic Repairing a Ship at Dock. — An injury suffered by a mechanic through the negligence of his master, while repairing a ship at a dock in navigable water of the United States, is a maritime tort and cognizable in admiralty. An action for such injury may be maintained in a State court, but the recovery and relief to be afforded for such injury are to be determined by the rules of admiralty, and not by the common law.

2. ADMIRALTY — Validity of State Statutes Affecting the General Maritime Law of the United States. — State legislation modifying, changing, or affecting the general maritime law of the United States, or which works material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, or which interferes with the proper harmony or uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations, is invalid as being repugnant to Article 3, section 2, of the Federal Constitution.

3. ADMIRALTY — Power of Congress to Fix and Determine Maritime Law. — Article 3, section 2, of the Constitution of the United States extends the judicial power of the United States to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and Article 1, section 8, confers upon the Congress power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all others vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States. In consequence of these provisions Congress has paramount power to fix and determine the maritime law which shall prevail throughout the country.

4. ADMIRALTY — State Workmen's Compensation Statutes — Remedy under Compensation Act not a Common Law Remedy. — Exclusive jurisdiction of all civil cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction is vested in the Federal District Courts, saving to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it. The remedy which the compensation statute attempts to give is of a character wholly unknown to the common law, incapable of enforcement by the ordinary processes of any court and is not saved to suitors from the grant of exclusive admiralty jurisdiction.

5. ADMIRALTY — State Workmen's Compensation Statutes — Compensation Statutes Inapplicable where the Injury is Maritime. — The workmen's compensation statutes of the several States are, under the Federal Constitution, invalid and ineffectual to the extent that they undertake to prescribe the rights, remedies, and liabilities, as between employer and employee, when the employee receives a maritime injury or suffers death through a maritime casualty, while engaged in a maritime employment or the performance of a maritime contract.

6. ADMIRALTY — Maritime Injuries — Injury Suffered by Employee on Navigable Waters. — When an injury is suffered by an employee on navigable waters or on a completed vessel, while engaged in an employment directly affecting navigation or commerce, the injury and employment are maritime and within the exclusive jurisdiction of admiralty.

7. ADMIRALTY — Maritime Injuries — Injury Suffered by Employee on Navigable Waters — Case at Bar. — In the instant case plaintiff, an acetylene welder, was injured while engaged in working upon the boiler of a ship lying afloat in navigable water at defendant's dock. On account of the darkness in the hold it was necessary to furnish the workmen with extension cords carrying 110 volts of electricity and 110 volt lamps. Plaintiff claimed that his injuries were due to the defective insulation of one of these cords in that he received an electric shock causing him to fall and seriously injure himself.

Held: That the injuries received by the plaintiff were maritime, both with respect to the locality of the alleged tort and the direct relation of his employment to navigation and commerce, that the case fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of admiralty, and that the Virginia workmen's compensation act had no application.

8. MASTER AND SERVANT — Action for Injury by Servant — Negligence of Master — Electricity — Defective Insulation in Extension Cord — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by an acetylene welder against his master for injuries received while engaged in working upon the boiler of a ship lying afloat in navigable water at defendant's dock. Plaintiff claimed that his injuries were due to defective insulation in an extension cord furnished by his master to supply light to the workmen engaged on the job. The only evidence tending to show that the cord was in safe condition was given by defendant's electrician, who testified that he inspected all electrical equipment and replaced them when necessary, but did not inspect or examine the cords after they were given out unless complaint was made about them. There was no doubt that the rubber insulation had been worn off the cord in question. It appeared from the evidence that the cord had not been delivered to the plaintiff by the electrician and that plaintiff had never had possession of, or used, this particular cord until the accident happened.

Held: That the jury were justified in finding that defendant did not exercise ordinary care to furnish a safe electrical cord to plaintiff.

9. MASTER AND SERVANT — Safe Machinery and Appliances — Safe Place to Work — Inspection by Master. — The master personally owes to his servants the duty of using ordinary care and diligence to provide for their use, in his service, sound and safe machinery, instrumentalities, and appliances, and an environment, reasonably calculated to insure their safety; and he is equally bound to inspect and examine all appliances in use from time to time, and to use ordinary care and skill to discover and repair defects in them.

10. MASTER AND SERVANT — Safe Machinery and Appliances — Liability of Master. — If the master know, or would have known, if he had used ordinary care to ascertain the facts, that the machinery, instruments, or appliances, which he has provided for the use of his servants are defective and unsafe, and the servant is thereby injured, the master is liable.

11. NEGLIGENCE — Ordinary Care — Dependent upon Circumstances. — Ordinary care depends upon the circumstances of the particular case, and is such care as a person of ordinary prudence, under all the circumstances, would have exercised.

12. MASTER AND SERVANT — Electricity — Defective Insulation in Extension Cord — Duty of Master to Inspect — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by plaintiff against his master for injuries received due to a defective extension cord supplied by the master. Even though the cord which caused plaintiff's injury was in a safe condition at the time it was given out by defendant's electrician to the workmen engaged upon the job (which was purely a question of fact for the jury), it would have been no more than reasonable precaution on the defendant's part, while its employees were working on the ship, under the conditions and in the environment then existing, to ascertain whether the cord it had provided for plaintiff's use was in a condition to be handled by him with safety, especially as the plaintiff had never had possession of the cord and had had no opportunity to examine it until the time of the accident.

13. MASTER AND SERVANT — Safe Machinery and Appliances — Allowing the Instrumentalities to Fall Below a Certain Standard of Efficiency. — The master is charged with knowledge that if he allows the instrumentalities of his business to fall below a certain standard of efficiency, the servants who use or are brought into proximity with them in the course of their employment will probably be injured. He does not conduct himself as a prudent man, therefore, if, in carrying on his business, he fails to take due notice of the fact that the machinery and other inanimate appliances, after the lapse of a certain period of time, longer or shorter according to the nature of the material, will certainly deteriorate in quality, as the normal result of wear and tear incident to their use.

14. MASTER AND SERVANT — Safe Machinery and Appliances — Duty of Inspection. — The master's responsibility for the safe condition of the instrumentalities attaches at the first moment when they are put into use, and continues as long as they remain in use. Such being the character of the master's responsibility, the existence of the duty of inspection is a necessary consequence of the fact that the master's obligations cannot be adequately discharged unless, during the entire period of which that responsibility is predicated, he takes notice of whatever a reasonably prudent person would have ascertained under the particular circumstances involved.

15. ELECTRICITY — Master and Servant — Negligence Inferred from Improper Insulation. — Negligence in inferable, where a wire carrying a current of electricity is not properly insulated so that servants who have to handle or work near it may do so without danger.

16. MASTER AND SERVANT — Safe Machinery and Appliances — Inspection — Custom Relieving Master from Inspection. — The instant case was an action by plaintiff against his master, a shipyard, for injuries due to a defectively insulated extension cord furnished by the master for the job upon which plaintiff was engaged. It was argued that defendant was relieved of the duty of inspection because such was the custom in the shipyard. The evidence to support this claim consisted solely of the statement of defendant's electrician that he never inspected the cords after he gave them out and did not consider it necessary to do so unless complaint was made.

Held: That such a custom would contravene the rule which imposes upon the master the duty of exercising reasonable care to inspect machinery and appliances. Moreover, the custom was...