Texaco, Inc. v. Addison, 90-CA-0115

• Decision Date: 18 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 90-CA-0115,90-CA-0115
• Parties: TEXACO, INC. and Gulf Coast Contracting Services, Inc. v. John D. ADDISON.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1193

613 So.2d 1193

TEXACO, INC. and Gulf Coast Contracting Services, Inc. v. John D. ADDISON.

No. 90-CA-0115.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Feb. 18, 1993.

John L. Low, IV, Watkins & Eager, Jackson, S. Robert Hammond Jr., Bryant Clark Dukes Blakeslee Ramsay & Hammond, Hattiesburg, Richard P. Salloum, Franke Rainey & Salloum, Gulfport, for appellants.

Samuel E. Farris, Hattiesburg, for appellee.

Before DAN M. LEE, P.J., and SULLIVAN and McRAE, JJ.

McRAE, Justice, for the Court:

This appeal challenges the jurisdiction of the Forrest County Chancery Court and its interpretation of the law in a November 9, 1989, award of damages to John D. Addison pursuant to the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A.App. Sec. 688 (1988), and general maritime law. Finding that the case was properly before the chancellor, we affirm his findings that Addison was a Jones Act seaman and that Texaco and Gulf Coast Contracting Services are jointly and severally liable for the damages awarded.

I.

The appellee, John D. "Dan" Addison, injured his back on May 28, 1977, while working on the reconstruction of an offshore oil collection and storage facility owned by appellant, Texaco, Inc. At the time of the injury, Addison was working as a roustabout for appellant, Gulf Coast Contracting Services, Inc. The injury occurred when five crew members were carrying a length of heavy pipe across the fixed platform. Addison, who was somewhat taller than the other men, stepped over a manifold pipe, assuming a disproportionate amount of its weight upon his shoulder and back.

Tank Battery # 49, where Addison was working when he was injured, is a fixed platform oil storage and collection facility in Garden Island Bay, a Texaco oil field, located near where the mouth of the Mississippi River joins the Gulf of Mexico. It is approximately twenty-two miles south of Venice, Louisiana, where the Texaco work camp was located. Over the years, the tank battery, which was supported by creosoted wood pilings driven into the floor of the bay, had begun to sink. As a result, water would wash over it at high tide, causing pollution problems. In order to keep the facility in production, it was renovated and raised one section at a time. C.L. Dill Contracting Company was hired to remove the equipment on the platforms, to break up the concrete and load it onto cargo barges, to dismantle and redrive the foundation pilings and to set up slabs and equipment. Lafitte Welders contracted to do the fabrication work, providing a welder and welder's helper to take the measurements and weld the components of the tank battery. Gulf Coast Contracting contracted with Texaco to provide the roustabout labor. Reconstruction of the tank battery took approximately six months.

Because the tank battery remained in production during the renovation process, the welder, Joe LeDoux, and his assistant, Shan LeDoux, fabricated the pipes aboard a welding barge, Texaco Barge # 102, which was kept moored to the tank battery. The barge was outfitted with a welding machine, strutting torches, tool boxes and a small shed. It was towed to the tank battery by a work boat or "lugger." Two or three times each hitch, it would be towed to shore for more pipes. The Gulf Coast crew accompanied the barge when it was moved to shore to help load supplies. They had the option of riding on the barge, itself, or in the lugger. A cargo barge was also moored at the tank battery for storing supplies.

Addison had been hired some six weeks before his injury by Charles "Wimp" McRaney, a Gulf Coast employee who was the "pusher" of the roustabout crew. The crew worked twelve hours a day on rotating hitches--seven days on, seven days off. Therefore, Addison had worked for only three hitches when he was injured. The crew was transported each day to and from the tank battery by a "lugger" boat. They slept and ate at the Texaco work camp in Venice, Louisiana. Lunch was brought to the welding barge each day by boat from the kitchen at the Texaco work camp.

Wilbert DuPlantis, a Texaco construction supervisor, was responsible for the overall supervision and installation of the Tank Battery # 49 reconstruction. He assigned roustabout crews and gave orders to McRaney, who in turn, directly supervised the Gulf Coast roustabouts. The roustabouts were charged with moving equipment onto the battery, hooking up and bolting parts that had been fabricated by the welders, threading screw pipe and installing handrails on the battery. They also installed the pumps on the tank battery and primed and painted its many pipes after they were installed. The roustabout crew also lifted fittings onto welding racks on the barge and kept its deck clean.

