Holland v. Allied Structural Steel Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 September 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-1421,75-1421
• Citation: 1977 A.M.C. 2458,539 F.2d 476
• Parties: Jeanette HOLLAND, Administratrix of the Estate of Aaron James Holland, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee Cross Appellant, v. ALLIED STRUCTURAL STEEL COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants CrossAppellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 476

539 F.2d 476

Jeanette HOLLAND, Administratrix of the Estate of Aaron James Holland, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee Cross Appellant, v. ALLIED STRUCTURAL STEEL COMPANY, INC., et al Defendants-Appellants CrossAppellees.

No. 75-1421.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Sept. 27, 1976.

Michael S. Allred, Cary E. Bufkin, Jackson, Miss., for appellant.

R. L. Netterville, Natchez, Miss., James W. Nobles, Jr., Jackson, Miss., John G. Roach, Jr., McComb, Miss., for appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Before WISDOM and MORGAN, Circuit Judges, and LYNNE, District Judge.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge.

In Offshore Company v. Robison, 5 Cir. 1959, 266 F.2d 769, this Court posed and answered the question: when is a roughneck a seaman? Today, seventeen years later, we face a similar riddle: when is a structural steelworker a seaman? Now, as then, there is no simple formula for determining when an individual's maritime activities or duties in the service of a vessel are sufficient to invoke jurisdiction as a seaman under the Jones Act. ¹ Now, as then, our decision must turn on an examination of past cases and the applicability of their rationale to the facts before us. Offshore v. Robison, 266 F.2d at 771.

Allied Structural Steel Company (Allied) appeals the judgment entered on a jury verdict of $100,000 in favor of Mrs. Jeanette Holland, widow and administratrix of the estate of James Aaron Holland. James Holland, a structural steel ironworker ² employed as a steel connector by Allied, fell to his death from a steel stringer being erected as part of the superstructure of the I-20 bridge then under construction over the Mississippi River near Vicksburg. At the time of his death, Holland was engaged in erecting steel over the bank of the River, at the outermost edges of the bridge. He fell approximately 60 feet to his death upon a concrete cofferdam, 250 feet from the water's edge.

Holland had been on the job only six days before his death on February 4, 1971. As part of a "raising gang", Holland worked with five other men in a steel erecting crew headed by Tom Wenzinger. The crew worked in conjunction with one of two Manitowac 4000 cranes utilized to hoist steel beams into place on the superstructure. Holland and the other members of Wenzinger's crew were not assigned to any vessel or vessel-mounted equipment, and they did not sleep or take any meals on any vessel.

Holland's widow, the appellee, sued Allied to recover under the Jones Act and under a claim for breach of warranty of seaworthiness. In an amended complaint, she joined Aetna Casualty and Surety Co. (Aetna) as a party defendant, adding a cause of action for Aetna's breach of an alleged duty to make "safety engineering surveys of the work premises". At the close of the plaintiff-appellee's case, Allied moved for a directed verdict on the first claim, alleging lack of jurisdiction under the Jones Act, and for a directed verdict on the seaworthiness claim. Aetna sought a directed verdict on the single cause of action alleged against it. The district judge granted Aetna's motion and granted Allied's motion as to the seaworthiness claim, leaving only the Jones Act claim against Allied. At the close of The district judge denied Allied's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and Allied brought this appeal. The plaintiff-appellee cross-appealed on the directed verdicts entered in favor of Allied on the seaworthiness claim and in favor of Aetna on the claim for breach of duty to make engineering surveys. We find that only the first of the three appeals merits setting aside the judgment below, and therefore direct this opinion solely to Allied's claim that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the jury's finding that the deceased was a "seaman" entitled to invoke Jones Act jurisdiction. We agree with Allied's contention that the credible evidence could not have supported the jury's finding and that the district court erred in refusing to grant defendant's motion for judgment n. o. v.

trial Allied again moved unsuccessfully for a directed verdict on the Jones Act claim and the case went to the jury on special interrogatories. The jury found: (1) that Holland was a Jones Act seaman, (2) that Allied was negligent, (3) that Allied's negligence was a proximate cause of Holland's death, and (4) that Holland himself was negligent to the extent of sixty-six and two thirds percent. The jury assessed damages in the amount of $300,000, reduced that amount in proportion to the deceased's negligence, and awarded the plaintiff, Jeanette Holland, a total of $100,000.

