Opinion ID: 1981283
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: Defendant argues that the lower courts erred in failing to direct a verdict in its favor for two reasons. First, plaintiff was not in the course of his employment for purposes of the Jones Act. Second, even if he was, the defendant was not negligent since it owed no duty to the plaintiff under the facts of this case. We will analyze these arguments separately, keeping in mind the appropriate standard of review for a denial of a motion for a directed verdict. [5]
The plaintiff's argument was accepted by the Court of Appeals which concluded: The term course of employment as used in the statute is the equivalent of the `service of the ship' formula used in maintenance and cure cases. Braen v Pfeifer Oil Transportation Co, 361 US 129; 80 S Ct 247; 4 L Ed 2d 191 (1959). The United States Supreme Court has long held that a seaman on shore leave is in the service of the ship. Warren v United States, 340 US 523; 71 S Ct 432; 95 L Ed 503, 509 (1951). A seaman on shore leave is, therefore, in the course of his employment. Central Gulf Steamship Corp v Sambula, 405 F2d 291, 298-299 (CA 5, 1968); Marceau v Great Lakes Transit Corp, 146 F2d 416, 418-419 (CA 2, 1945). Defendant concedes that a seaman on shore leave is in the service of the ship for purposes of recovering maintenance and cure. However, defendant argues that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that a seaman on shore leave is in the course of his employment for the purposes of the Jones Act. Our review of the cases cited by both parties convinces us that the Court of Appeals clearly erred, and that defendant was entitled to a directed verdict. In Braen, supra, pp 132-133, petitioner was ordered to replace worn decking on a repair raft. He was injured when a catwalk gave way, and he brought suit under the Jones Act. In reviewing whether the injury occurred in the course of petitioner's employment, the United States Supreme Court stated: The fact that the injury did not occur on the vessel is not controlling, as Senko v LaCrosse Dredging Corp, [352 US 370, 373; 77 S Ct 415; 1 L Ed 2d 404 (1957)], holds. A seaman may often be sent off ship to perform duties of his employment. O'Donnell v Great Lakes [ Dredge & Dock ] Co, [318 US 36; 63 S Ct 488; 87 L Ed 596 (1943)]. In Marceau v Great Lakes Transit Corp , (CA 2 NY [1945]) 146 F2d 416, a ship's cook was allowed to recover under the Jones Act when, pursuant to duty, he was returning to the ship and was injured on the dock while approaching a ladder used as ingress to the vessel. We held that a seaman who was injured on the dock while departing from the ship on shore leave was in the service of the vessel and was entitled to recover for maintenance and cure in Aguilar v Standard Oil Co, 318 US 724 [63 S Ct 930; 87 L Ed 1107 (1943)]. It was there recognized that a seaman is as much in the service of his ship when boarding it on first reporting for duty, quitting it on being discharged, or going to and from the ship while on shore leave, as he is while on board at high sea. Id., at 736-737. We also held that a seaman injured in a dance hall while on shore leave was in the service of his ship in Warren v United States, 340 US 523, 529. These two cases were not brought under the Jones Act but involved maintenance and cure. Yet they make clear that the scope of a seaman's employment or the activities which are related to the furtherance of the vessel are not measured by the standards applied to land-based employment relationships. They also supply relevant guides to the meaning of the term course of employment under the Act since it is the equivalent of the service of the ship formula used in maintenance and cure cases. See Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty, p 284. And see O'Donnell v Great Lakes [ Dredge & Dock ] Co , supra at 43; Marceau v Great Lakes Transit Corp, supra . Petitioner in the present case was ordered by a superior to perform some carpentry work on a raft which lay between the lighter and the dock. Petitioner was injured, as we have said, while on the catwalk attempting to move the raft into position for boarding. The raft was used to facilitate chipping, painting and welding on respondent's vessels. Cf. Grant Smith-Porter Ship Co v Rohde, 257 US 469 [42 S Ct 157; 66 L Ed 321 (1922)]. New decking was to be installed on the raft. The fact that the raft was not presently being used to repair respondent's barge is in our view immaterial. Petitioner was acting in the course of his employment at the time of the injury, for at that moment he was doing the work of his employer pursuant to his employer's orders. No more is required by the Jones Act, as the O'Donnell case indicates, petitioner being a seaman who was injured as a consequence of the negligence of his employer. [Emphasis supplied.] We agree with the defendant that the Court of Appeals placed improper emphasis on portions of Braen, while ignoring its holding. Aguilar and Warren are relevant guides in determining the meaning of in the course of his employment, but those cases involved claims for maintenance and cure. As interpreted by Braen, the seaman must be doing the work of his