International Stevedoring Co v. Haverty
| Decision Date | 18 October 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 236,236 |
| Citation | 272 U.S. 50,71 L.Ed. 157,47 S.Ct. 19 |
| Parties | INTERNATIONAL STEVEDORING CO. v. HAVERTY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Stephen V. Carey, of Seattle, Wash., for petitioner.
Messrs. Mark M. Litchman and John F. Dore, both of Seattle, Wash., for respondent.
This is an action brought in a State Court seeking a common law remedy for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, the respondent here, upon a vessel at dock in the harbor of Seattle. The plaintiff was a longshoreman engaged in stowing freight in the hold. Through the negligence of the hatch tender no warning was given that a load of freight was about to be lowered, and when the load came down the plaintiff was badly hurt. The plaintiff and the hatch tender both were employed by the defendant stevedore, the petitioner here, and the defendant asked for a ruling that they were fellow servants and that therefore the plaintiff could not recover. The Court ruled that if the failure of the hatch tender to give a signal was the proximate cause of the injury the verdict must be for the plaintiff. A verdict was found for him and a judgment on the verdict was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. 134 Wash. 235, 245, 235 P. 360, 238 P. 581. A writ of certiorari was granted by this Court. 269 U. S. 549, 46 S. Ct. 119, 70 L. Ed. 406.
The petitioner argues that the case is governed by the admiralty law; that the admiralty law has taken up the common law doctrine as to fellow servants, and that by the common law the plaintiff would have no case. Whether this last proposition is true we do not decide. The petitioner cites a number of decisions of which it is enough to mention The Hoquiam, 253 F. 627, 165 C. C. A. 253, and Cassil v. United States Emergency Fleet Corporation (C. C. A.) 289 F. 774. It also refers to an intimation of this Court that whether the established doctrine be good or bad it is not open to courts to do away with it upon their personal notions of what is expedient. It is open to Congress, however, to change the rule and in our opinion it has done so. By the Act of June 5, 1920, c. 250, § 20, 41 Stat. 988, 1007 (Comp. St. § 8337a):
'Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his elelction, maintaion an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action election, maintain an action for damages at law, or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply.'
It is not disputed that the stat- utes do away with the fellow servant rule...
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Lucas v. " BRINKNES" SCHIFFAHRTS GES.
...therefore, recover under that Act against the stevedore-employer for the latter's negligence. International Stevedoring Company v. Haverty, 272 U.S. 50, 47 S.Ct. 19, 71 L.Ed. 157 (1926). The Jones Act provided the longshoreman with an attractive negligence remedy against his employer. The J......
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...the court rightly found support in the trend and policy of this Court's decisions, especially in International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U.S. 50, 47 S.Ct. 19, 71 L.Ed. 157; Atlantic Transport Co. of West Virginia v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52, 34 S.Ct. 733, 58 L.Ed. 1208, 51 L.R.A.,N.S., 1......
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...28 U.S.C.S. [section] 1333 (1948). (31) See, e.g., Chandris, Inc., 515 U.S. at 355. (32) Id. (33) Int'l Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U.S. 50, 52 (34) Id.; see also Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769, 774 (5th Cir. 1959). (35) Chandris Inc., 515 U.S at 355-56 citing 44 Stat. (part 2), ......
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...but it is still a basic, perhaps the basic, value of the system."). (111.) See infra Part III.B. (112.) Int'l Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U.S. 50, 52 (113.) By way of analogy, when the U.S. Supreme Court established the deference a U.S. court owes to administrative construction of an am......