Court Opinion

ID: 9636373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:25:53.722891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:44.644968
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
An experienced trial judge who saw and heard the witnesses has made findings which 'seem to me' rational and permissible on the record; and in accordance with our repeated expostulations, I believe we should accept them and affirm. We cannot have any doubt as to his views. He states that he believed the libellant, who “made a good impression on the Court,” thereby necessarily rejecting the testimony of respondent’s witnesses who asserted an entire absence of oil on the decks. He considered several times during the trial the possibility of dividing the damages, and rejected it in saying that “libellant was free from negligence” and that the accident and injuries “were caused solely and exclusively by reason of the negligence and carelessness of the respondent” and its agents. To return the case for further cross-examination of the judge seems to me an unnecessary glorification of procedural formalities. The opinion omits reference to the libellant’s sworn answer to an interrogatory, “Libellant did not notice the oil until after he had fallen,” which, I believe, indicates the rational explanation of the evidence if more is needed. A condition of careless inattention to oil can hardly transfer all responsibility to a worker, so that he is at all times charged with notice of an oil spot which he has not noticed at the moment. But if I am wrong in this, I should think it preferable to accept full responsibility for decision and order reversal here.