Hurst v. Triad Shipping Co.

• Decision Date: 25 April 1977
• Docket Number: No. 74-1143,Nos. 76-1923 and 76-2562,No. 74-1573,No. 76-2772,74-1143,74-1573,76-2772,s. 76-1923 and 76-2562
• Citation: 554 F.2d 1237
• Parties: Robert HURST, Appellant, v. TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil Action). Leslie MINUS, Appellant, v. TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil Action). TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY, Appellant, v. LAVINO SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 1237

554 F.2d 1237

Robert HURST, Appellant, v. TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil Action No. 74-1143).

Leslie MINUS, Appellant, v. TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil Action No. 74-1573).

TRIAD SHIPPING COMPANY, Appellant, v. LAVINO SHIPPING COMPANY. (D.C. Civil No. 76-2772).

Nos. 76-1923 and 76-2562.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Feb. 24, 1977.

Decided April 25, 1977.

Charles F. Love, Charles Sovel, Freedman, Lorry, Vigderman, Weiner & Sovel, Philadelphia, Pa., for Hurst and Minus.

Robert B. White, Jr., Rawle & Henderson, Philadelphia, Pa., for Triad Shipping Co.

E. Alfred Smith, Krusen, Evans & Byrne, Philadelphia, Pa., of American Export Lines, Inc., et al., as amici curiae.

Clayton H. Thomas, Jr., Charles W. Craven, Marshall, Dennehey & Warner, Philadelphia, Pa., for Lavino Shipping Co.

Before ADAMS, KALODNER ^* and HUNTER, Circuit Judges.

JAMES HUNTER, III, Circuit Judge:

This case involves two consolidated appeals. In the first, No. 76-1923, Robert Hurst and Leslie Minus, two longshoremen, brought suits for damages against the Triad Shipping Company under amended section 5(b) of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act of 1927, 33 U.S.C. § 905(b) (Supp. II 1972). ¹ The District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entered judgment on a directed verdict against both plaintiffs. On appeal, Hurst and Minus raise two issues crucial to the operation of the legislative compromise embodied in the 1972 amendments to the Longshoremen's Act: (1) the constitutionality of congressional abolition, in section 905(b), of the longshoreman's suit for unseaworthiness, and (2) the standard of care to which shipowners are to be held in longshoremen's negligence actions under section 905(b). Because we hold section 905(b) constitutional and conclude that the court below applied the proper rule concerning the standard of care, we affirm.

Triad argues that if the congressional abolition of the unseaworthiness cause of action in amended section 905(b) is held to be unconstitutional thereby exposing Triad to liability without fault, then the concomitant elimination in the same section of Triad's right of indemnification from the stevedoring company must also be unconstitutional. The district court concluded that both provisions of section 905(b) are constitutional and, therefore, granted summary judgment for Lavino on the indemnity claim. Because we hold today that the abolition of the unseaworthiness remedy is constitutional, Triad's sole argument is obviated. Thus, we affirm the granting of summary judgment.

I.

On May 14, 1973, the S.S. Island Archon, a vessel owned and operated by Triad, was berthed at Girard Point in the Port of Philadelphia, on the navigable water of the United States. The time charterer of the vessel, a Japanese company called Toko Lines, had engaged Lavino Shipping Company, a stevedoring concern, to furnish the necessary manpower and equipment to discharge a cargo of steel coils from the ship. Hurst and Minus were longshoremen employed by Lavino.

At one o'clock in the afternoon of May 14, 1973, Lavino's work crew began discharging steel coils from the Number Five Hatch of the Island Archon. Among the equipment used in the operation was a shore-based crane owned and operated by Lavino. The end of the crane's cable was attached to a block on which there was a large open hook. Suspended from this open hook were two cables approximately thirty feet long referred to as "legs." The legs hung from the open hook by means of "eyes" or loops on the end of each leg. The lower end of one leg was attached to a braided cable. There was a hook on the end of the other leg. In order to discharge the steel coils, which were shaped like doughnuts, the legs were lowered into the hold. The braided cable was pulled through the center of the core of the coils by the longshoremen and was attached to the open hook on the other leg. The cargo was then ready to be hoisted out by the crane. However, the hook from which the thirty-foot legs were suspended was unequipped with a safety catch to prevent the legs from slipping off. The parties stipulated that operation of the crane without the safety catch was unreasonably dangerous.

