Smith v. Marine Terminals Of Ark. Inc
| Decision Date | 17 November 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 3:09CV00027 JLH,3:09CV00027 JLH |
| Parties | BILLY D. SMITH PLAINTIFF v. MARINE TERMINALS OF ARKANSAS, INC. DEFENDANT |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
Billy D. Smith has sued Marine Terminals of Arkansas, Inc., for damages under section 33 of the Merchant Marine Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104 ("the Jones Act"); for unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure under general maritime law; and for damages under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act ("the LHWCA"), 33 U.S.C. § 905(b). Marine Terminals has moved for summary judgment. The first issue is whether Smith was a seaman or a longshoreman. For reasons that will be explained, he was a longshoreman, not a seaman, so summary judgment will be entered on the Jones Act claim and general maritime law claims. Because Smith was a longshoreman, it is necessary to decide Smith's section 905(b) claim. On that claim the issue is whether the negligence that caused Smith's injury is attributed to Marine Terminals in its capacity as a vessel owner or in its capacity as employer engaged in stevedore operations. Smith was injured while working on a vessel the sole purpose of which was to engage in stevedore operations. The Court cannot say as a matter of law that Smith was not engaged in vessel operations because in this instance vessel operations and stevedore operations were one and the same, so summary judgment will be denied on Smith's section 905(b) claim.
A court should enter summary judgment if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see also Anderson v Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S. Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L. Ed. 2d 202 (1986); Cheshewalla v. Rand & Son Constr. Co., 415 F.3d 847, 850 (8th Cir. 2005). The party moving for summary judgment bears the initial responsibility of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1986). If the moving party carries its burden, "the nonmoving party must come forward with 'specific facts showing that there is a genuine issuefor trial.' " Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S. Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L. Ed. 2d 538 (1986) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)). A genuine issue for trial exists only if there is sufficient evidence to allow a jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249, 106 S. Ct. at 2511. When a nonmoving party cannot make an adequate showing on a necessary element of the case on which that party bears the burden of proof, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323, 106 S. Ct. at 2552.
Smith worked for Marine Terminals driving 50-90 ton trucks, hauling various types of loose iron or steel from a dock barge owned by Marine Terminals to a scrap yard owned by an entity identified in the record only as Nucor.1 Occasionally, Smith would walk along the roadway between the dock barge and the scrap yard to retrieve scrap steel that fell off the trucks. The dock barge was a floating dock near the riverbank tied to the shore by suspension cables and connected to land by a ramp. Smith would back the truck down the ramp onto the dock barge where a crane operator would transfer iron or steel from river barges to the truck using a hydraulic crane fitted with a clamshell bucket. Before a river barge could be unloaded, it had to be secured to the dock barge by suspension cables connected to a winch system located on the dock barge. As the crane emptied a portion of the river barge, the river barge would be moved along the side of the dock barge so that the crane could reach more iron or steel. This process created "slack" in the cable that had to be taken up before the next river barge could dock and be unloaded. To draw the slack from the cable a Marine Terminals employee would throw a rope into the clamshell bucket of the crane, and the crane operator would close the bucket on the rope and pull on it. This procedure was described by Rickie Ellis, a member of Marine Terminals' management personnel, as "damned dangerous." On the date of his injury, Smith was asked to participate in this procedure, which he had never done before. Instead of throwing the rope in the clamshell bucket, he placed his hand with the rope in the bucket evidently in an attempt to hook the rope in the bucket. Not realizing that Smith's hand was in the bucket, the crane operator closed the bucket, seriously injuring Smith.
Marine Terminals moves for summary judgment on Smith's claims under the Jones Act, for unseaworthiness, and for maintenance and cure, arguing that, as a matter of law, Smith is not a seaman. As to Smith's claim under section 905(b), Marine Terminals argues that, as a matter of law no negligence can be attributed to it in its capacity as a vessel owner a sine qua non for section 905(b) liability. These arguments are considered below.