employer pursuant to his employer's orders at the time of the injury. No more is required under the act ( Braen, supra ), but we are asked whether the act can be satisfied with less. Cf. Vincent v Harvey Well Service, 441 F2d 146, 148 (CA 5, 1971). [6] In answering this question, we note that recovery under the Jones Act does not depend on the location of an injury, but instead on the nature of the service and its relationship to the operation of the vessel plying in navigable waters. O'Donnell, supra, pp 42-43. We cannot ignore the phrase in the course of his employment, because it was intended to mean what it says. Id. Under these facts, we find that the Court of Appeals erred by taking an analytical step which implies that a seaman on shore leave is always in the course of his employment. The Court of Appeals cited Marceau, supra, and Sambula, supra, in support of its analytical step. In Marceau, the plaintiff was ashore on personal business, but was ordered to return at a designated time to provide the night lunch. He slipped on the dock near the ship's ladder, and sued for damages under the Jones Act. The Marceau court stated: The defendant's other two contentions are likewise without merit. The plaintiff was acting under orders when he returned to the ship. Consequently at the time of the accident he was not only acting in the course of his employment but suffered his injuries while on property in the possession and under the control of the defendant as lessee and over which the plaintiff had to pass in order to return to his work. Under the decisions a man is acting in the course of his employment when coming to or returning from work, and upon the employer's premises or upon adjacent property if approaching by a customary route. Wong Bar v Suburban Petroleum Transport, 2 Cir, 119 F2d 745 [1941]. [Emphasis supplied. Id., p 418.] Even though the Marceau court did not have the benefit of the Braen analysis at the time it rendered a decision, Marceau still emphasized that the plaintiff was acting under orders when he returned to the ship. Szopko notes that Braen cited Marceau. However, Braen also noted that the petitioner in Marceau was acting pursuant to duty. Thus, the relevant focus in Marceau was on whether the plaintiff was performing his duty in the course of his employment at the time of the injury. [7] The Court of Appeals also cited Sambula. In that case, the plaintiff was assaulted while on shore leave and received a cut beside his eye. The plaintiff was taken to a public hospital and later allowed to join his vessel for the remainder of the voyage. Complications resulted in the loss of the plaintiff's eye. The plaintiff argued that he should have been treated by a specialist and that the shipowner was negligent in the administration of medical care. The Sambula court stated: In Nowery v Smith, ED Pa 1946, 69 F Supp 755, aff'd 3 Cir 1947; 161 F2d 732, it was held that a seaman was in the course of his employment, as that phrase is used in the Jones Act, while enjoying his shore leave in a foreign port. [405 F2d 298.] However, the court also noted: The preceding language from Nowery v Smith does not mean that a seaman may recover under the Jones Act for all injuries sustained while he is on shore leave; it means only that recovery cannot be denied solely on the ground that a seaman, while on shore leave, is not in the course of his employment. Annot, 4 L Ed 2d 1777, 1782 at fn 5. [ Id., p 298, n 4.] Accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred in citing Marceau and Sambula for the proposition that a seaman on shore leave is always in the course of his employment. We hold that, for purposes of a Jones Act claim, a seaman is in the course of his employment if he is doing the work of his employer pursuant to his employer's orders, Braen, supra, or when the nature of the service rendered and its relation to the operation of the vessel, O'Donnell, supra, is of such a nature that a seaman may be deemed in the course of his employment. We decline to adopt a more precise rule since this determination should be made case by case. However, given the facts of the present case, we find that plaintiff was not in the course of his employment at the time of the injury. By his own admission, he was off duty and on his own time. He did not have to return to work until 8:00 A.M. the next morning. He was returning from several hours of drinking, clearly a personal excursion. [8] Plaintiff finally argues that he was in the course of his employment because he was returning with a carton of cigarettes he purchased at the request of his supervisor. The Court of Appeals analysis did not require a discussion of this theory. However, even taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the proofs indicate that this action was strictly a personal favor as opposed to an order from a supervisor. According to Szopko's own testimony, he was off duty until his regular shift started the next morning and was not working at the time of the injury. [9] For all of these reasons, we hold that the lower courts erred in failing to direct a verdict in defendant's favor, because plaintiff was not in the course of his employment at the time of his injury.
