Opinion ID: 221084
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was Marine World liable?

Text: Marine World contends that the district court erred in finding it liable to appellees for having breached its duty to carry out the agreed-upon repairs in a workmanlike fashion. Marine World insists that there was insufficient evidence that their repairs were the cause of the repeated problems experienced by appellees' boat. Fairest-Knight argues that a party does not need to act negligently to be in breach of the implied warranty, and that Marine World's inability to finally resolve the various problems plaguing his boat shows that it was in breach of its implied warranty of workmanlike performance. [C]ontracts for repairs to a vessel... come under the scope of admiralty jurisdiction. La Esperanza de P.R., Inc. v. Pérez y Cía. de P.R., 124 F.3d 10, 16 (1st Cir.1997). This brings such a case under federal jurisdiction. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2. Admiralty jurisdiction brings with it a body of federal jurisprudence, largely uncodified, known as maritime law. Ballard Shipping Co. v. Beach Shellfish, 32 F.3d 623, 625 (1st Cir.1994). In the absence of a relevant statute, the judicially-developed norms of the general maritime law, `an amalgam of traditional common-law rules, modifications of those rules, and newly created rules,' governs actions in admiralty. La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 16 (quoting East River S.S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 865, 106 S.Ct. 2295, 90 L.Ed.2d 865 (1986)). Although state law may supplement federal maritime law when the latter is silent or where a local matter is at issue, it may not be applied where it would conflict with [a federal] maritime law. Floyd v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 844 F.2d 1044, 1047 (3d Cir.1988). The First Circuit has acknowledged three potential sources of liability under federal maritime law for a ship repairer's infelicitous work. These are liability via expressly assumed contractual obligations, the maritime tort of negligence, and the implied warranty of workmanlike performance that attaches to admiralty contracts under the rule of Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956). La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 16-17. The theory of liability relevant to this appeal is the latter, the implied warranty of workmanlike performance. Although originating in disputes involving the indemnification of shipowners, we recognized in La Esperanza that liability under the implied warranty of workman-like performance extends to disputes between shipowners and shipyards. In La Esperanza, a shipowner sued a shipyard for negligently damaging the boat it had been hired to repair. We affirmed the district court's finding that the shipyard was liable for the negligence of its repairs, noting that the shipyard's failure to properly complete the requisite repairs constituted a breach of an express and implied contractual obligation, particularly in view of the fact that evidence in the record substantiates that similarly situated ship repairers could have completed the repairs correctly. Id. at 19. [2] We additionally noted that although the implied warranty of workmanlike performance does not impose a strict liability regime on ship repairers, and instead parallels a negligence standard, nevertheless, a shipowner could recover for a breach of the implied warranty of workmanlike service even when such performance was done without negligence. Id. at 17 (quoting SS Amazonia v. N.J. Export Marine Carpenters, Inc., 564 F.2d 5, 8 (2d Cir.1977)); see also Feliciano v. Compañía Transatlántica Española, S.A., 411 F.2d 976, 978 (1st Cir.1969) (noting that the implied warranty cause of action acknowledged in Ryan was based neither on negligence or unseaworthiness, but is strictly contractual in nature, existing independently of tort.). However, La Esperanza did not reduce or eliminate a plaintiff's burden of proving that the defendant's conduct caused his injury. See SS Amazonia, 564 F.2d at 8 (stating that recovery under a breach of an implied warranty of workmanlike performance claim requires showing that the sub-standard work performed caused the damage claimed). For starters, although recovery for breach of implied warranty does not invariably require proof of negligence, the implied warranty does not go so far as to impos[e] strict liability. La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 17. But in this regard, it is surely notable that even claims of unseaworthiness, which do impose a strict liability regime upon shipowners, Napier v. F/V DEESIE, Inc., 454 F.3d 61, 68 (1st Cir.2006), require the plaintiff to show that the defendant's conduct was the proximate cause of his injury. In other words, even the absolute duty [of] shipowners to furnish a `seaworthy' ship is limited to those injuries caused by any defect in a vessel or its appurtenant appliances or equipment. Id. at 67-68 (emphasis added); see also Poulis-Minott v. Smith, 388 F.3d 354, 366 (1st Cir.2004); Ferrara v. A. & V. Fishing, Inc., 99 F.3d 449, 453 (1st Cir.1996). Because La Esperanza acknowledged liability under a theory of a breach of an implied warranty to be more limited than strict liability, and because strict liability claims (in the form of claims of unseaworthiness) themselves require proof of causation, it stands to reason that La Esperanza did not absolve parties claiming breach of an implied warranty of workmanlike service from proving that the alleged breach caused their injury. Causation must be established by a preponderance of the evidence. See Marquette Trans. Co., Inc. v. La. Mach. Co., Inc., 367 F.3d 398, 402 (5th Cir.2004). [3] Moreover, although in La Esperanza we stated that [h]ere, one witnesses a ship that came in for repairs under her own power ... but somewhere, somehow, something went wrong, 124 F.3d at 18, a substantial portion of the opinion in La Esperanza was in fact devoted to explaining how the shipyard's performance  its unsuited method of removing the existing hull plates, its equally unsuited method of patching the holes it thereby created, and the careless way in which the boat was subsequently stored  had caused significant damage to the ship's hull, electrical system, upper deck and carpeting. See La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 14-15, 17-19. The shipyard also never fully completed the contracted-for repairs and, seeking to extricate itself from a predicament of its own making ... told the shipowner, essentially, that it ... had a problem on its hands, and maybe it should consider hiring a special welding consultant. Id. at 18. Rather than mere speculation, in other words, there was quite substantial evidence that the shipyard's conduct had caused the damage to the