At three o'clock in the afternoon of May 14, Hurst and Minus began their shift in the Number Five Hatch. The legs were lowered into the hold. Minus and another longshoreman held the braided cable steady, while Hurst fed it to another longshoreman, inside the core of the coil, who was pulling the braid through. This longshoreman signalled for more wire to be lowered down so that he could pull the braided cable completely through the coil and hook it up. Accordingly, the crane operator lowered more wire. Unfortunately, the thirty-foot wire legs rubbed against the side of the coaming or hatch opening, and clamps securing the eyes caught on the side of the hatch opening, causing the eyes to be lifted off the hook. The legs fell into the hatch, injuring Hurst and Minus.

Both men filed damage suits against the shipowner, Triad. Their complaints originally contained counts of unseaworthiness, but the district court struck those counts before trial.

At trial, the plaintiffs presented three items of evidence bearing on the shipowner's alleged negligence. First, they established that the ship's chief officer was in the vicinity of Number Five Hatch during the entire course of the unloading operations, a period of some two and one-half hours. The chief officer, however, in a deposition introduced at the trial, denied observing the unsafe condition of the crane's hook until after the accident.

Second, the plaintiffs introduced testimony that it is the custom in the maritime industry for ship officers to be assigned to observe discharge operations at the various hatches. According to plaintiffs' witness, the officers make sure that the stevedore operates properly, and they have the authority to stop any operations endangering cargo, crew, or others.

Third, plaintiffs introduced expert testimony to the effect that a reasonably prudent chief officer would stop a discharge operation if he observed an unsafe hook such as that used aboard the Island Archon on the day of the accident. Plaintiffs' expert testified about the officer's authority to give such orders: ²

The ship's officers have a vessel, and the vessel is like their home, and they can say what happens and does not happen. It is just like you at your home. You can say what you want done and don't want done. It is just that simple.

At the close of plaintiffs' evidence, the district court considered Triad's motion for a directed verdict. Plaintiffs argued that a jury question was presented on the question of the chief officer's knowledge and that a jury could reasonably infer from the evidence that the chief officer had noted the absence of a safety catch. The court below disagreed, holding that no evidence had been introduced to controvert the chief officer's unequivocal denial of knowledge. Nor, said the court, was there anything about the officer's deposition that might have led the jury to disbelieve his denial. Finally, the court ruled that no evidence had been introduced to demonstrate that the unsafe condition of the hook was so conspicuous that the chief officer simply could not have avoided noticing it.

The only remaining question on the directed verdict motion, then, was whether the standard of care in negligence actions under section 905(b) required that the shipowner should have known about the unsafe conditions created by the stevedore and protected the longshoremen therefrom. The court held that on the facts of the case there was no such duty, granted the defendant's motion, and entered judgment for defendant in both cases. Following the court's denial of their motion for rehearing, both Hurst and Minus appealed.

II.

Appellants contend that the district court erred in striking the unseaworthiness claims from their complaints. They argue that the 1972 amendment of section 905(b), which eliminated the longshoreman's action based on unseaworthiness, is unconstitutional. Because we hold the abolition of unseaworthiness actions a proper exercise of congressional power, we conclude that the court below did not err in striking those counts from appellants' complaints.

A.

The rise and fall of the longshoreman's claim based on the warranty of seaworthiness has been exhaustively chronicled elsewhere. ³ Some familiarity with the warranty's history, however, is necessary for an understanding of the 1972 amendments to the Longshoremen's Act, particularly section 905(b).

The Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act of 1927, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-50 (1970), was designed as a workmen's compensation statute for longshoremen and other harbor workers. Like any workmen's compensation statute, it represented a compromise: the longshoremen gave up the prospect of huge awards from sympathetic juries, but gained the certainty of recovery without proof of their employer's fault; the employers forfeited the chance to escape liability in court, but gained assurance of much lower, administratively determined awards. 33 U.S.C. §§ 904-05 (1970). Like most workmen's compensation statutes, too, the Longshoremen's Act permitted employees to bring negligence actions against third parties who had tortiously injured them. 33 U.S.C. § 933. ⁴

The 1927 Act, though, was not destined to operate as smoothly as the usual workmen's compensation statute. Professors Gilmore and Black put it thus: ⁵

When (the Act) was drafted no thought, presumably, was given to the fact that maritime workers regularly work on premises (i. e., ships) owned by third parties (shipowners) which are temporarily relinquished to the employers (master stevedores) for the carrying out of, say, loading or unloading operations. Thus, the situation of employment-related injuries attributable to the acts of third parties (not employers),...