Court Opinion

ID: 9457727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:31:08.46385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:28.997803
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with that portion of the majority opinion affirming the directed verdict for the Independent Towing Company and Tugboat Triton. I further concur in the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to establish unseaworthiness of the KARL GRAM-MERSTORF. I disagree, however, that sufficient evidence of negligence was presented to establish a jury question under the Jones Act claim against the vessel’s owners.
The majority of this panel find the following to constitute a prima facie case of negligence:
The jury could also have reasonably found that while no actual notice was given to the vessel that Southard was about to come aboard, that the vessel had constructive notice by reason of the tugboat’s coming-to and securing to the vessel. The jury could also have reasonably found that it should have become apparent to the two members of the vessel’s crew that someone intended to come aboard the vessel when the top of the ladder extended two or three feet above the vessel’s bulwark railing. Finally, the jury could have reasonably found that the vessel was negligent in failing to hold (via members of its .crew) the top of the ladder in accordance with customary procedure.
Plaintiff’s evidence discloses that the standard operating procedure prior to disembarking from the tug and embarking on the vessel was for deckhand Tul-ewicz to place a ladder against the side of the vessel to be boarded, and then hold the ladder while the pilot made his ascent. This procedure was not followed by the pilot on this fatal day. Instead, before Tulewicz had arrived at the companionway to put up the ladder, Southard, without warning to the deckhand or to his mate, Captain Baric, suddenly erected the ladder himself and began his ill-fated climb. Southard did not wait for the ladder to be held at its bottom *1121by the tug’s crew or at its top by the crew aboard the vessel. Implicit in our unanimous finding that under these facts there was no prima facie case of unseaworthiness or negligence against the tug is that the sudden, precipitous, unexpected, and unconventional action of the captain relieved other members of his crew from responsibility and the tug and its owners from liability in negligence.
Consistency and logic demand that we apply the same rationale in evaluating a possible breach of duty owed Southard by the vessel. In establishing this duty, the critical ingredient is notice to the vessel, either actual or constructive, that Southard was coming aboard at the precise time he made his abortive attempt. That the tug was coming to and securing to the vessel is not sufficient to establish notice that the pilot was attempting to come aboard at the very instant the mooring lines were secured. It was reasonable for the vessel only to anticipate that the ladder was to be expected alongside after the lapse of a time interval represented by Tulewicz’s walking from his line-securing position on the tug to that point in the companionway where the ladder was stowed. Tulewicz testified he was enroute to where the ladder was usually stowed when, after walking 20 or 25 feet, he saw the captain falling from the already erected ladder.
I cannot impose upon the vessel the duty of foreseeing that the ladder would be erected against its side simultaneously with the securing of the lines. There is no evidence that such a procedure had ever been followed before, nor is it reasonable to conclude that the vessel should have expected it on this particular day.
Similarly, evidence that there were two men on the vessel near the top of the ladder and that the ladder projected two or three feet above the railing in itself is insufficient to establish negli-
gence (a) in the absence of any proof of the length of time the men had been standing there when first observed by Captain Baric and (b) in the absence of evidence of whether they were there when the ladder had been put up. There is absolutely no evidence that any of the ship’s crew were there when Captain Southard first erected the ladder against the vessel’s side. Without appropriate evidence of critical elements of time, I find neither actual nor constructive notice to the vessel. Without such notice I would not charge them with failure to hold the ladder fast during Captain Southard’s ascent.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court.