plaintiff's vessel. By the same token, our observation that where a shipyard represents itself as being a competent shipyard skilled in doing the type of work requested by the shipowner, then the latter has a right to rely on the [shipyard's] expertise and may expect a stable seaworthy vessel upon completion of the repairs, regardless of the condition of the boat[] prior to repairs, La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 18 (internal quotation marks omitted), should not be read  as appellees appear to suggest  to hold that once a shipyard has undertaken to repair a boat, any subsequent breakdowns or problems may, without more, be presumed to have been caused by the shipyard. The facts in La Esperanza clearly indicated that it was the shipyard's inability and/or unwillingness to properly complete the work it had specifically contracted to do that had caused the damage to the ship, which bolstered the finding of liability. In light of these observations, the fact that neither the appellees nor the district court were able to provide an explanation as to how the chronic problems with the boat were the result of Marine World's acts or omissions takes on dispositive salience. [4] In supporting its liability determination, the district court stated that [e]vidence of the breach of Marine World are the repeated repairs which had to be done to the boat over an extended period of time ... there was a repeated failure to identify the source of the engine's failure ... Marine World was the only entity which serviced the boat during the period of time at issue.... The best evidence that the repairs to the boat by Marine World were faulty are the invoices which show the boat could not be used for its intended use over extended periods of time because the boat was being repaired for multiple malfunctions. We cannot agree. The fact that multiple repairs were required, without more, cannot be taken to establish that it was Marine World's unworkmanlike conduct that brought about the need for the repairs. In other words, if the hypothesis is that Marine World's unworkmanlike performance caused the need for the repeated repairs, then the fact that the repairs were required cannot itself be adduced as evidence supporting that hypothesis  it is what needs explaining, and so cannot, on pain of circularity, be what does the explaining. [5] From what we are able to ascertain in the record, Marine World was generally able to diagnose and repair each problem as it arose. [6] Fairest-Knight conceded at trial that he had no evidence of sub-standard performance by Marine World. No evidence was introduced that Marine World employed improper repair procedures or used sub-standard parts, nor is there any evidence that Marine World at any point mis-diagnosed the specific problem reported by Fairest-Knight. There is no evidence that it was poor work by Marine World rather than poor design, poor manufacture, poor maintenance or abuse by the boat's previous owner, or something else  including the appellee's admitted inexperience with boat ownership  that caused the boat's various problems. We have no basis on which to even speculate as to whether the same series of problems would have arisen had Fairest-Knight brought the boat to a different shipyard for repairs. See La Esperanza, 124 F.3d at 19. Although circumstantial evidence may in some cases be used to establish causation, the circumstances must nevertheless allow for a strong inference[] of causation. See Marquette, 367 F.3d at 402, 404. Exclusivity of control or possession is an important factor in supporting this inference. Id. at 404; N. Ins. Co. of N.Y., 579 F.3d at 69-70 (where defendant marina did not have exclusive possession of the boat, no presumption of fault would apply.) In this case, we note that possession of the boat alternated between Fairest-Knight and Marine World during the relevant time period, and that Fairest-Knight made use of the boat, even if not always successfully, on multiple occasions. Fairest-Knight claims that between the time the boat was delivered and the final April 14, 2007 incident, the boat spent 276 days in repairs, undergoing service, or simply not working. Assuming this to be accurate, we can infer that during this time the boat spent nearly 700 days, or approximately 23 months, in Fairest-Knight's possession. This makes it difficult to say that it is more likely than not that the problems with Fairest-Knight's boat were caused by Marine World, which did not even have possession of the boat for the majority of the time in question. See id. at 70 (describing owner's presence on the boat several days before its sinking, his hiring of an independent mechanic, and his implied permission to his friends to access the boat without prior approval as the kind of activity which, through its interference with [defendant marina's] control over the boat, would cast doubt on the fairness of presuming that [defendant marina] was responsible [for the boat's sinking]). The appellees insist that their inability to identify the cause of the boat's problems should not defeat their claim. They cite Ryan for the proposition that a contractor, as the warrantor of its own services, cannot use the shipowner's failure to discover and correct the contractor's own breach of warranty as a defense. Ryan, 350 U.S. at 134-35, 76 S.Ct. 232. The appellees' reliance on Ryan might be more convincing if it had already been established that Marine World's conduct was the cause of their injury. After all, in Ryan the Supreme Court acknowledged liability premised on breach of an implied warranty of workmanlike service provided that said breach had caused the complained-of injury. See Ryan, 350 U.S. at 132, 76 S.Ct. 232 (The other question is whether ... a stevedoring contractor is obligated to reimburse a shipowner for damages caused it by the contractor's improper stowage of cargo. (emphasis added)). It was in this context that the Supreme Court rejected the stevedoring contractor's argument that because the shipowner had an obligation to supervise the stowage and had a right to reject unsafe stowage of the cargo, its failure to object prior to the accident extinguished its right to indemnification from the shipowner. Id. at 134, 76 S.Ct. 232. There was, in this context, no question as to whether the contractor's acts or omissions had caused the injury. But that question lies at the heart of this case, and nothing in Ryan suggests that the appellees may avoid having to answer it. In short, absent sufficient proof of causation, the troubles experienced by Fairest-Knight with his boat  while undeniably frustrating  do not make out a viable breach of warranty claim. We therefore hold that the district court clearly erred in finding otherwise, and reverse its finding that appellants breached the implied warranty of workmanlike service.