Cunningham v. Rendezvous, Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 March 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-1790,81-1790 |
| Citation | 699 F.2d 676 |
| Parties | 12 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 740 Jacqueline B. CUNNINGHAM, Administratrix of the Estate of John G. Cunningham, Jr., deceased; Fannie Estelle Spencer, Administratrix of the Estate of James Earl Spencer, deceased; John G. Cunningham, Administrator of the Estate of Anthony Moses Cunningham, deceased; Mary Spencer, Administratrix of the Estate of James Ray Spencer, deceased, Appellants, v. RENDEZVOUS, INC.; Smith Marine Railway; The Humphreys Railways, Incorporated; Jane G. Cox, Administratrix of the Estate of William Harvey Cox, deceased; William House; James Florant, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Ralph Rabinowitz, Norfolk, Va. (Rabinowitz, Rafal & Swartz, P.C., Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellants.
Peter W. Rowe, Norfolk, Va. (Stackhouse, Rowe & Smith, Norfolk, Va., on brief).
John M. Ryan, Robert G. Winters, Norfolk, Va. (Charles Poston, Henry L. Sadler, III, Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellees.
Before BUTZNER, Circuit Judge, and HAYNSWORTH and FIELD, Senior Circuit Judges.
This action arises out of the sinking of the F/V RENDEZVOUS on December 10, 1978. The representatives of the families of four decedents whose deaths were occasioned by the accident filed complaints seeking damages for the alleged wrongful deaths of decedents against the corporation which owned the vessel, Rendezvous, Inc., on grounds of negligence and unseaworthiness; against two shipyards ("Smith" and "Humphreys") for alleged negligence in making repairs to the vessel prior to the sinking; and against the three directors of the corporation, Messrs. Cox, Florant, and House, for alleged negligence under the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. Secs. 761-768, and general maritime law. Decedents' representatives have appealed from a judgment rendered in their favor against the corporation, arguing that they have erroneously been deprived of certain theories of recovery against the other defendants. We affirm the judgment of the district court except as to the so called "corporate veil" issue, and remand the case for further proceedings on that question.
The four decedents were members of the crew of the F/V RENDEZVOUS, which vessel was captained by Florant and co-captained by House. The crew of the RENDEZVOUS was hired on at Englehard, North Carolina, after the vessel had had work performed on it by the Smith and Humphreys shipyards in Virginia. After several trips, the vessel made its final voyage from Chincoteague, Virginia, in December 1978, and carried on fishing operations in the Atlantic Ocean from December 7 until the night of December 9 or sometime the following morning. Early on the morning of December 10, 1978, a substantial amount of water was discovered in the engine room and an emergency pump was called for. The vessel began listing severely to the port, and shortly thereafter the hull in the area of the portside engine room porthole frame opened to the sea and water rushed in. At this point the pumps could not keep ahead of the inflow of water, the Coast Guard was radioed, and the crew abandoned ship, availing themselves of lifejackets and two life rafts. The RENDEZVOUS sank and the decedents drowned before the Coast Guard rescued the remaining members of the crew.
Except as to the defendant shipyards, the case was tried to a jury. At the close of testimony special interrogatories were submitted to the jury to determine who was the owner of the vessel and employer of the decedents, whether there was unseaworthiness or negligence, and, if so, what the recovery should be. The jury returned findings that the corporation was owner and employer, that the ship was not unseaworthy, and that the corporation was not negligent. The jury was reconvened by the trial court to render an advisory verdict setting damages based on the assumption that the ship was unseaworthy, and determined that recoverable damages totaled $215,000.
On the motion of decedents' representatives for judgment n.o.v., the trial court held that the vessel was unseaworthy as a matter of law and awarded damages against the corporation in the amount fixed by the jury. The district court refused to disturb the jury's finding that the corporation was owner of the vessel and the employer of the decedents. Upon its consideration of the evidence, the trial court ruled in favor of Smith and Humphreys on the cause of action against the two defendant shipyards.
Decedents' representatives urge as an initial ground of reversible error that the trial court improperly limited the testimony of their expert, Mr. Sayre, under Federal Rule of Evidence (F.R.E.) 703. 1 The disputed testimony concerns speculation as to the cause of the flooding of the engine room.
The precise cause of the flooding of the RENDEZVOUS was never determined at trial. Sayre offered several possible explanations as to the cause of the accident consistent with negligence on the part of both the shipyards and the corporation, but admitted that he was without firsthand knowledge of the vessel or the events on the morning of December 10 and that his hypotheses were simply "possibilities." Significantly, there was uncontroverted evidence that the other compartments which were separated from the engine room by watertight bulkheads were not taking on water at the time that the engine room was flooding, and that the water in the engine room was entering through the forward part of the compartment and moving aft. This evidence was flatly inconsistent with Sayre's hypotheses as to the cause of the sinking of the RENDEZVOUS, a fact which Sayre acknowledged upon questioning by the trial court.
To the extent that the trial court restricted Sayre's speculative testimony as to the cause of the accident to hypotheses consistent with the evidence before the jury, 2 the district court acted properly. Such limitation of expert opinion to material facts supported by or consistent with the evidence has long been the law in this Circuit, Kale v. Douthitt, 274 F.2d 476, 482 (4 Cir.1960); Gilbert v. Gulf Oil Corporation, 175 F.2d 705, 709 (4 Cir.1949), and remains a requirement under the liberal standard of F.R.E. 703, see 11 Moore's Federal Practice Sec. 703.10 (2d ed. 1982). Since the trial court's ruling on Sayre's testimony was consonant with the law of this Circuit and F.R.E. 703, we find no merit in the contention of decedents' representatives that the court's restrictive ruling warrants reversal.
Decedents' representatives also contend that the trial court's finding that the defendant shipyards were not negligent was erroneous. At trial, decedents' representatives introduced evidence showing that on one occasion at the Smith shipyard the RENDEZVOUS was hauled stern first out of the water and that the vessel rolled to one side during this procedure. The representatives also point to the fact that at the Humphreys shipyard two large fuel tanks were installed, and assert that the added weight and the manner in which the fuel tanks were fastened to the vessel contributed to the sinking. Decedents' representatives argue that the trial court improperly concluded that the defendant shipyards were absolved from liability since they did only the work requested by Cox, Florant, and House.
Although the court's ruling was to some extent predicated upon the fact that the Smith and Humphreys shipyards did only the work which they were directed to do, the more substantial leg supporting the court's ruling was its finding that there was no credible evidence that the work was performed negligently or in a non-workmanlike manner, the applicable standard in such maritime suits. See Fairmont Ship Corp. v. Chevron International Oil Co., Inc., 511 F.2d 1252 (2 Cir.1975); Alcoa Steamship Co. v. Charles Ferran Co., 383 F.2d 46 (5 Cir.1967). There was abundant evidence that no flooding...
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