Kimble v. Noble Drilling Corporation

• Decision Date: 04 November 1969
• Docket Number: No. 26357.,26357.
• Citation: 416 F.2d 847
• Parties: Versie KIMBLE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING CORPORATION et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

416 F.2d 847 (1969)

Versie KIMBLE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NOBLE DRILLING CORPORATION et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 26357.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

September 23, 1969.

Rehearing Denied November 4, 1969.

George V. Baus, Adams & Reese, New Orleans, La., for defendants-appellants.

Donald V. Organ, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before THORNBERRY and DYER, Circuit Judges, and FISHER, District Judge.

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

The main question presented by this admiralty appeal is whether appellee Versie Kimble could properly be found to have been a seaman for purposes of the Jones Act and general maritime law at the time of his injuries. Kimble was injured twice while in the employ of Noble Drilling Company, both times while working on stationary drilling platforms at sea, and in both instances the jury found that he was a seaman and that Noble's negligence had contributed to his injuries. It also found that negligence of appellant Chevron Oil Company was a proximate cause of one of the accidents. In accordance with the jury's verdict, the trial court rendered judgment for appellee Kimble against Noble under the Jones Act and against Chevron under the general maritime law,¹ overruling appellant's motions for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. We affirm.

Chevron Oil Company conducts large offshore oil recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico for which it hires a number of independent contractors. It owned the two drilling platforms at issue here, platforms "G" and "H," together with their tenders the S-24 and the S-26, both of which were converted LST's. The drilling platforms were permanent, immobile artificial islands affixed to the ocean floor, but the tenders, although they remained adjacent to the platforms for the most part, were mobile vessels that could be shifted from platform to platform or taken into open sea in rough weather.

At the time of his first injury, appellee Kimble worked as a "driller" for Noble Drilling Company, which owned the drilling rigs on the platform and had been hired by Chevron to perform the actual drilling operation. As a driller, Kimble was in charge of one of the four-man crews that worked in alternating shifts on the platform. Thus he did most of his work on the platform, but there is considerable evidence in the record to support Kimble's claim that he also had substantial duties on board the tender. In particular, he had responsibility for making sure that the drilling mud, which was pumped from the mud room on the vessel, was properly mixed. As ancillary duties, therefore, he was charged with maintenance of the mud room equipment and mud pumps, with training and supervising his crew, with maintaining pipes, and with helping in connecting and disconnecting lines from the vessel to the platform when the vessel was moved. Moreover, his activities were always closely related to activity on the vessel, which served as a supply, personnel, equipment, fuel and command center for the entire drilling operation. A part of the reason for his first injury, for example, seems to have been the absence of necessary tools, which he had sent a member of his crew to fetch from the tool room on the vessel.

In addition, during his tour of duty, which was ten days long followed by five days off, Kimble was assigned a permanent room on board the vessel; he ate and slept aboard. While on board, he was subject to the discipline of the master of the ship and underwent many of the same hazards of the sea to which other members of the crew were subjected. There is even some evidence that he was required on occasion to perform tasks that a more traditional blue-water seaman might be expected to perform, although these were probably rare.

At the time of Kimble's second injury, he was a member of a floor crew rather than a driller, and his responsibilities with respect to the mud operation were somewhat reduced. But numerous incidents of the relation of his employment to the vessel remained.

It is to be remembered that our question here is not whether these facts, of themselves, constitute Kimble a seaman, but rather whether they support a jury finding that he is one. This question is largely controlled by Noble Drilling Corp. v. Smith, 5th Cir. 1969, 412 F.2d 952, in which a jury award to an employee of the same drilling company involved here was upheld. The plaintiff in that case was injured while working on a drilling platform, but the Court upheld a jury finding that he was a seaman because his duties included handling mud and mud pumps on a tender and because he was assigned a permanent place on board ship. This result in the Smith case followed from the decision of this Court in Offshore...