Halecki v. United New York & NJ Sandy Hook Pilots Ass'n

• Decision Date: 01 May 1962
• Docket Number: No. 277,Docket 27216.,277
• Citation: 302 F.2d 840
• Parties: Anna HALECKI, Administratrix ad Prosequendum of the Estate of Walter Joseph Halecki, deceased, and Anna Halecki, Administratrix of the Estate of Walter Joseph Halecki, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY SANDY HOOK PILOTS ASSOCIATION, a corporation, and United New York Sandy Hook Pilots Association, a corporation, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

302 F.2d 840 (1962)

Anna HALECKI, Administratrix ad Prosequendum of the Estate of Walter Joseph Halecki, deceased, and Anna Halecki, Administratrix of the Estate of Walter Joseph Halecki, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY SANDY HOOK PILOTS ASSOCIATION, a corporation, and United New York Sandy Hook Pilots Association, a corporation, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 277, Docket 27216.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued March 29, 1962.

Decided May 1, 1962.

Bernard Chazen, Hoboken, N. J. (Milton Garber and Nathan Baker, Hoboken, N. J., on the brief), for plaintiff-appellee.

Lawrence J. Mahoney, New York City (Dougherty, Ryan, Mahoney & Pellegrino, New York City, on the brief), for defendants-appellants.

Before MEDINA, SMITH and HAYS, Circuit Judges.

MEDINA, Circuit Judge.

Walter Joseph Halecki died of carbon tetrachloride poisoning contracted in the course of cleaning the generators in the engine room of the pilot boat owned by defendants-appellants. After a third trial of the case, the jury rendered a verdict of $70,000 and the shipowners again appeal. The first trial resulted in a judgment based upon both negligence and unseaworthiness. This Court affirmed (2 Cir., 251 F.2d 708), Chief Judge Lumbard dissenting, and the Supreme Court reversed and remanded for trial on the negligence count alone. United New York & New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots Ass'n v. Halecki, 1959, 358 U.S. 613, 79 S.Ct. 517, 3 L.Ed.2d 541. The second trial resulted in a verdict for defendants, and the judgment entered on this verdict was reversed by this Court and the case again remanded for a new trial (2 Cir., 282 F.2d 137), on the ground that the trial judge in his charge had erroneously left the jury with the impression that "liability was dependent almost entirely on control" of the operation of cleaning the generators. To avoid repetition we shall assume familiarity with the facts as outlined in the prior opinions above cited.

The shipowners contend that we must again reverse because Judge McGohey is said to have departed from the controlling principles stated by the Supreme Court, and by this Court on the last appeal, and in his instructions to the jury enlarged the scope of the duty owed by the shipowners to Halecki to the prejudice of the shipowners. The gist of appellants' argument is contained in the following exception to the charge:

"Defendant further excepts to your Honor\'s instruction that defendant had a duty to ascertain if Rodermond and K & S were competent and also that defendant had a duty to see that the manner and method was proper."

The evidence had disclosed that the vessel was at Rodermond's shipyard, that the shipowners had ordered Rodermond to have the generators cleaned, specifically requiring the use of carbon tetrachloride, a substance known to be dangerous to human safety, for the purpose, and Rodermond had turned the work over to K & S, Halecki's employer.

The portion of Judge McGohey's instructions to which the above-quoted exception was noted, was as follows:

"The defendant didn\'t know how to do this work. They brought it to a shipyard. Rodermond didn\'t feel competent to do it so they engaged K & S, Halecki\'s employer. The defendant was the one that ordered this work to be done by means of the carbon tetrachloride and I charge you as a matter of law that the defendant thereafter had a duty to ascertain whether the subcontractor or Rodermond was competent to do this work and they were further charged with a duty to ascertain and take reasonable steps to be sure in so far as they could that the manner and method employed by either Rodermond or K & S was reasonably proper to keep the place in which this man had to work reasonably safe under all the circumstances."

The main thrust of the instructions, and the context in which this portion thereof must be read, is that Halecki was a business invitee, that the shipowners owed him a duty to exercise reasonable care to furnish him with a reasonably safe place in which to work, and that the basic question was whether under all the circumstances of the case the shipowners took reasonable steps to provide a reasonably safe place in which to work.

The directions given by the Supreme Court in this case are simple and clear. "The defendants owed a duty of exercising reasonable care for the safety of the decedent." 358 U.S. at pp. 618-619, 79 S.Ct. at p. 520. And, at p. 619, 79 S.Ct. at p. 520: "It was for the triers of fact to determine whether the defendants were responsibly negligent in permitting or authorizing the method or manner of...