Rodriguez v. Coastal Ship Corporation

• Citation: 210 F. Supp. 38
• Parties: Emilio RODRIGUEZ, Libelant, v. COASTAL SHIP CORPORATION and S.S. GATEWAY CITY, Respondents.
• Decision Date: 03 October 1962
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

210 F. Supp. 38

Emilio RODRIGUEZ, Libelant, v. COASTAL SHIP CORPORATION and S.S. GATEWAY CITY, Respondents.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

October 3, 1962.

Goldstein & Sterenfeld, New York City, for libelant; Herbert W. Sterenfeld, New York City, of counsel.

Burlingham, Underwood, Barron, Wright & White, New York City, for respondents and claimant; William M. Kimball, New York City, of counsel.

WEINFELD, District Judge.

Libelant, a longshoreman, was injured while engaged in his duties aboard the S.S. Gateway City, owned by respondent, Coastal Ship Corporation. He was an employee of Sea-Land Service, Inc. (formerly known as Pan Atlantic Steamship Corporation), the bareboat charterer and owner pro hac vice of the vessel. He brings this libel in rem against the S.S. Gateway City and in personam against Coastal Ship Corporation, seeking damages for his injury on claims of negligence and unseaworthiness.

Preliminarily, dismissal is sought of the libel in rem on the ground that there is no underlying in personam liability on the part of either Sea-Land Service, libelant's employer, or Coastal Ship, the owner of the vessel, to support a maritime lien. The employer, of course, is exonerated from personal liability by reason of the exclusive provisions of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act,¹ and Coastal Ship contends that personal liability cannot be visited upon it because at the time of the delivery of the ship to Sea-Land under the bareboat charter the vessel was seaworthy and Coastal Ship had no notice of any hazardous condition.² Whether or not in rem liability may be imposed upon a vessel in the absence of in personam liability has led to differing views among various Courts of Appeals, and although the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, its recent decision did not do so since it rested upon a factual situation.³ This Court is bound to follow the holding in this Circuit,⁴ which permits the in rem proceeding to be maintained under the circumstances here presented.⁵

Thus we proceed to a consideration of the merits, which requires a general description of the vessel, an innovation in seacoast freight transportation.⁶ The S.S. Gateway City is a modern ship, the first of its kind, designed to achieve maximum efficiency in loading and unloading of entire trailer bodies. Prior to September 30, 1957, when she was bareboat chartered to Sea-Land, she was converted by her owner, Coastal Ship, from a conventional C-2 type of vessel into what is now referred to as a container ship.⁷ She has capacity to carry 226 thirty-five foot long truck trailers which, when coupled to specially built truck chassis on land, become standard highway units for over-the-road transport. Conversely, the highway trailers are unlocked at dock side from the truck chassis and hoisted up and stowed in the ship's hatches. During conversion two self-contained travelling gantry cranes were added to the vessel's superstructure, thus making shore crane facilities unnecessary and eliminating the use of masts, king posts, cargo blocks, cargo runners, cargo winches, hatch beams or hatch boards in connection with cargo operations. One gantry crane is located forward, and the other aft, of the vessel's deckhouse. The cranes, which can be moved athwartship to work on either side, not only lift and lower trailers from the truck chassis dock side, but also can be moved fore and aft to place the trailers in position below and above the main deck of the vessel.

The two gantry cranes working together can unload one trailer from the vessel and place another aboard on a three-minute average. The operation is so efficient that the turn around time of the vessel, including arrival, discharge and reloading of a full load of 226 trailers and departure, is thirty-six hours. The stowing of the 226 trailers is effected as follows: 166 are stacked five high in four hatches forward of the deckhouse and in three aft. These hatches are then covered and twenty-four additional trailers are stowed forward and thirty-six are double tiered aft.

