Kaiser v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, 8154.
| Decision Date | 01 April 1937 |
| Docket Number | No. 8154.,8154. |
| Citation | 89 F.2d 58 |
| Parties | KAISER v. STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW JERSEY. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
T. G. Schirmeyer, of Houston, Tex., for appellant.
J. C. Hutcheson, III., of Houston, Tex., for appellee.
Before FOSTER and SIBLEY, Circuit Judges, and STRUM, District Judge.
Libelant Frank C. Kaiser shipped aboard the motor vessel Vistula as a fireman. His wages were $65 per month, plus room and board. As the Vistula approached the northern European coast on September 30, 1935, she ran into a heavy storm, causing her to roll and pitch heavily. During the storm libelant was on watch in the fireroom, and had gone to an upper deck to empty a bucket over the side. Returning to the fireroom with the empty bucket in his left hand, libelant was descending a companionway ladder from which he fell, injuring his knee, hip, and elbow.
The ladder in question is about eight feet high, and runs from one deck to another at an angle of about thirty degrees from the perpendicular, quite close to and at right angles with a vertical steel bulkhead. The ladder consists of a series of wooden steps and has a tubular metal handrail on each side. The inner handrail is secured, top and bottom, to the vertical steel bulkhead alongside the ladder. Opposite the second step from the top of the ladder, the inner handrail is further secured to the steel bulkhead by a metal T piece, similar to a T pipe fitting, the base of which is riveted by a flange to the bulkhead, so that the stem of the T piece is at right angles with the bulkhead and the top of the T piece parallel with the ladder. The tubular handrail, which is in two sections, is screwed into each end of the top of the T, so as to form a continuous handrail along the entire length of the ladder. The top of the T piece has a slight ridge at each end above the inside threads, where the handrail screws into it, which ridge is not rounded off. Libelant claims that as he was descending the ladder, running his right hand along the inner handrail for support, his hand struck a sharp burr on the outer end of the T piece, which caused him to instinctively raise his hand from the handrail just as the ship rolled, thus causing him to be thrown from the ladder, and that such condition of the T piece rendered the ship unseaworthy.
Libelant appeals from a decree below awarding him $250 for wages, maintenance and cure, and denying him indemnity damages, the District Court finding that "there was no burr on the handrail and that the ship was not unseaworthy." Libelant asserts that the award for wages, maintenance and cure was...
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