Although the location of the injury does not control for purposes of determining whether a seaman is in the course of his employment, O'Donnell, supra, it may have a bearing on whether defendant was negligent. Since a Jones Act claim is grounded on the defendant's negligence, the defendant must owe some duty of reasonable care to the plaintiff under the circumstances. Accordingly, even if we were to assume that the plaintiff was acting in the course of his employment, his claim would fail for another reason. We find that the trial court erred in failing to direct a verdict in defendant's favor, since the defendant did not owe the plaintiff a duty of care under the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals addressed and rejected defendant's second claim of error as follows: Defendant claims that it had no duty to concern itself with the conditions on the dock adjacent to its ship, over which it had no dominion or control, and therefore it cannot be held negligent for injuries arising from those conditions. Bates v Prudential-Grace Lines, Inc, 497 F2d 900 (CA 9, 1974) (adopting the lower court decision reported at 375 F Supp 774 [WD Wash, 1972]); Paul v United States, 205 F2d 38 (CA 3, 1953); Todahl v Sudden & Christenson, 5 F2d 462 (CA 9, 1925). Defendant is mistaken, however, in asserting that Hamilton v Marine Carriers Corp, 332 F Supp 223 (ED Pa, 1971) is the only decision to the contrary. In Magnolia Towing Co v Pace, 378 F2d 12 (CA 5, 1967), the Court held that a tugboat operator injured in an automobile driven by the ship owner's employee en route to the work site could recover under the Jones Act. The seaman in Marceau, supra, was injured when he slipped and fell on the dock within a few feet of the ship's ladder. The plaintiff accordingly made out a prima facie case by furnishing evidence of a slippery and ill-lighted place on the dock which he had to traverse in order to ascend the ladder upon returning to work. 146 F2d 419. Review of the decisions cited by defendant suggest[s] that they make little sense in light of the Supreme Court precedents. If a seaman on shore is in the course of his employment for purposes of Jones Act coverage, it seems contradictory to limit the ship owner's liability for its negligence at the end of the gangplank. Such a strict delineation of the employer's duty renders irrelevant the fact that a seaman is in the course of his employment even though off the ship. Moreover, a finding that defendant's duty extends beyond the ship itself does not make it liable for the dock owner's negligence. Paul, supra, p 43. Under the Jones Act, an employer has a duty to provide seamen with a safe place to work, including a safe, adequately lighted means of ingress and egress to and from the vessel. [Petition of] Atlass, [350 F2d 592, 599 (CA 7, 1965)]; Marceau, supra, p 419. An employer may also be held liable for permitting a dangerous condition emanating from the vessel to arise at the place where [the employee] was injured even though it lacked control or right of control over that place. Hagans v Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co, 318 F2d 563, 579 (CA 3, 1963).
We first note that the Court of Appeals decision on this issue was based on its faulty initial premise, i.e., that a seaman on shore is in the course of his employment for purposes of Jones Act coverage. In other words, since a seaman on shore is not necessarily in the course of his employment, it is not contradictory to limit a shipowner's liability for negligence at the gangway under the appropriate circumstances. Contrary to the Court of Appeals analysis, we find that the rule summarized in Bates precludes recovery under these facts. In Bates, plaintiff left his ship on a personal errand, and stepped into a hole located some 400 to 600 feet from the ship. The pier was owned, operated, and controlled by the Chilean government. Bates first cited Todahl as follows: [T]he substantive duty of a vessel owner to provide a seaman with a safe place to work did not extend to his protection when going beyond the premises of his employment for purposes of his own and over premises of which his employers had no dominion or control. [375 F Supp 775.] The Bates court continued: The Second Circuit also has followed the general rule of Todahl. In Wheeler v West India S S Co, 205 F2d 354 (2d Cir 1953), the Court of Appeals in a per curiam opinion adopted the opinion of the District Court for the Southern District of New York which noted: Though the defendant was duty-bound to provide reasonably safe means of immediate access to the vessel (citing authority), shipowners have generally been held not liable for unsafe conditions in places beyond the gangway not under their control when the seaman is there for his own purposes and not in the performance of his duties.     District courts in the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have cited Todahl and denied recovery for seamen under even more compelling circumstances than are present in the case now before this Court. In both Lemon v United States, 68 F Supp 793 (D Md 1946), and Miles v States Marine Lines, Inc, 325 F Supp 1370 (ED Tex 1971), seamen were killed while attempting to return by small boat to their ships which were anchored off shore. The courts found that the shipowners had no duty to provide a means of transportation between ship and shore for seamen granted shore leave. It followed that the shipowners were not liable for any negligent injury to seamen who arranged their own transportation.[6] [6] The Supreme Court also gave some support to the holding in Todahl in Aguilar v Standard Oil Co of New Jersey, 318 US 724, 736, 737; 63 S Ct 930, 937; 87 L Ed 1107 (1943), when it stated: Consequently the fact that the shipowner might not be liable to the seamen in damages for the dockowner's negligence, cf. Todahl v Sudden & Christenson, 9 Cir, 5 F2d 462 (CCA), does not relieve him of his duty of maintenance and cure. [375 F Supp 776.] As in Bates, the evidence in this case established that Szopko was injured on a dock owned and operated by the dock company. The conveyor belt system was constructed and operated by the dock company, which had exclusive control over and responsibility for the unloading operation. The crewmen who preceded Szopko to the ship without injury testified that, although the dock area was dim, they did not have any trouble seeing where they were going. Assuming control over the dock area is required, plaintiff points to the following evidence which indicates that the defendant had de facto control over these dockside conditions. First, defendant's cargo littered the crossover ramp area. Second, defendant had the ability to illuminate the area. Third, defendant had a watchman on board who should have assisted the plaintiff. However, even viewing these facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, we cannot conclude that they support the conclusion that the defendant exercised any real control over the dock area. Instead, the evidence clearly showed that the dock company was solely responsible for the area where the injury occurred. Plaintiff's answers to defendant's interrogatories indicated that plaintiff believed that the dock company owned the conveyor system and crossover ramp. Several dock company employees testified about their equipment. Finally, in denying the motion for directed verdict, the trial court noted that the shipowner exercised no control over the dock. Since any evidence of control was lacking and for the other reasons set forth below, we believe that the defendant was entitled to a directed verdict.