Although the Jones Act uses the term "seaman," it does not define this term. In Chandris Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347, 368, 115 S. Ct. 2172, 2190, 132 L. Ed. 2d 314 (1995), the Supreme Court stated, "we think that the essential requirements for seamen status are twofold."
First, as we emphasized in Wilander, an employee's duties must contribute to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of its mission.... Second, and most important for our purposes, a seaman must have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable group of such vessels) that is substantial in terms of both its duration and its nature. The fundamental purpose of this substantial connection requirement is to give full effect to the remedial scheme created by Congress and to separate the sea-based maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act protection from those land-based workers who have only a transitory or sporadic connection to a vessel in navigation, and therefore whose employment does not regularly expose them to the perils of the sea.
Id. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The first requirement is a "threshold requirement" that is very broad and generally easily satisfied. Id.; Becker v. Tidewater, Inc., 335 F.3d 376, 387-88 (5th Cir. 2003). The second requirement is composed of two components: the employment must be substantially connected to the vessel in navigation both in duration and in nature. See Chandris, 515 U.S. at 370-71, 115 S. Ct. at 2191. "[I]t is important that a seaman's connection to a vessel in fact be substantial in both respects." Id.
With respect to the durational component, the Supreme Court has adopted the Fifth Circuit's rule of thumb that, ordinarily, a "worker who spends less than about 30 percent of his time in the service of a vessel in navigation should not qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act." Id. Conversely, if the worker spends at least 30 percent of his or her time in the service of a vessel, then whether the durational component of the second Chandris requirement is satisfied becomes a fact question for a jury to resolve. "Seaman status is usually a fact-intensive inquiry properly left to the jury to resolve." Johnson v. Cont'l Grain Co., 58 F.3d 1232, 1235 (8th Cir. 1995) (citing Roth v U.S.S. Great Lakes Fleet, Inc., 25 F.3d 707, 708 (8th Cir. 1994)).
Marine Terminals does not contend that Smith's duties failed to contribute to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of its mission, nor that Smith spent too little time on the dock barge to satisfy the durational component. Marine Terminals argues that Smith's duties were not of a seagoing nature but rather land based and, therefore, Smith's employment duties were not substantially connected to the dock barge in nature. It is undisputed that the dock barge's only function was to serve as a dock on which the crane would unload steel and iron from river barges and place the steel and iron in trucks.
Several cases support Marine Terminals' argument that a worker's duties must be of a seagoing nature or expose him to the perils of the sea. Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai, 520 U.S 548, 555, 117 S. Ct. 1535, 1540, 137 L. Ed. 2d 800 (1997) ( ); Denson v. Ingram Barge Co., No. 5:07-cv-00084-R, 2009 WL 1033817, *3 (W.D. Ky. April 16, 2009) (); Roberts v. Ingram Barge Co., No. 5:07-cv-00210-R, 2009 WL 1034111, *3 (W.D. Ky. April 16, 2009) (same); Schultz v. Louisiana Dock Co., 94 F. Supp. 2d 746, 750 (E.D. La. 2000); Frazier v. Core Industries, Inc., 39 So. 3d 140, 156-57 (Ala. Sup. Ct. 2009); Richard v. Mike Hooks, Inc., 799 So. 2d 462, 466-67 (La. Sup. Ct. 2001). These cases comport with the Court's statement in Chandris that the purpose of the substantial connection requirement is to separate maritime employees from land-based workers "whose employment does not regularly expose them to the perils of the sea." Chandris, 515 U.S. at 368, 115 S. Ct. at 2190.
On the other hand, Smith points to Lara v. Harvey's Iowa Mgmt. Co., Inc., 109 F. Supp. 2d 1031, 1037 (S.D. Iowa 2000), where the district court held that since the plaintiff "routinely worked on Defendant's fully operational ship [but which never moved while Lara was on it] located on the Missouri River, a reasonable jury could conclude she was a sea-based, Jones Act empl...
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