Opinion ID: 457853
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: unseaworthiness per se

Text: 15 Unseaworthiness, like Jones Act negligence, can be the per se result of a regulatory violation. 7 See Phipps v. S.S. Santa Maria, 418 F.2d 615, 616-17 (5th Cir.1969). However, a crucial distinction between the two claims is the differing standard of causation required to find liability. While Jones Act negligence is a legally sufficient cause of injury if it played any part, no matter how small, in bringing about the injury, the plaintiff must meet a more demanding standard of causation in an unseaworthiness claim. See, e.g., Rogers v. Eagle Offshore Drilling Services, Inc., 764 F.2d 300, 304-05 (5th Cir.1985); Landry v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 731 F.2d 299, 302 (5th Cir.1984). Unlike the featherweight standard of causation in a Jones Act claim, the standard in an unseaworthiness claim is proximate cause in the traditional sense. Comeaux v. T.L. James & Co., 702 F.2d 1023, 1024 (5th Cir.1983). As the district court instructed the jury without objection by either side, proximate cause means that (1) the unseaworthiness played a substantial part in bringing about or actually causing the injury and that (2) the injury was either a direct result or a reasonably probable consequence of the unseaworthiness. See Alverez v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., Inc., 674 F.2d 1037, 1042-43 (5th Cir.1982). 16 We conclude that Smith has not met the more demanding burden of showing proximate cause as a matter of law on his unseaworthiness claim. A reasonable juror could have determined that Smith's fall was not a direct result nor a reasonably probable consequence of the lack of a railing on the exhaust pipe. Although Smith was indisputably on the pipe when he fell, and the lack of a railing must have played some part, no matter how slight, in causing the fall, the factual dispute at trial over the exact details of how Smith fell leave us unable to find that proximate cause was established as a matter of law. It is consistent for the same condition or defect to be a legally sufficient cause of an injury on a Jones Act negligence theory of liability but not on an unseaworthiness theory. See Landry, 731 F.2d at 302. We therefore hold that the district court's denial of Smith's directed verdict motion on the unseaworthiness claim was correct.