I INVOKING JONES ACT JURISDICTION

The Jones Act gives a "seaman" (not defined) the right to sue in an action at law for damages arising from the negligence of the owner or personnel of a "vessel" aboard which the seaman was employed. Offshore Company v. Robison, 266 F.2d at 771. Half a century ago, the Supreme Court held that the term "seaman" was broad enough to encompass even "stevedores employed in maritime work on navigable water", as their work was "a maritime service formerly rendered by the ship's crew." International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 1926, 272 U.S. 50, 52, 47 S.Ct. 19, 71 L.Ed. 157, 159. However, following passage of the Longshoremen's and Harborworkers' Compensation Act, by which Congress extended coverage to all maritime workers except "master(s) or member(s) of a crew of any vessel," the Supreme Court held that the purpose and effect of the enactment was to limit the benefits of the Jones Act to employees who are either masters or members of the crew of a vessel and whose injuries occur during the course of their employment. Swanson v. Marra Bros., Inc., 1946, 328 U.S. 1, 66 S.Ct. 869, 90 L.Ed. 1045; Noble Drilling Corp. v. Smith, 5 Cir. 1969, 412 F.2d 952, 955. In recent years the traditional notions of both "crew" and "vessel" have been expanded and Jones Act coverage extended to individuals not formally assigned to maritime crews or conventional water-borne vessels. Nonetheless, there remains the jurisdictional requirement that a claimant alleging seaman status under the Jones Act have been connected, in more than a transitory way, with a vessel or vessels, and that his injuries have arisen in the course of his duties in the service of such a vessel or vessels. See, e. g. Keener v. Transworld Drilling Co., 5 Cir. 1972, 468 F.2d 729, 732; Burns v. Anchor-Wate Co., 5 Cir. 1973,469 F.2d 730, 732; Owens v. Diamond M. Drilling, 5 Cir. 1973, 487 F.2d 74, 76.

The determination whether a claimant has proved a sufficient connection with water-borne or vessel-related activities to invoke jurisdiction as a seaman under the Jones Act is a mixed question of law and fact. Offshore Company v. Robison, 266 F.2d at 780. ³ Though ordinarily a question to be resolved by the trier of fact, "the Allied charges that the jury's finding that Holland was a seaman for purposes of the Jones Act must fall on two grounds. First, Allied contends that the testimony of the plaintiff's witnesses was so contradicted by the documentary evidence and by the introduction of prior inconsistent statements that much of the evidence must be held incredible as a matter of law. Second, Allied contends that the remaining credible evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to support a finding of Jones Act status. A careful examination of the record convinces us that both these contentions are well founded, that the jury could not reasonably have believed all of the testimony adduced by the plaintiff's witnesses, and that the remaining credible evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to support a finding that the deceased was a Jones Act seaman.

district court may properly refuse to submit (the) issue to the jury where the only rational inference to be drawn from the evidence is that the claimant was not a seaman." Owens v. Diamond M. Drilling Co., 487 F.2d at 76. Moreover, while the jury is charged with resolving the disputed issues of fact on which a claimant's seaman status often depends, evidence manifestly at variance with the physical facts must be disregarded. Southern Pacific Co. v. Matthews, 5 Cir. 1964, 335 F.2d 924, 927.

II UNDISPUTED FACTS

The evidence below established that James Holland went to work for Allied on January 29, 1971 and worked approximately six full days or sixty-two hours before falling to his death the morning of February 4. Through the testimony of witnesses who had worked with the deceased on the bridge project, the plaintiff attempted to establish Holland's seaman status by showing that he had spent a substantial portion of his sixty-two hours engaged in water-borne or vessel-related activities.

In early 1971, the I-20 bridge spanning the Mississippi River near Vicksburg was in the early stages of construction. On the Mississippi side, where the deceased worked, Allied's crews were engaged in erecting a truss span from the first pier, E-3, located on the bank some two hundred and fifty feet from the River, out to falsework or temporary supports closer to the water's edge. As construction progressed, the steel would eventually extend out to pier E-2 in the River, and beyond to the remaining piers.

The steel beams forming the superstructure of the bridge were fabricated in Allied's plants in Hammond, Indiana, or Clinton, Tennessee, and shipped down river on commercial barges to the job site near Vicksburg. The steel on these commercial, or deep draft barges, also referred to as jumbo barges, was then "shaken out" or offloaded to smaller service barges in number sequence appropriate to the sequence of erection. The service barges were then pushed to the side of the River by one of two tugs owned or leased by Allied. When the crews were ready to place the steel on a particular service barge, they brought the barge to the edge of the River in front of the pier and offloaded the steel to the...