Opinion ID: 663087
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 52 The gravamen of Davis' claim is that Portline breached its active operations duty because the second mate's hosing down of the deck created a non-obvious hazard which breach proximately caused his injury. In Davis' submission, because the crew remained on the deck and a crew member exercised control over the deck when he hosed it down, the hazard formed in areas ... under the active control of the vessel during the stevedoring operation. Scindia, 451 U.S. at 167, 101 S.Ct. at 1622. 53 The parties and the district court all presumed that the preliminary question with respect to the active operations duty is whether the hazard was obvious or known to the longshore worker. The district court granted summary judgment for Portline, as far as we can ascertain, because it concluded that the danger was obvious, known to Davis, and easily avoidable. But we noted in Kirsch that the obviousness determination is generally for the jury to make. Although in Kirsch obviousness was not an issue, the plaintiff having conceded he saw the oil spill into which he stepped (his injury occurred later when he slipped on oil which remained on his shoe) and that the spill was obvious, 971 F.2d at 1027, we did state that: 54 [A]s the [House] committee report [accompanying the amendment of Sec. 5 of the Act] suggests, the situation where a longshore worker slips and falls on an oil spill that was not obvious to the worker in the performance of his or her duties is the paradigmatic case where an action lies against the shipowner for negligence. In many cases, the obviousness of a hazard will be a reasonably disputed issue of fact inappropriate for resolution by the district court on summary judgment. 55 Id. at 1030 n. 5; accord id. at 1033 ([I]n many cases the obviousness of a hazard under all the circumstances, which includes as a key element the appreciability of the danger, will be a jury question.). As we concluded supra at 538, we believe the district court erred in holding that the danger was obvious as a matter of law. 56 Davis argues on appeal that he did not see the spot where he fell and that the slippery nature of that spot was not obvious. Taking all reasonable inferences from the facts in his favor, as developed in the preceding section, we believe that this argument is one a reasonable jury might find persuasive. But we do not think to survive summary judgment Davis must carry the day with it, as the obviousness determination does not nearly have the dispositive ramifications which the district court and the parties assign to it. Rather than setting up a bar to recovery, as the district court presumed, the obviousness of a danger, or the injured worker's actual knowledge of it, is pertinent with respect to the active operations duty only insofar as it evinces the worker's comparative fault. 57 That is, even if we shared the district court's view that a reasonable jury must conclude that the danger was obvious, known to Davis, and easily avoidable, we still would not affirm its order granting Portline summary judgment because we cannot conclude as a matter of law that Portline was 0% and Davis was 100% at fault. So long as the jury could find Portline negligent for creating an icy spot on the deck of the ship, it could attribute some fault to Portline, and, as federal maritime law embodies a system of pure comparative negligence, that would suffice to preclude summary judgment. See Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. v. Smith, 305 U.S. 424, 431, 59 S.Ct. 262, 266, 83 L.Ed. 265 (1939) (Under [the admiralty doctrine of comparative negligence] contributory negligence, however gross, is not a bar to recovery but only mitigates it.); Sosebee v. Rath, 893 F.2d 54, 55 n. 2 (3d Cir.1990) ([A]dmiralty law allows for pure comparative negligence....); cf. The Max Morris v. Curry, 137 U.S. 1, 14-15, 11 S.Ct. 29, 33, 34 L.Ed. 586 (1890). The focus on obviousness in Kirsch, 971 F.2d at 1031, was linked to the turnover duty and in Derr v. Kawasaki Kisen K.K., 835 F.2d 490, 496 (3d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1007, 108 S.Ct. 1733, 100 L.Ed.2d 196 (1988), to the duty to warn; here, we must come to grips with the active operations duty, a duty which contrasts materially from the duties Derr and Kirsch considered.