Court Opinion

ID: 9452984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:58:51.675886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:26.927637
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in affirming the judgment, but I do so on the ground that appellants’ attorneys failed to make a sufficient objection to the court’s charge on unseaworthiness. They requested an instruction, and objected to the court’s refusal to charge, “that negligence alone would not render the vessel unseaworthy.” This requested instruction, however, was an incorrect statement of the standard of Grillea v. United States, 232 F.2d 919, 922 (2 Cir. 1956), since under that standard a negligently created condition of sufficient duration can constitute unseaworthiness. When appellants’ attorneys objected to the court’s refusal to give this instruction, moreover, the court told them to attempt to work out an instruction in suitable language. This was not done. Under these circumstances, I do not believe that appellants have satisfied the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 51 that a party objecting to an instruction state “distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.” The charge as a whole was not such fundamental error that we should consider this asserted error absent a sufficient objection. Cf. Pettus v. Grace Line, Inc., 305 F.2d 151 (2 Cir. 1962).