Wm. Johnson & Co. v. Johansen
| Decision Date | 12 April 1898 |
| Docket Number | 596. |
| Parties | WM. JOHNSON & CO., Limited, v. JOHANSEN. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
J Parker Kirlin, Guy M. Horner, and W. B. Lockhart, for appellant.
John F McLean, J. C. Walker, and J. B. Rosser, Jr., for appellee.
Before PARDEE and McCORMICK, Circuit Judges, and SWAYNE, District Judge.
This libel was brought by the libelant, an able seaman of the crew of the British steamship Edenmore, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained through a fall from aloft to the deck of said ship, a distance of 30 feet, while the ship was lying at the wharf in the port of Galveston, Tex., in November, 1894. The Edenmore was a two-masted fore and aft rigged steamship, with two winches at the foot of the foremast, one, No. 2, about 1 1/2 feet aft the mast, and the other about 5 or 6 feet forward. The boatswain of the vessel had ordered the libelant to go aloft and paint the foremast and had furnished him the usual boatswain's chair, a new gantline, or rope, 1 inch in diameter, a block, and a toggle or a round wooden pin, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter, and somewhere from 10 to 15 inches in length. The libelant testified that he asked the boatswain to furnish a man to lower him, and the boatswain said he would not do so, he had no time, and the libelant would have to do it himself; which statement is denied by the boatswain, who testified that the libelant made no request of him for a man at the base of the mast to lower him. The libelant arranged all the gear, going aloft, and hooking a block upon the arm of the foremast, and passing the gantline through it, bending one end fast to the sling which supported the seat of the boatswain's chair, securing the other or running end of the rope to the toggle's pin, which he had thrust through the knot, taking a number of turns around the toggle. The libelant then seated himself in the boatswain's chair, and, as he painted the mast, was to lower himself from time to time by slacking away on the gantline. After the libelant had painted down the mast about three feet, the toggle slipped, or was jarred loose, or the turn of the gantline around the toggle slipped off, or the bend to the slings of the boatswain's chair became loose, and the libelant fell to the deck, striking the starboard barrel of the No. 2 winch, which had just previously been running, breaking his leg, and otherwise injuring himself. His leg was so badly injured that it had to be amputated below the knee, and he suffered the pain and injuries usual in such cases.
The evidence with regard to exactly how the accident happened is conflicting. The libelant himself is by no means clear on the point, and probably he did not know with any certainty. The master, chief officer of the ship, second mate, and boatswain all gave evidence tending to show that the hitch of the gantline in the slings of the chair became unbent, letting the chair fall and the gantline run through the block and also fall....
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