Second, the cases cited by the Court of Appeals have either been discredited or are distinguishable. For example, in Hamilton, supra, plaintiff was injured on the dock owner's property while returning from a personal errand. Hamilton relied on a series of cases, including Law v Victory Carriers, Inc, 432 F2d 376 (CA 5, 1970), which held that longshoremen could recover from a shipowner under the doctrine of unseaworthiness even though the injury occurred off the vessel. Law was later reversed by the United States Supreme Court. Victory Carriers, Inc v Law, 404 US 202; 92 S Ct 418; 30 L Ed 2d 383 (1971). Furthermore, Hamilton relied on a series of cases involving FELA claims. While we have already acknowledged that FELA cases are generally analogous, we decline to adopt Hamilton 's reasoning in the face of clearly applicable cases interpreting the Jones Act. [10] Accord Bates, supra, 497 F2d 900, n 1. We also reject the Court of Appeals reliance on Magnolia Towing Co v Pace, supra . The only issue decided in that case involved whether plaintiff was a seaman at the time of the injury. Id., p 13. Magnolia does not contain a meaningful discussion of either the in the course of his employment test, or the nature of the duty owed to a seaman injured on shore. The Court of Appeals also improperly relied on Hagans v Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co, supra , for the proposition that an employer may be liable for a dangerous condition emanating from the vessel even though the employer lacks control of the premises. There, plaintiff Hagans was a longshoreman injured during unloading operations. Plaintiff had no right of recovery under the Jones Act, and the case is distinguishable on that basis alone. Furthermore, a close reading of Hagans indicates that the court accepted the defendant's argument that it owed no duty to furnish the plaintiff with a safe place to work, since it had no control over the place of the injury. Hagans, supra, pp 577-579, 588.
Plaintiff directs us to cases holding that a seaman is in the course of his employment when coming to or returning from work and upon the employer's premises or upon adjacent property if approaching by a customary route. See McDonough v Buckeye S S Co, 103 F Supp 473 (ND Ohio, 1951), aff'd 200 F2d 558 (CA 6, 1952), citing Marceau, supra . We find McDonough inapposite on its facts. There, a fellow crew member (Cox) voluntarily undertook to assist the plaintiff aboard after the plaintiff was denied entry to the dock area due to his intoxicated condition. When the plaintiff staggered and fell a second time, Cox left the plaintiff in a position dangerously close to the water. Cox went aboard to summon help, but plaintiff fell into the water to his death before help returned. The plaintiff's cause of action in McDonough was predicated upon the negligence of his fellow crewman. Thus, the case did not focus on the ownership or control of the dock. The court noted that once Cox voluntarily took charge of a helpless person, he had a duty to exercise reasonable care for that person's safety. In the present case, however, defendant's agents never assumed responsibility for plaintiff's safe passage to the vessel.
Both lower courts erred in relying on distinguishable or discredited cases which indicate that a shipowner's duty extends to areas over which it has no control. On the contrary, we embrace the rule announced in Bates, and hold that a defendant's duty to provide a seaman with a safe place to work does not extend beyond the immediate vicinity of the gangway when the seaman is not in the performance of his duties. Bates, supra ; Todahl, supra . Accordingly, defendant was entitled to a directed verdict under the facts of this case.
The defendant also argues that the trial court erred in 1) instructing the jury on the issue of liability and damages and, 2) concluding that the plaintiff's treating physician was unavailable to testify as a live witness at plaintiff's second trial. See GCR 1963, 302.7; MRE 2.302(B)(4)(d). Our disposition of this appeal makes it unnecessary to address these claims. Reversed.