Robert v. Conti Carriers & Terminals, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 December 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-3459,81-3459
• Citation: 692 F.2d 22
• Parties: 12 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 162 David L. ROBERT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CONTI CARRIERS & TERMINALS, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 22

692 F.2d 22

12 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 162

David L. ROBERT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CONTI CARRIERS & TERMINALS, INC., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 81-3459.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Dec. 2, 1982.

Lemle, Kelleher, Kohlmeyer & Matthews, Michael A. McGlone, New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellant.

L. Walker Allen, II, Lawrence J. Duplass, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana

Before RUBIN and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS ^*, District Judge.

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

It is charged that, in the course of a two-day conventional personal injury case, ¹ the trial judge made four errors in admitting testimony, nine errors in failing to give charges requested by the defendant, one error in deciding to give a charge requested by the victorious plaintiff, five errors in the portion of the charge prepared by the judge, and that, in addition, he erred in failing to grant a judgment notwithstanding the verdict as to the plaintiff's contributory negligence and in failing to grant a new trial or remittitur when the jury awarded excessive damages. Because we find no reversible error in the more than score of asserted bad calls, we affirm.

David L. Robert was employed as a deckhand aboard the M/V RUBY E, a push bow type tug used to fleet barges in the Port of New Orleans for Conti Carriers & Terminals, Inc. He was loosening a barge's stern shoreline so two tugs could reposition the barge. The line had an "eye," or wire loop, at its end, and this was placed around a kevel on the barge. While Robert was removing the line, his hands were caught between the eye and the kevel and injured. He was hospitalized for twenty-three days, and underwent six surgical procedures. According to one orthopedist, Robert lost 28% of the function in his right hand and 17% of the function in his left.

The unexceptional issues at trial were whether the captain of the M/V RUBY E was negligent, whether the vessel was unseaworthy, whether Robert was contributorily negligent, and, if the defendant was

liable, the extent of Robert's injury. The case was tried to a jury before an experienced trial judge. The jury found for Robert, awarding him $250,000. Following the loss below, Conti turned its legal battleship broadside and fired the salvo that we now consider.

I. LIABILITY

Pursuant to a requirement of the district court, Robert's counsel prepared a pretrial list of witnesses. For each expert witness, the list indicated the witness' claimed area of expertise. This list was incorporated into the district court's pretrial order. One of the witnesses on the list, Sheldon G. Held, was listed as a "marine surveyor." Conti argues that it was improper for the trial judge to permit Held to testify as a safety expert because safety was not listed as his area of expertise.

A trial judge has broad discretion in deciding whether to admit evidence not included in pretrial orders. ² Prior to trial, Robert delivered a letter to Conti's counsel outlining the testimony Held was expected to give. His testimony was apparently consistent with his report. Conti does not contend it was in any way surprised by the testimony. The testimony was, therefore, properly admitted.

Conti has numerous complaints regarding the jury charges. It proposed fourteen special charges, many tendentious in phrasing. The trial judge selected among them carefully, giving some, rejecting most. Many of Conti's complaints are based on insignificant language variations. Thus:

REQUEST

In this regard, you are charged that a vessel owner is not obligated to furnish a so-called 'accident proof ship' and the occurrence of an accident thereon should not lead you to find necessarily that the vessel was unseaworthy.

CHARGE CLAIMED TO BE INSUFFICIENT

The vessel owner does not undertake, and it is not incumbent upon him, to provide an accident proof vessel. The mere fact that you may find that an accident occurred and plaintiff was injured, without more, does not establish that the vessel was unseaworthy.

The district court was clearly justified in rephrasing Conti's proposed instructions to make them not only more impartial but more clear.

The trial judge is not required to give a flawless instruction suitable for publication in a treatise. "[T]he test is not whether the charge was faultless in every particular but whether the jury was misled in any way and whether it had understanding of the issues and its duty to determine those issues." ³ The jury was properly guided in its deliberations. We have reviewed the nine suggested defects, and we find such slight merit in each that a detailed review of each would give the factitious arguments more substance than they deserve. ⁴

The criticism of the court for giving charges requested by the plaintiff also turns on the language used. Conti charges the district court with "parroting exactly" the language proposed by plaintiff. The district judge is to be no more faulted for adopting pertinent and well-chosen sentences than he is for failing to use words he considered inappropriate or simply not in his own style. So long as the substance of the instruction is accurate, its source is irrelevant.

