Opinion ID: 198062
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Harmlessness of the error

Text: We come, therefore, to the merits of the dispute: did the district court err in failing to charge the jury on comparative negligence and the primary duty rule? As mentioned above, a district court is duty-bound to give instructions on all issues of material fact raised by the evidence adduced at trial. The standard for determining whether a factual issue is sufficiently contested to require an instruction is identical to the standard for determining whether a factual controversy prevents the entry of judgment as a matter of law. Compare Fashion House, Inc. v. K Mart Corp., 892 F.2d 1076, 1088 (1st Cir. 1989) ([A] mere scintilla of evidence is not enough to forestall a directed verdict, especially on a claim as to which the burden of proof belongs to the objecting party.); with Farrell v. Klein Tools, Inc., 866 F.2d 1294, 1297 (1st Cir. 1989) (There must be more than a scintilla of evidence to support an instruction.); cf.United States v. Rodrguez, 858 F.2d 809, 812 (1st Cir. 1988) (In criminal cases, the district court's task [of determining whether an issue requires an instruction] bears a resemblance to its function in determining whether or not a directed verdict or judgment of acquittal should be ordered.). In neither situation may the court weigh the evidence, make credibility determinations, or resolve conflicts in the proof.Instead, the court must determine whether the evidence presented at trial, along with all inferences that may reasonably be drawn therefrom, could plausibly support a finding for either party on any given issue of material fact. Cf. Transamerica Premier Ins. Co. v. Ober, 107 F.3d 925, 929 (1st Cir. 1997) (in the Rule 50 context, the court makes all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party). Because such a decision entails not differential fact-finding, but merely an inquiry into the legal sufficiency of the evidence, the standard of appellate review . . . should be plenary. Rodrguez, 858 F.2d at 12; see alsoAnderson, 862 F.2d at 916 (determination whether fact omitted from special verdict form was material to the ultimate issues in the case reviewed de novo); Connecticut Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Wyman, 718 F.2d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1983) (trial court's decision not to give instructions on a particular issue reviewed de novo); but see United States v. Gmez-Osorio, 957 F.2d 636, 642 (9th Cir. 1992) (trial court's determination on issue whether required factual foundation existed to warrant particular jury instruction reviewed only for abuse of discretion). Wilson contends that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to allow a reasonable jury to find that he was contributorily negligent or that the only cause of his injuries was his violation of his duties as chief mate. We disagree.Unlike at common law, in both Jones Act and unseaworthiness actions, neither assumption of risk nor contributory negligence are available as complete defenses to liability. See SoconyVacuum Oil Co. v. Smith, 305 U.S. 424, 429-33 (1939). Instead, the admiralty doctrine of comparative negligence applies. SeeJacob v. New York, 315 U.S. 752, 755 (1942). This defense requires, among other things, evidence that the seaman chose to perform a task in a manner that placed him in danger despite the fact that there were safer alternative means available to him.See Burden v. Evansville Materials, Inc., 840 F.2d 343, 346 (6th Cir. 1988); 1 Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law6-22 at 324 (2d ed. 1994). A finding of contributory negligence, however gross, is not a bar to recovery but only mitigates damages, see Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 305 U.S. at 431, reducing the plaintiff's recovery in proportion to his or her negligence. Thus, contributory negligence can be a complete defense when a jury finds that the plaintiff's own negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injuries. The primary duty rule provides that a ship's officer may not recover against his employer for negligence or unseaworthiness when there is no other cause of the officer's injuries other than the officer's breach of his consciously assumed duty to maintain safe conditions aboard the vessel. See Walker v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 193 F.2d 772, 773 (2d Cir. 1952). In Boat Dagny, Inc.v. Todd, 224 F.2d 208, 210-11 (1st Cir. 1955), this circuit explained that the primary duty rule does not bar recovery where the plaintiff breached his duty but the ship's owner was also independently at fault. Our decision merely followed the self-evident proposition that not every breach of duty will assign a seaman full responsibility for his injury. Peymann v. Perini Corp., 507 F.2d 1318, 1323 (1st Cir. 1974). The primary duty rule bars recovery only if there was no cause of the officer's injuries other than the breach of duty. As Judge Hand noted in Walker, the bar is not based on the contributory negligence of the officer, but on a finding of no negligence of the employer. Kelley v. Sun Transp. Co., 900 F.2d 1027, 1031 (7th Cir. 1990). An instruction on comparative negligence must therefore be given if the evidence establishes a genuine controversy as to whether Wilson placed himself in foreseeable danger even though safer alternatives were available, and whether his choice was the proximate cause of his injuries. Similarly, an instruction on the primary duty rule must be given if the evidence establishes a genuine controversy as to whether Wilson owed a duty to the defendants, whether he breached the duty, and whether that breach was the sole proximate cause of his injury. See Peymann, 507 F.2d at 1323. We find that the evidence in this case was sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to find either that Wilson was contributorily negligent or that his injuries were caused exclusively by his own failure to perform his primary duties. Evidence was presented at trial indicating that Wilson had not been ordered to patch the hydraulic lines while the OVERSEAS BOSTON was on the high seas. Indeed, the captain testified that it had been Wilson who had proposed that the lines be patched.He stated that the day prior to Wilson's accident, Wilson had been in tank No. 2C patching another set of hydraulic lines on the tank's aft bulkhead, near the bottom. While conducting those repairs, Wilson noticed that some of the lines on the forward bulkhead were also leaking, but at a much greater height. He therefore ordered that the tank be filled overnight to the 65 foot mark, so that he could patch the second set of lines the following day. In addition to the captain's testimony, the defendants' expert testified that no reasonable chief mate would have entered a tank that was filled so close to the deck when the vessel was under way on the high seas, much less without wearing a hard hat and life vest, because of the possibility that waves could form in the tank as a result of the normal movement of the ocean's surface. Moreover, the plaintiff admitted that prior to this voyage, he had never performed repairs inside a tank while the ship was on the high seas. He also admitted that he had the authority to abort the operations at any point. Finally, Wilson testified that on the morning of January 19, 1994, when he first entered tank No. 2C, he found the water level too high and thus ordered it to be lowered an additional 12 to 18 inches. It was not until after the water level had been adjusted that he boarded the raft. The evidence presented at trial created a genuine issue of fact as to whether Wilson had been contributorily negligent. For example, a reasonable jury could find that Wilson was acting under his own authority when he decided to patch the hydraulic lines, and that he was in control of the operation. A jury could find that Wilson should have known that entering a lightless tank when the water level is less than 10 feet from the deck (and less than 5 feet from the beams) and the ship is on the open sea could put him in harm's way if the water level shifted, and that he should have foreseen that the swells and waves on the ocean's surface could cause the water inside the tanks to shift.Similarly, a jury could infer that Wilson knew that the repairs were dangerous from his adjustment of the water level prior to boarding the raft, and from his admission that he had never performed this type of repair when the ship was outside of a harbor. A jury could also believe that the wave in the tank was not caused by the vessel's course change, which would undermine Wilson's claim that his injuries were causally related to the defendants' negligence. Finally, and most importantly, a jury could conclude that Wilson was negligent because a safer course of action had been available to him. See Burden, 840 F.2d at 346. A jury could find that it was not necessary for the lines to be repaired while the ship was at sea. A jury could therefore find that Wilson could have chosen to wait until the OVERSEAS BOSTON reached the port at Valdez, Alaska, to perform the repairs on the hydraulic lines. This evidence, together with testimony indicating that Wilson's duties as chief mate included responsibility for the safety and maintenance of the ship, in general, and of the line patching operation, in particular, also suffices to permit a jury to conclude that the only proximate cause of Wilson's injuries was his own failure to perform his duties as chief mate to maintain a safe working environment. Of course, we do not mean to imply that the evidence compels the conclusion that Wilson was contributorily negligent or that he was injured solely as a result of his violation of his duties.In fact, a jury could just as easily disbelieve all of the testimony mentioned above, or draw different inferences from it.We merely point out that the evidence could have been believed by a jury and could justify a finding that he had acted negligently.The defendants were therefore entitled to instructions on both affirmative defenses. Moreover, the district court's erroneous failure to charge the jury on these issues was not harmless error. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 61. A compelling argument could be made that the failure to give any instructions on a material issue is harmful per se, but, in any case, the omission of these particular instructions was clearly harmful. The fact that the jury found for Wilson in this case does not persuade us otherwise, because we are in grave doubt as to whether the jury would have found that Wilson had not been negligent at all, had the jury been instructed as it should have been. For example, even though the defendants provided evidence at trial that Wilson's breach of his duty to ensure that shipboard repairs are carried out safely was the sole cause of his accident, the lack of an instruction on the primary duty rule could have allowed the jury to ignore Wilson's own actions and thereby to seek another explanation for his accident. Similarly, the lack of an instruction on comparative negligence permitted the jury to find that the defendants were, in effect, 100% comparatively negligent even though the evidence could support a finding that Wilson was at least partially responsible for his own injuries. Accordingly, a new trial is required so that a jury may properly consider the plaintiff's actions along with the defendants' in determining liability. See Allen v. Chance Mfg. Co., 873 F.2d 465, 469-70 (1st Cir. 1989) (erroneous jury instruction requires new trial if the error could have affected the result of the jury's deliberations).