Wright v. Maryland Boat Line, Inc.

• Decision Date: 26 October 1965
• Docket Number: No. 6415,6416.,6415
• Citation: 351 F.2d 922
• Parties: Francis WRIGHT, Libelant, Appellant, v. MARYLAND BOAT LINE, INC., Claimant, Appellee. Barry PORTNOY, etc., Libelant, Appellant, v. TOLCHESTER LINES, INC., Claimant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

351 F.2d 922 (1965)

Francis WRIGHT, Libelant, Appellant, v.MARYLAND BOAT LINE, INC., Claimant, Appellee.

Barry PORTNOY, etc., Libelant, Appellant, v.TOLCHESTER LINES, INC., Claimant, Appellee.

Nos. 6415, 6416.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

October 26, 1965.

W. Channing Beucler, Boston, Mass., with whom DiMento & Sullivan, Boston, Mass., was on brief for appellant in No. 6415.

George Broomfield, Boston, Mass., for appellant in No. 6416.

Joseph F. Dolan, Boston, Mass., for appellees.

Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, WATERMAN, Circuit Judge,^* and GIGNOUX, District Judge.

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge.

This is a consolidated appeal from two proceedings, tried to the court below sitting in admiralty.The claims of both appellants-libelants arise out of injuries they sustained while employed as seamen on the SS Provincetown.Each appellant-libelant urges that the lower court's award of damages to him was in several respects inadequate and must be reversed.

On July 6, 1962, libelants Wright and Portnoy were employed as seamen on the SS Provincetown, a passenger vessel that plied Massachusetts Bay between Boston and Provincetown.When the vessel was about four miles from Minot's Light one member of the crew fell overboard and the ship's officers ordered the number four lifeboat launched in order to attempt a rescue.While the lifeboat was suspended from the davits at approximately deck level some thirty feet above the water libelant Portnoy was directed to enter the boat and tighten the seacock.This operation placed Portnoy in the stern of the boat.At the same time libelant Wright entered the bow of the life-boat.A third member of the crew, one White, a messman, then entered it amidships, whereupon the lifeboat suddenly dropped to the ocean and the libelants received the injuries for which they seek damages.It appears that when White entered the lifeboat he was quite close to the mechanism that released it from the hooks at the ends of lines by which the lifeboat would have normally been lowered slowly into the ocean.The district court found that White had negligently activated this mechanism when he entered the boat and that his negligence was a proximate cause of the lifeboat's fall into the water.On appeal, none of the interested parties quarrel with the district court's finding on the issue of proximate causation.The libelants do separately contend that the district court minimized the extent and gravity of their injuries, that consequently the damage award each received was inadequate, and that reversals are required.We take up the claim of each libelant separately.

I.Libelant Wright's Claim.

At trial Wright introduced evidence establishing that on August 2, 1962 a competent doctor, a Doctor Tompkins, examined him and concluded on the basis of special sternum X-Rays that Wright's manubrium was fractured; that, following this discovery, Wright had received treatment for this injury from August 2, 1962 until May 28, 1963; that he still experienced pain in his upper chest when he lifted heavy objects or coughed deeply; and that even though the fracture had healed it would permanently prevent Wright from doing any type of heavy labor.The district court believed this evidence but concluded that Wright had not proved that the injury to the manubrium was caused by the accident of July 6, 1962.Therefore, all claims for damages based upon the injury to the manubrium were disallowed below.The libelant contends that this ruling is erroneous.

Plainly, libelant's contention relates to the issue of cause-in-fact.No one doubts that the defendant would be liable for the injured manubrium and would have to respond in damages if it were established that Wright suffered this injury in the lifeboat accident of July 6, 1962.It is equally plain that the libelant had the burden of persuasion on this issue.SeeMcCormick, Evidence § 307(1954).In an attempt to carry this burden the libelant introduced evidence that tended to prove the injury to his manubrium was so caused.He established that doctors at both the South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, where he was taken immediately after the accident, and at the United States Public Health Service in Brighton, where he recuperated for several days, discovered pain in his chest which might have been caused by a fractured manubrium.But both hospitals X-Rayed their patient and neither set of X-Rays indicated any injuries to the chest wall other than several broken ribs.In the court below Dr. Tompkins testified, however, that a fractured manubrium could not be detected by ordinary X-Rays of the type taken at both the Weymouth and Brighton hospitals, and that special sternum X-Rays were required.The first set of sternum X-Rays was taken on August 2, 1962, by Doctor Tompkins; and these X-Rays established that the manubrium was fractured.Doctor Tompkins also testified that the X-Rays of the manubrium taken on August 2, 1962 indicated that a certain amount of callus had begun to form around this fracture which tended to prove that the fracture had achieved a certain age.Libelant also introduced evidence tending to prove that he had no marks on his body when he was last examined at the Brighton Hospital on July 25, 1962 and that he had no marks on his body when he first visited Dr. Tompkins on August 2, 1962.Dr. Tompkins testified that it was highly improbable that the libelant could have fractured his manubrium between July 25 and August 2 without leaving marks on his body; and he also testified that he did not believe libelant would have lived had he first fractured his ribs in the fall in the lifeboat on July 6, 1962 and at some later time between then and August 2, 1962 had received a blow severe enough to fracture his manubrium.In short, it was Dr. Tompkins's opinion that the fracture of the manubrium probably was caused by the libelant's fall in the lifeboat.At the conclusion...