The relative amount of time the roustabout crew spent on the battery tank and the welding barge was hotly contested. Addison contends that he spent at least ten hours a day on the barge. McRaney likewise testified that Addison spent nine and one half hours a day on the barge. LeDoux, who testified that the Gulf Coast Crew did not assist in any of the actual welding, stated that the roustabouts spent approximately eighty percent of their time working on the tank battery, ten percent on the cargo barge and ten percent on the welding barge. DuPlantis, likewise, testified that the Gulf Coast crew spent ninety percent of its time on the tank battery, and divided the remaining time between the cargo barge and the welding barge.

It is undisputed that Addison was injured while he was on the tank battery. Addison narrated the events leading to his injury as follows:

Q. After you got up on the tank battery, how did you get the pipe up on your shoulders?

A. Well, there was five of use [sic], two on--just me and McRaney on my end, and three more on the other end. We all got it up on me and McRaney, one end, and then they went down to the other end and got it up on their shoulders.

Q. All right.

A. And the way the pipe was, when we started to go to the back of the tanks, it was in an angle and the tanks was here, and we--they had to go around and miss the tanks and then go that way. And there was a manifold, and I had to step up on the manifold to get where I was going. I had to follow where they was going. And I hurt my back when I stepped up on that. It took all the load on my back.

On the day Addison was injured, Gulf Coast was operating with a three-man crew. The record indicates that both LeDoux and his son, the welders, had helped carry the pipe. Addison and McRaney each testified that they normally worked with a five or six-man crew. Lloyd Wayne Ray, who owned Gulf Coast Contracting, testified that a five-member crew was not unusual, as did DuPlantis.

The size and length of the pipe which the crew was moving at the time of Addison's injury was greatly disputed. In his initial complaint and depositions, Addison stated that the pipe was forty feet long. It was noted on the accident report that the pipe was forty feet long. It then grew to fifty-six feet. Addison testified that he based his revised story on the his estimate that the space between the tanks on the battery was approximately fifty-six feet. McRaney likewise testified that the pipe was fifty-six feet long. Yet, LeDoux, who fabricated all of the pipe for the renovation of Tank Battery # 49, testified that the longest pipe he had made was between thirty-four and thirty-five feet long, and further, that he had never fabricated a fifty-six foot pipe for the project. Addison testified in his first trial that the pipe was a Schedule 40, whereas he now contends that it was a much heavier Schedule 80. McRaney likewise testified that they had used Schedule 80 pipe. Both LeDoux and DuPlantis asserted that only Schedule 40 pipe was used in the renovation of Tank Battery # 49, because it was a low pressure system.

Addison testified that he had asked McRaney to have the Dill crane barge moved to the site to lift the pipe and that he heard McRaney ask DuPlantis about the crane. McRaney likewise testified that he had asked DuPlantis about having the crane move the pipe into position because the crew felt it would be too heavy to lift manually. He further stated that DuPlantis told him that it would be too expensive and would require a work order to have a crane moved to the site. DuPlantis, however, testified that he did not remember a request for a crane being made on May 28, 1977. He further stated that had there been a fifty-six foot length of pipe to move, he would have arranged for the crane to move it.

As a result of his injury, Addison underwent back surgery three times. Gulf Coast has paid a majority of his medical bills as well as maintenance. His physician found that he suffered a fifty percent disability or anatomical impairment.

On September 29, 1977, Addison filed a Bill of Complaint and Attachment in Chancery against his employer, Gulf Coast Contracting Services, Inc., a Louisiana corporation, and myriad other garnishee defendants, alleged creditors of Gulf Coast. He sought recovery of damages in the amount of $985,000.00 for injuries he had sustained. Gulf Coast's motion to dismiss as to the garnishee defendants was granted on October 28, 1977 by the Forrest County Chancery Court.

After numerous continuances were granted, Gulf Coast filed a petition to dismiss for want of jurisdiction on August 2, 1979. Although the record is unclear, it appears that Texaco was again made a party in October, 1979. Texaco then filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of Mississippi, for removal of the case from the Forrest County Chancery Court, asserting that the federal court had original jurisdiction over the case pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1332. Addison's motions to remand were overruled.

Once in federal court, Texaco and Gulf Coast filed cross-claims against each other regarding potential liability for Addison's injuries. The United States District Court, however, in a January 26, 1984 opinion, ruled against Addison....