Opinion ID: 663087
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Matter of the Standard of Care of a Longshore Worker

Text: 79 We have deliberately phrased the elements of the active operations duty and the definition of obviousness in terms of a reasonable vessel and reasonable longshore worker. At the apportionment stage we think that the same reasonable longshore worker standard applies--that is, when measuring the longshore worker's comparative fault, the worker's negligence is adjudged from the standpoint of a reasonable longshore worker under the circumstances. 80 When a vessel invites a stevedore aboard, it may reasonably presume that each longshore worker employed by the stevedore boarding the ship has not only the attributes of a reasonable person, but possesses in addition the minimum qualifications, skills, knowledge, judgment, care, prudence, and other pertinent traits ordinarily possessed by longshore workers in that or a similar community. See KEETON ET AL., PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS Sec. 32, at 187. We employ the term minimum (rather than the term average) because the standard should not convert half of all longshore workers into negligent practitioners of the art, see, e.g., Hall v. Hilbun, 466 So.2d 856, 871 (Miss.1985) (en banc), and because the ship has a duty to prevent injuring all longshore workers who possess the mandatory qualifications, etc., to merit the title of longshore worker, not just superior ones. 81 That is not to say that the vessel is precluded from seeking to prove that, because of a particular longshore worker's expertise, he or she was at fault when an ordinary longshore worker would not have been, or was more at fault than an ordinary longshore worker would have been. What the vessel would have to prove is that the longshore worker in fact had this special knowledge or skill, and that an otherwise reasonable longshore worker in possession of that knowledge or skill should have acted differently and avoided or mitigated his or her injuries. If the vessel meets that burden, then the longshore worker would not be able to respond that his or her special knowledge or skill is irrelevant because a minimally qualified longshore worker is not required to possess it. That much is a given. See REST.2D TORTS Sec. 289 & cmt. m; id. Sec. 290 cmt. f; KEETON ET AL., PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS Sec. 32, at 185. We only hold that with respect to a vessel's active operations duty a longshore worker is not held to be an experienced, expert longshore worker as a matter of law, regardless of his or her actual qualifications, etc. We have often referred herein to the longshore worker's actual knowledge as bearing on his or her comparative fault, and although it is irrelevant to the vessel's standard of care in the first instance it is equally applicable to the obviousness inquiry. In short, a qualification, etc., is relevant to the longshore worker's standard of care, whether all qualified longshore workers possess it or whether the injured worker acquires it only by virtue of his or her superior abilities. 82 On the other hand, it may be that with respect to some injuries the special qualifications, etc., required of a longshore worker are irrelevant to the vessel's or the longshore worker's standard of care. For example, it may not be--we do not mean to advise whether it is or is not--part of the requisite qualifications or skills of a longshore worker in that or a similar community to negotiate decks spotted with ice. In such events, one could substitute reasonable person for reasonable longshore worker and person for longshore worker in the elements of the vessel's active operations duty, in the definition of what is obvious, and in the standard of care applicable when measuring the injured worker's comparative fault. One need not do so, however, because we have defined a reasonable longshore worker such that the stated proper result flows logically therefrom. 83 In the preceding section we adverted to Portline's contention that, as an experienced and expert longshore worker, Davis should have been able to avoid the hazard posed by the ice. By now it should be clear that we do not concur that whether the hazard would have been obvious to or avoidable by an experienced longshore worker is the proper query under any stage of the active operations duty analysis. Rather, we reiterate that the proper inquiry is whether the injured worker actually knew of the hazard, or whether a reasonable longshore worker (are possessing the minimum qualifications, etc., ordinarily possessed by one employed in the profession in the same or a similar community) would have observed and appreciated it. See Scindia, 451 U.S. at 165 n. 13, 101 S.Ct. at 1621 n. 13; supra at 543-44 (defining obviousness). 84 Scindia does not require us to treat longshore workers as experts and experienced for purposes of the active operations duty. The Supreme Court's reference to an experienced stevedore in Scindia was premised on the 1972 amendments to the Act eliminating the vessel's theretofore strict liability to longshore workers for injuries they sustained on account of the stevedore's negligence in its cargo operations, not the vessel's negligence in its active operations. Specifically, Scindia articulated that Congress amended Sec. 5(b) of the Act in 1972 to eliminate the vessel's liability without fault by confining a vessel's liability to its own negligence  'rather than the [theretofore controlling] no-fault concept of seaworthiness.'  Derr, 835 F.2d at 492 (quoting H.R.REP. NO. 1441, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972), reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4698, 4703). Our holdings with respect to the active operations duty comport with that mandate completely. 85