Court Opinion

ID: 9421749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:41.238773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:32.159933
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Whittaker join, dissenting.
It should be said at the outset that neither of these cases should have been taken for review. No. 61, although of course important to the unfortunate victim of this accident, satisfies none of the criteria for certiorari set forth generally in Rule 19. The case involves merely factual issues of consequence only in this particular litigation, and being in admiralty lacks even that feature, the right to jury trial, which some of my Brethren have found to justify the Court’s reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence in FELA and Jones Act cases. No. 62, dependent as it is on No. 61, likewise does not belong here.
When this Court reverses a Court of Appeals, particularly on issues of fact, I think the lower court is at least due an understandable explication of the reasons. In No. 61 the Court holds the vessel liable on the ground that its setting of the circuit breaker to cut off at a strain of more than 3 tons rendered the lifting gear unseaworthy, and further finds that the stevedores “did no more than bring into play” this unseaworthy condition. The Court overturns the findings of a unanimous Court of Appeals that the setting of the circuit breaker at a strain of 6 tons did not make the lifting gear unseaworthy, and that the accident was caused not by this setting but by the steve*430dores’ improper positioning of the head of the boom.* 249 F. 2d 818. In my opinion the action of the Court lacks any solid basis. My views can best be pointed up by briefly recounting what was held by the court below in reversing the District Court.
The Court of Appeals first found that Crumady’s claim of unseaworthiness in the District Court was predicated on the alleged defective condition of the topping-lift, and not on the setting of the circuit breaker. Id., at 819. It then concluded that the District Court, “with adequate basis in the record,” had correctly rejected this claim. Ibid.
The court then went on to hold that the District Court had properly found the accident primarily attributable to the negligent handling of the lifting operation by the stevedores, in that they had permitted a long and heavy timber to become wedged under the coaming of the hatch from which it .was being removed, as well as having changed, contrary to instructions, the position of the head of the boom. Ibid. This “incorrect procedure,” the Court of Appeals held, caused the topping-lift cable to be subjected to “excessive and abnormal strain,” which in turn caused the cable to break and the boom to fall on Crumady. Id., at 819, 820-821.
Next, the Court of Appeals turned to the setting of the circuit breaker, “a new theory of the ship’s unseaworthiness” which the court found had been “adopted” by the trial court on its own initiative. Id., at 819. In rejecting this basis for holding the vessel liable the Court of Appeals analyzed the situation as follows: (1) hoisting gear is “rated” in terms of supporting a load of not more than *431one-fifth of the strength of the lifting cable; (2) the gear here involved was rated to lift 3 tons; (3) the cable it was intended to and did utilize, for both the topping-lift and cargo runner, was strong enough to withstand a strain of 15 tons; (4) the setting of the circuit breaker to cut off the power from the winch controlling the lifting operation at a strain of 6 tons was proper; (5) the circuit breaker functioned properly, but the stevedores’ improper positioning of the boom subjected the topping-lift to “an enormous, abnormal and unanticipated” additional strain. Id., at 820.
In light of its analysis of the record the Court of Appeals concluded (id., at 820-821):
“It was a proper finding that the negligence of the stevedores was The sole active or primary cause’ of the parting of the gear. But we think it is equally clear that the court erred in the next step of its reasoning, that this negligence of Nacirema ‘brought into play the unseaworthy condition of the vessel.’ The concept of seaworthiness contemplates no more than that a ship’s gear shall be reasonably fit for its intended purpose. [Footnote omitted.] Applied to the present facts, this means that the setting of the electrical circuit breaker could make the gear unsea-worthy only if there was reason to fear that a strain of about six tons on the running gear, which would activate the cut off, would subject cable of fifteen ton capacity in the topping-lift to a dangerous strain. There is nothing in this record which suggests that such an eventuality was reasonably to be feared or anticipated. Thus, the gear was not proved to have been unseaworthy, neither was the setting of the cut off device established as a legal cause of the accident which occurred.”"
*432What answer does this Court now make to the Court of Appeals’ convincingly reasoned opinion? Simply the assertion that because the lifting gear was “rated” for only 3 tons, it was not clearly erroneous for the District Court to conclude that it was wrong to set the circuit breaker to cut off at 6 tons, “twice that limit.” What support does the Court muster for this assertion? Nothing but a footnote reference to the testimony of two witnesses, without so much as a word about the Court of Appeals’ rejection of the probative value of such testimony in the face of, among other things, “a Coast Guard standard for the setting of such a control, indicating that the setting [at 6 tons] of the cut off device was entirely safe and proper.” Id., at 820.
Perhaps I should add that I believe unavailing Chief Judge Biggs’ suggestion on petition for rehearing that liability might be predicated on the stevedores’ improper positioning of the head of the boom and the theory of unseaworthiness enunciated by Judge Learned Hand in Grillea v. United States, 232 F. 2d 919. 249 F. 2d, at 821. The record contains no indication that the positioning of the boom was other than “an incident in a continuous operation” beyond the compass of that theory. Grillea v. United States, supra, at 922.
In view of the foregoing I think the Court’s action overriding the Court of Appeals entirely unjustified. I would affirm the judgment below in No. 61, and not reach, as the Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to do, the indemnity issue put to us in No. 62.
Since my views have not prevailed, however, I am bound to consider the indemnity issue in light of the Court’s reasoning in the action for unseaworthiness. In this light I must again dissent. As I read Ryan Steve-doring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124, the ship is entitled to indemnity only if the liability-inducing unseaworthiness or hazardous working condition is created *433by the stevedore. Here, on the Court’s premises, Nacirema merely brought into play an unseaworthy condition created by the vessel itself. And on the Court’s further premise that this condition was the cause of the injuries sustained by Crumady I think neither the decision nor the underlying principles in Ryan justifies the award of indemnity. Cf. Weyerhaeuser S. S. Co. v. Nacirema Operating Co., 355 U. S. 563, 568.

Chief Judge Biggs, dissenting from the refusal of the Court of Appeals to grant rehearing en banc, did not disagree with these findings. 249 F. 2d, at 821.