John A. Roebling's Sons Co. of New York v. Erickson

• Decision Date: 12 November 1919
• Docket Number: 26.
• Citation: 261 F. 986
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
• Parties: JOHN A. ROEBLING'S SONS CO. OF NEW YORK v. ERICKSON. [1]

261 F. 986

JOHN A. ROEBLING'S SONS CO. OF NEW YORK v. ERICKSON. ^[1]

No. 26.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

November 12, 1919

B. L Pettigrew, of New York City (Walter L. Glenney, of New York City, and Everett W. Bovard, of Elmhurst, N.Y., of counsel) for plaintiff in error.

S. B Axtell, of New York City (Arthur Lavenburg, of New York City of counsel), for defendant in error.

Before WARD, ROGERS, and MANTON, Circuit Judges.

WARD Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff, an able seaman on the schooner Florence Thurlow, at Ponce, Porto Rico, while taking out the cargo fall from the snatch block, got his hand caught between the fall and the pulley, and permanently injured. The vessel was discharging heavy sawed logs 30 to 40 feet long from the lower hold to the 'tween-decks and through a square port in the bow to a lighter.

The plaintiff's story is that the discharging had been going on for some days in the usual and safe method, which need not be particularly described, when the master for the sake of speed adopted a new and dangerous one. He directed the men in the hold to put a stick under the after end of the logs, to hold them up while the fall was being disengaged from the snatch block, and gave them a defective one, which broke, causing the after end of the log to drop and bring a sudden strain on the fall, which caused the plaintiff's left hand to be caught in the snatch block as above stated. The stick was shipped with a multitude of others like it as dunnage for the logs, and not for any other purpose.

The court required the plaintiff to elect at the trial whether he would stand upon his right to wages and expenses of maintenance and cure to the end of the voyage, or to stand upon his right to indemnity. He elected the latter, on the ground that the master, as vice principal of the owners, ordered the dangerous method of discharging the logs, and that the vessel was unseaworthy because of the defective and unsafe stick selected by him.

The court, over the defendant's exception, denied its motion for the direction of a verdict in its favor, and left to the jury the question whether the master adopted an improper method of discharging the cargo, and whether the stick used was defective, instructing them that, if they so found, the owners were liable, and that, while the plaintiff's contributory negligence, if any, would not prevent him from recovering they should consider such negligence as one of the elements in fixing the amount of his indemnity.

Cases concerning the rights of passengers or of strangers to recover for personal injury on board ship are wholly inapplicable to seamen. The relation of master and seaman is peculiar, and is fully stated by the Supreme Court in The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 23 Sup.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760, and Chelentis v. Luckenbach Steamship Co., 247 U.S. 372 38 Sup.Ct. 501, 62 L.Ed. 1171. A seaman injured without willful misconduct is entitled to wages and expenses of maintenance and cure to the end of the voyage, whether himself guilty of negligence or not. His freedom from liability for his own negligence is not a question of remedy at all, but an essential part of the status of the seaman and of the relation of master and...