Sheffield v. Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1992
• Docket Number: OWENS-CORNING
• Citation: 595 So.2d 443
• Parties: , Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 13,135 Henry L. SHEFFIELD v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. John YOUNG v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. William F. SHAW v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. NATIONAL BULK CARRIERS, INC., et al. v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. WATERMAN STEAMSHIP CORPORATION and Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. WATERMAN STEAMSHIP CORPORATION and Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. v.FIBERGLASS CORPORATION. 1900970 to 1900975.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 443

595 So.2d 443

1993 A.M.C. 2338, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 13,135

Henry L. SHEFFIELD v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

John YOUNG v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

William F. SHAW v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

NATIONAL BULK CARRIERS, INC., et al. v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

WATERMAN STEAMSHIP CORPORATION and Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

WATERMAN STEAMSHIP CORPORATION and Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. v. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLASS CORPORATION.

1900970 to 1900975.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Feb. 28, 1992.

Joseph M. Allen, Jr. and Gregory C. Buffalow of Johnstone, Adams, Bailey, Gordon & Harris, Mobile, for appellants Alcoa Steamship Co., Inc., American Foreign Steamship Corp., American Tankers Corp. of Delaware, California Tanker Co., Central Gulf Lines, Inc., Central Gulf Steamship Corp., Chevron Shipping Co., Chevron U.S.A., Inc., Farrell Lines, Inc., Gulf and South American Steamship Co., Inc., Gulf Trading and Transp. Corp., Keystone Shipping Co., Keystone Tankship Corp., Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., Inc., Moore-McCormack Resources, Inc., Nat. Bulk Carriers, Inc., United Fruit Co. and Waterman Steamship Corp.

Charles S. Siegel of Baron & Budd, P.C., Dallas, Tex., and Richard F. Pate and J. Wesley Sowell of Richard F. Pate, P.C., Mobile, for appellants Henry Sheffield, John Young and William Shaw.

Jon A. Green and Jack B. Hood of Crosby, Saad & Beebe, P.C., Mobile, for appellee Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp.

James A. Philips of Tully & Philips, Mobile, for appellee John Crane, Inc.

ADAMS, Justice.

John Crane, Inc. ("Crane"), and Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corporation ("OCF") seek this Court's affirmance of summary judgments entered against former seamen William Shaw, Henry Sheffield, and John Young (the "plaintiffs") and numerous owners and operators ("shipowners") of the ships on which the plaintiffs were employed. The claims of the plaintiffs against OCF were based on allegations of injury as a result of exposure to OCF's asbestos products, which, they contended, were aboard the ships on which they served. The shipowners sought indemnity or contribution from OCF and Crane, whose asbestos products, the plaintiffs say, were aboard ships on which the plaintiffs were employed. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Shaw, Sheffield, and Young were merchant seamen with approximately 15, 22, and 8 years' experience at sea, respectively. Shaw's maritime service ended in 1982, Sheffield's in 1968, and Young's in 1960. Subsequently, all three seamen, alleging that they were suffering from asbestosis, a progressive pulmonary disease allegedly caused by the inhalation of airborne asbestos fibers, filed complaints in Mobile County Circuit Court on February 17, 1987, June 16, 1987, and June 11, 1987, respectively, against their former employers, the owners and operators of the ships on which they had served.

The original complaints alleged causes of action for negligence pursuant to the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.App. § 688, and for unseaworthiness, which allegedly resulted from the presence of asbestos fibers aboard the ships. The shipowners, seeking indemnity and contribution under principles of maritime law, impleaded 27 manufacturers whose asbestos-containing products could have been aboard the ships on which the plaintiffs served. All three plaintiffs eventually amended their complaints to allege, under general maritime law, causes of action for strict product liability, failure to warn, and various other product liability theories, directly against the same 27 manufacturers.

Several of the manufacturers, including Crane and OCF, moved for summary judgments on the ground that there was insufficient evidence linking the plaintiffs' injuries to any particular manufacturer's product. On February 22, 1991, the trial court granted the motions of Crane and OCF and certified its summary judgments as final, pursuant to Ala.R.Civ.P. 54(b). The issues presented on appeal from those summary judgments are (1) whether maritime law controls the claims of the plaintiffs and shipowners against OCF and Crane, and (2) whether evidence of a causal connection between products manufactured by Crane and OCF was sufficiently established in each plaintiff's case to preclude summary judgment.