At the starboard aft end of No. 7 hatch is a clamp, a hinged leg-like structure — properly termed a "container guide and security device" — which had been fitted and installed when the vessel was converted. The hinge secures the clamp to the hatch coaming. The purpose of the clamp is to square off and enlarge the top of No. 7 hatch to permit an additional trailer to be stowed and carried on the deck. The No. 7 hatch below main deck level is only wide enough to accommodate four trailers abreast, but above deck, and because the rails on which the gantry crane operates must run straight, the superstructure extends out so that six trailers abreast can be accommodated above the deck. Accordingly, and after the No. 7 hatch is covered with pontoons, the clamp, and others like it, are swung into place in order to support the outboard trailers which are carried on deck at No. 7 hatch. Thus these clamps are raised and lowered as occasion requires — they are swung down to discharge from, and load trailers into, the No. 7 hold; they are raised and then kept in up position while the vessel is at sea. The clamp is about two feet wide, weighs about 150 pounds and generally two men are required to raise or lower it; at times it becomes rusty and a hammer is used to loosen it.

The accident which gives rise to this libel occurred on July 11, 1958 at about 4:20 P. M., when libelant was helping two fellow longshoremen raise the clamp located on the starboard side aft end No. 7 hatch so that a trailer could be stowed in that area. The only witnesses to the accident were libelant and his co-workers, all of whom testified on his behalf. Libelant's co-workers, Rodriguez (not related to libelant) and Pateiro, were on the deck trying to push the clamp up into proper position, but it became stuck halfway because, as they both testified, the hinges were rusty. They called upon libelant, who was then working midway of the starboard hatch pontoons, to assist. He walked to where the clamp was on the extreme edge of the hatch and, standing on the pontoon, bent over facing the clamp and pulled it upward while the two men pushed from below; the clamp, according to all three, did not readily give; libelant lost his balance, slipped and fell to the deck some seven or eight feet and sustained injuries. Immediately after libelant's fall his two co-workers examined the area where libelant stood in trying to assist them and observed a pool of oil more than a foot in diameter and also a fresh skid footmark. The fellow employees also testified that the gantry crane (which was approximately twenty-two feet about the level of the deck) dripped oil from the engines. Pateiro testified that when he released the pontoons that morning he saw a fresh oil patch of a few feet at the aft and starboard side of No. 7 hatch; that oil continued to drip throughout operations and the accumulation was much larger when the accident occurred than it had been previously; that the oil came from the motor of the gantry crane which had been leaking.

The defense called as its only witness its port engineer, who was familiar with the conversion and construction of the vessel and had sailed aboard container ships as chief engineer. He testified that the gantry crane and other moving parts are lubricated with grease or oil and that lubrication is maintained at a constant level; that in the shifting of the bridge of the gantry crane from one side of the vessel to the other, thousands of parts are involved; and in the movement of the gantry crane fore and aft, hundreds of parts are involved, all of which must be properly and periodically lubricated if they are to function. He readily acknowledged that the resulting oil spillage was a problem both during conversion of the S.S. Gateway City to a container ship and after she had been demised to Sea-Land.

When the vessel was chartered to Sea-Land, she had drip pans which Coastal had installed below the bridge transmission boxes in an effort to reduce oil spillage; however, after her delivery to Sea-Land in September, 1957, but some months prior to the accident, these had been removed by her chief engineer as "not being capable of doing the job." In a further effort to solve the problem the engineer installed angles and drip cans along the gear box, notwithstanding which drippings continued to fall from the crane to various parts of the deck during loading and unloading activities.

There can be little doubt that the operation of the gantry crane above the No. 7 hatch resulted in fairly constant dripping of oil and grease onto the deck and other areas below. Indeed the sole defense witness testified it was "impossible to stop it." The respondents, in effect, concede as much, stating that by reason of the S.S. Gateway City's "unique design and the fact that, during cargo operations, large, highly complex diesel-powered, hydraulic-operated machinery is working back and forth over and above the deck * * * some oil spillage onto the deck and pontoons is inevitable and is impossible to prevent." Thus the issues here posed go beyond the so-called transitory or temporary situations and the problems which arise thereunder.⁸

It can hardly be questioned that had the S.S. Gateway City remained a conventional cargo vessel which leaked oil upon her decks and other working areas and which lacked adequate devices to correct or minimize the condition, she would be held unseaworthy. But the respondents and the claimant press that as a reconstructed vessel she and similar container ships are sui generis and are still in the experimental stage; that an inevitable consequence of their functioning is spillage of oil and grease upon the decks and other working areas, and since seaworthiness is a "relative concept,"⁹ that under the circumstances the vessel was reasonably fit for its intended service. In this...