Although the court gave no instruction concerning inflation, Conti complains that this alarming word was used in the presence of the jury during the questioning of Robert's economist. ⁵ The uses were innocuous. ⁶ Moreover, in the light of our en banc decisions in Culver v. Slater Boat Co., 688 F.2d 280 (5th Cir.1982) and Byrd v. Heinrich Schmidt Reederi, 688 F.2d 324 (5th Cir.1982), the error, if any, was harmless.

The admission of photographs of Robert's hands taken during the period of his hospitalization was clearly within the district judge's discretion. ⁷ Although five photographs were offered, the trial judge admitted only two. We have examined these and find that they had probative value and were not unfairly prejudicial. The pictures depicted Robert's hands on the sixth and eighth days after his injury. The condition of Robert's hands was clearly relevant to his claim for pain and suffering.

II. DAMAGES

Conti presented evidence that Robert could work in the future and stresses that a vocational rehabilitation expert testified that Robert could be rehabilitated. It contends, therefore, that the court improperly admitted an economist's testimony concerning Robert's future lost income because the economist was asked to assume that Robert would, in the future, earn only the minimum wage. Two orthopedists, however, testified that Robert could not return to work as a deckhand. There was testimony by an occupational therapist that Robert could not work in any of the jobs he had held in the past: deckhand, marine shop operator, or general construction worker. Indeed, the therapist testified that, while Robert would be able to work safely at unskilled, minimum wage positions, she could not think of any manual labor having a higher pay classification that he could perform safely and competently. While the therapist was not a vocational rehabilitationist, she was competent to testify concerning Robert's physical limitations. ⁸ There was, therefore, a jury question concerning whether or not Robert would be able to earn as much in the future as he had in the past. This laid a sufficient foundation for the testimony concerning lost future wages.

The one serious issue raised by the appeal is the objection to an instruction permitting the jury to "consider the fact that the plaintiff would likely have received periodic increases in pay, as a result of increased skill, seniority, and like factors" ⁹ in the absence of any evidence in the record that Robert or others similarly situated were likely to receive such increases. The language appears to be taken from an opinion in Hamilton v. Canal Barge Co., 395 F.Supp. 978, 991-92 (E.D.La.1975). Hamilton, however, was a bench trial in which evidence was offered that such increases were likely. The case thus cannot support an instruction that a jury may consider as fact something neither proved nor judicially noticed. ¹⁰

In Higginbotham v. Mobil Oil Corp., 545 F.2d 422 (5th Cir.1977), rev'd on other grounds, 436 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 2010, 56 L.Ed.2d 581 (1978), an economist, estimating lost future earnings, used a five percent figure for estimating future annual wage increases. The five percent figure was based upon the decedent's average past annual wage increases. We held that the resulting award was too speculative. At that time this circuit did not allow consideration of inflation in setting damages. We, therefore, remanded the case to enable the plaintiff to prove precisely what part of the decedent's past raises were actual rewards for increased productivity, stating: "to recover at all for future raises, plaintiff must bear the difficult burden of proving what portion of the increases would have been given other than as an automatic hedge against inflation." Id., at 435.

Culver v. Slater Boat Co., 688 F.2d 280 (5th Cir.1982) and Byrd v. Heinrich Schmidt Reederei, 688 F.2d 324 (5th Cir.1982), demonstrate that this circuit's position on inflation and damages has changed dramatically since the time of Higginbotham. Even in the light of Culver and Byrd, however, the instruction given was erroneous, because it instructed the jury to accept as fact something about which there was no evidence. ¹¹ We must consider, therefore, the prejudicial effect of this instruction to determine whether a new trial is necessary. ¹²

The evidence warranted the jury in finding that Robert lost $93,000 in future earnings apart from any possible periodic future increases. There was uncontroverted evidence that he lost $7,500 in past wages. Finally, there was evidence that Robert lost $32,300 in future meals and lodging that would have been provided to him had he continued working as a deckhand. The total award,...