II. APPLICABLE LAW

Although the claims of the plaintiffs against the shipowners for Jones Act negligence and unseaworthiness are not at issue in this appeal, it is undisputed that federal law governs those claims. ¹ It follows, therefore, that federal maritime law also governs the indemnity claims of the shipowners against OCF and Crane. Vaughn v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 937 F.2d 953, 956 (4th Cir.1991) (where the "underlying tort claims from which the indemnity claim is derived ... are maritime tort claims," the " 'indemnity claim arising therefrom is similarly a maritime claim' "); White v. Johns-Manville Corp., 662 F.2d 243, 247 (4th Cir.1981); Swogger v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 151 A.D.2d 100, 546 N.Y.S.2d 80 (1989); T. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law § 4-15, at 146 (1987) ("There is admiralty jurisdiction over controversies involving contribution and indemnification if jurisdiction exists over the underlying primary cause of action").

In our view, the underlying claims in this suit are the plaintiffs' claims against the shipowners alleging Jones Act negligence and unseaworthiness; therefore, the above-cited authorities fully answer the question regarding the applicable law. However, because the strenuous arguments of OCF and Crane focus principally on the product liability claims involved in this suit, as if those claims formed the "underlying primary cause of action," we will, out of deference to OCF and Crane, inquire whether the product liability claims of the plaintiffs against OCF and Crane, standing alone, would be subject to admiralty jurisdiction. ²

OCF contends that maritime law does not apply to the plaintiffs' product liability claims because, it insists, those claims lack the necessary relationship or "nexus" to "traditional maritime activity" to invoke the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts. Brief of Defendant-Appellee, at 37. ³ For this proposition, OCF cites Cochran v. E.I. duPont de Nemours, 933 F.2d 1533 (11th Cir.1991), cert. denied, Cochran v. American Abrasive Metals Co., 502 U.S. 1035, 112 S.Ct. 881, 116 L.Ed.2d 785 (1992).

In Cochran, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that an ex-Navy sailor's product liability claims against the manufacturers of asbestos products to which he was allegedly exposed while aboard an aircraft carrier did not invoke admiralty jurisdiction. Cochran, 933 F.2d at 1535. The court noted that the plaintiff's exposure to asbestos allegedly occurred in connection with his duties in maintaining the deck "while the ship was docked in navigable waters ... and while the ship was at sea." Id. at 1538. Consequently, it concluded, the sailor's claims "clearly satisfie[d]" the traditional test for the application of maritime law, which turned on the "locality" of the injury. Id.

Having reached this determination, however, the court subjected the plaintiff's claims to further analysis to determine whether they demonstrated a "significant relationship to traditional maritime activity." Cochran, 933 F.2d at 1538. Specifically, the court considered the claims in relation to "the functions and roles of the parties"; "the types of vehicle and instrumentalities involved"; "the causation and type of injury"; and "the traditional concepts of the role of admiralty law." Id. at 525; Cochran, 933 F.2d at 1538-39. Placing special emphasis on the fourth factor, the Cochran court ultimately found no admiralty jurisdiction.

The four-part test employed by Cochran evolved in response to Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 253, 93 S.Ct. 493, 497, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (1972). Our own analysis of Executive Jet and, in particular, the more recent case of East River S.S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 106 S.Ct. 2295, 90 L.Ed.2d 865 (1986), convinces us that the application of the nexus test to the case sub judice is inappropriate.

Traditionally, as Cochran correctly pointed out, whether the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction was proper in any case alleging personal injury depended on the locality of the tort. In such cases, admiralty jurisdiction extended only to torts that were "committed on the high seas, or on waters within the ebb and flow of the tide." Thomas v. Lane, 23 Fed.Cas. 418, 444 (C.C.Me.1813) (Story, J., on circuit). Subsequent developments, however, both legal and technological, significantly increased the potential scope of admiralty jurisdiction where the existence vel non of jurisdiction depended solely on the situs of the tort.

The locality from which admiralty jurisdiction was deemed to arise was eventually "expanded to include not only tidewaters, but all navigable waters, including lakes and rivers." Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 253, 93 S.Ct. 493, 497, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (1972) (citing The Propeller Genesse Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How. 443, 13 L.Ed. 1058 (1851)). Other expansions of the potential for the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction include (1) the "application of the Jones Act ... to injuries to a seaman on land, because of the seaman's connection with maritime commerce," Executive Jet, 409 U.S. at 259, 93 S.Ct. at 500 (citing O'Donnell v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 318 U.S. 36, 63 S.Ct. 488, 87 L.Ed. 596 (1943)), (2) the extension of the "doctrine of unseaworthiness ... to permit a seaman or a longshoreman to recover from a ship owner for injuries sustained wholly on land, so long as those injuries were caused by defects in the ship or its gear," id. at 260, 93 S.Ct. at 500 (citing Gutierrez v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 83 S.Ct. 1185, 10 L.Ed.2d 297 (1963...