Opinion ID: 663087
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Role of Obviousness and the Longshore Worker's

Text: Knowledge 67 We acknowledge the possibility, though, that the fact finder might determine that, while Portline was negligent, the hazard was obvious or that Davis actually knew that danger was underfoot, invoking the need to apportion fault for Davis' injury between Davis and Portline. Accordingly, for the guidance of the district court on remand, we make the following observations. 68 We have not yet defined what is obvious for purposes of the Act. The plain meaning of the word connotes something effortlessly and readily perceived, see WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY (Philip B. Gove ed. 1966), but we need to clarify from whose perspective obviousness is gauged. We consider a hazard to be obvious, for purposes of the Scindia active operations duty, if a reasonable longshore worker under all the circumstances would actually have noticed the hazardous condition exists and would actually have appreciated the true significance (probability and gravity) of the threatened harm. See REST.2D TORTS Sec. 343A cmt. b; cf. Kirsch, 971 F.2d at 1033 (emphasizing the appreciability of the danger). 69 If the danger was obvious, for purposes of the active operations duty, Portline is not automatically relieved of accountability for Davis' injuries. The fact that neither plaintiff nor the stevedore took any precautions in the face of this [obvious] hazard does not relieve defendant of responsibility, for it is fundamental that there may be more than one proximate cause of an injury. Moore v. M.P. Howlett, Inc., 704 F.2d 39, 43 (2d Cir.1983) (applying the active operations duty without labeling it as such); see Rich, 596 F.2d at 565 & n. 32 (Garth, J., concurring); cf. Kirsch, 971 F.2d at 1031 (explaining in context of the turnover duty that when a shipowner knows or should know a longshore worker can not or will not avoid an obvious hazard, the shipowner is liable for not eliminating the hazard according to its comparative fault). In Moore a longshore worker was injured as he tried to escape a 50-pound hook which was falling toward him as he stood on an obviously greasy, icy deck. He had noticed the condition of the deck before coming aboard, yet had failed to complain about the danger. The vessel had exclusive responsibility for maintaining the deck. 704 F.2d at 41. The Second Circuit reversed a judgment n.o.v. in favor of the vessel because the jury, which apportioned the longshore worker's damages between him and the vessel under a theory of comparative fault, could have found that the stevedore, shipowner, and plaintiff all unreasonably believed that the longshoreman could perform his duties on the barge without injury. Id. at 43. We find Moore especially instructive with respect to its treatment of comparative fault. 70 As we have already stated, the Restatement furnishes a useful guide for defining the governing principles of negligence when the danger is not obvious or known to the invitee. See supra at 541 n. 7. Under the Restatement's approach, when a danger is obvious or known to the invitee, the standard of care changes and a possessor is not liable for injuries the invitee sustains unless the possessor should anticipate the harm despite such knowledge or obviousness. REST.2D TORTS Sec. 343A (emphasis added). We decline to adopt this standard of care, though, for it patently adjusts the possessor's duties based on the obviousness of the danger or the invitee's knowledge thereof, see REST.2D TORTS Sec. 343 cmt. a, an adjustment we find plainly inconsistent with federal maritime law and policy rejecting the doctrines of contributory negligence and assumption of risk: 71 As a general matter, courts have discussed the open and obvious hazard issue as a question of the shipowner's duty, rather than under the rubric of comparative negligence. This difference is crucial, for a finding of no duty means that the plaintiff cannot recover at all, whereas a finding of comparative negligence only reduces the plaintiff's recovery by a percentage. The difference is also troubling, because the no-liability result under the duty analysis is similar to the result under the outmoded common law tort doctrines of contributory negligence and assumption of risk, doctrines that Congress rejected in 1972. 72 Kirsch, 971 F.2d at 1031 n. 6; see supra at 541 n. 7. 73 When the active operations duty is involved, the Act adjusts the vessel's liability for obvious dangers or those dangers the longshore worker knows of only by the worker's comparative fault. The legislative history of the 1972 amendments clearly and unequivocally provides that: 74 the admiralty concept of comparative negligence, rather than the common law rule as to contributory negligence, shall apply in cases where the injured employee's own negligence may have contributed to causing the injury. Also, the Committee intends that the admiralty rule which precludes the defense of assumption of risk in an action by an injured employee shall also be applicable. 75 H.R.REP. NO. 1441, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. 8 (1972), reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4698, 4705; accord S.REP. NO. 1125, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. 12 (1972). Many cases, many binding upon us, have unreservedly granted this legislative history the force of law, see Scindia, 451 U.S. at 165 n. 13, 101 S.Ct. at 1621 n. 13; Edmonds v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 443 U.S. 256, 258 n. 2, 268 n. 23, 99 S.Ct. 2753, 2755 n. 2, 2760 n. 23, 61 L.Ed.2d 521 reh'g denied, 444 U.S. 889, 100 S.Ct. 194, 62 L.Ed.2d 126 (1979); Kirsch, 971 F.2d at 1031 & n. 6; Sarauw I, 622 F.2d at 1170 n. 3, 1173; Rich, 596 F.2d at 565 & nn. 32-33 (Garth, J., concurring); Brown v. Ivarans Rederi A/S, 545 F.2d 854, 862, 863 n. 10 (3d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 969, 97 S.Ct. 1652, 52 L.Ed.2d 361 (1977); and Griffith v. Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp., 521 F.2d 31, 44 (3d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1054, 96 S.Ct. 785, 46 L.Ed.2d 643 (1976), to cite but a few. As we have already observed supra at 540, the Act uses a system of pure comparative fault (meaning the worker may recover although his or her fault exceeds 50%). 76 Portline contends that Davis cannot recover anything if the spot on which he fell was obvious. Specifically, it maintains that it matters not whether Davis actually observed the slippery spot on which he fell, but that instead the proper inquiry is (i) whether the hazardous condition was normal, (ii) whether Davis should have anticipated it, and (iii) whether he should have observed it. Br. of Appellee at 26. The substance of this argument appears to be that, because the hazard was obvious, even if Portline was negligent, Davis was contributorily negligent, barring his recovery under the active operations duty. Portline argues concomitantly that, because of Davis' supposed expertise and experience, the ship was entitled to expect him to cope with the hazardous condition. In effect, Portline attempts to inject the inappropriate notion of an experienced longshore worker and the rejected doctrine of contributory negligence into its standard of care in the hope of accomplishing indirectly what it could not accomplish directly. 77 We will reject this effort, though, for the reasons mentioned infra Part IV.E and supra at 541 n. 7, 544. As we have just spent considerable effort explaining, if Davis injured himself in an area over which the vessel exercised substantial control, the active operations duty governs, and neither contributory negligence nor assumption of risk is a bar to recovery, whether the bar be raised directly or obliquely by means of circumscribed standards of care which by their nature embrace those rejected doctrines. If the jury finds that Portline breached the active operations duty, that the hazard would not have been obvious to a reasonable longshore worker, and that Davis had no actual knowledge of it, then the fault would rest entirely with Portline. If the jury finds instead that Portline was negligent but either that the hazard would have been obvious to a reasonable longshore worker or that Davis actually knew of it, it should apportion liability between the two parties commensurate with their respective comparative fault. It goes without saying that if Portline was not negligent, the jury cannot hold it liable at all. 78