Court Opinion

ID: 9461175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:07:51.685898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:55.926259
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds Sea Land was correctly denied an instruction on Bonura’s comparative negligence. While I agree wholeheartedly with the holding of Urti v. Transport Commercial Corp., 479 F.2d 766 (5th Cir. 1973) that a comparative negligence issue should not be submitted when there is a complete absence of evidence of negligence on the part of an injured party, I do not feel that that case governs the case under consideration. Urti is a classic “no-evidence” case; 4 here, by *671contrast, there was ample evidence to support a finding of some negligence on the part of Bonura.
According to his own testimony, Mr. Bonura was aware before he fell of the fact that he was working in an area where safety nets should have been rigged. He was also aware of the fact that they had not been rigged. Since he was an experienced longshoreman, a jury could reasonably have concluded that he must have known or, at least, should have known that the absence of the safety nets made his working conditions much more hazardous than they would have been had a net been properly rigged. Yet it is undisputed that Bon-ura neither ceased working nor demanded or even requested that a net be rigged to protect him from falling.
This Court has held that the fact that there has been a violation of the Safety and Health Regulations for Longshoring even a flagrant one, does not preclude a shipowner from benefiting from the doctrine of comparative negligence. Denenea v. Shipping Enterprise Corp., 486 F.2d 549 (5th Cir. 1973); Denny v. Jugoslavenska Oceanska Plov., Kotor Yugoslavia, 455 F.2d 1277 (5th Cir. 1972); Phipps v. S/S Santa Maria, 418 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1969); Manning v. M/V Sea Road, 417 F.2d 603 (5th Cir. 1969). We have held further that working in an area made unsafe by a violation of the regulations can itself be negligence, if the worker has knowledge of the violation and of the dangerous condition which it has created. See, e. g., Phipps v. Santa Maria, supra, 418 F.2d at 616; Denenea v. Shipping Enterprise Corp., supra, 486 F.2d at 550. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the failure to inform superiors of unseaworthy conditions so that these conditions might be corrected can, also, under certain circumstances, be considered negligence. Mroz v. Dravo Corp., 429 F.2d 1156, 1164 (3rd Cir. 1970); DuBose v. Matson Navigation Co., 403 F.2d 875 (9th Cir. 1968); see also Rivera v. Rederi A/B Nordstjernan, 456 F.2d 970 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 876, 93 S.Ct. 124, 34 L.Ed.2d 128 (1972). But see Rivera v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 474 F.2d 255 (2nd Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 822, 94 S.Ct. 122, 38 L.Ed.2d 55 (1973) which would restrict this doctrine to unsafe conditions which are not open and obvious.
Given the state of the law as outlined above, I believe that there was a plain jury question as to Bonura’s comparative negligence. Specifically, I believe that the jury should have been allowed to decide whether, considering all the facts of this case, a reasonable man with Bonura’s experience in longshoring would have continued to work without a safety net having been rigged or would have failed to inform his superiors of the known hazard and demanded, or at least requested, that it be eliminated. It is ironic that the same want of a net, a want equally apparent to both sides, should be held at once to inculpate the defendant and exculpate the plaintiff- — • both beyond the possibility of reasonable disagreement. Bonura admits that he knew the net should have been there but was not. The condition obviously was dangerous. Our holding, and that below, requires a determination that reasonable men could not differ whether his continuing to work under these conditions, without so much as a request that mandated precautions for his own safety known to him be observed, was prudent. I cannot do so.

. The facts in TJrti are as follows :
On November 15, 1966, while aboard the S.S. Tamara Guilden in the port of Haifa, Israel, Angel Urti, the plaintiff, was ordered to paint draft numbers on the stern of the vessel. He was lowered over the side of the vessel in a pontoon. The bosun, operating the winch, lowered the pontoon at Urti’s signal. To bring himself closer to the vessel, Urti used a two-inch breasting line which was attached to both the pontoon and to a pad-eye, a U-bolt, attached to the side of the vessel. The pontoon was supported by four one-inch wire lines attached to a bridle or ring which was in turn attached to the winch. The bosun told the plaintiff that he would slacken the wire lines, thus shifting more weight to the breasting line and causing it to become taut. This would naturally pull Urti closer to the ship. As the pontoon was being lowered in this fashion, the manila breasting line broke causing a shift in the position of the pontoon. The plaintiff fell forward striking his forearm and shoulder against the metal bridle or one of the wire cables. TJrti at 768.
Mr. Urti had not selected, provided or rigged any of the equipment used. Neither he nor the bosun had noticed any visible defects in the manila line. Although the job which he was assigned to perform was usually done by two men, there was no reason to assume that Urti knew or had reason to know that his working alone created any undue hazard. There was no evidence that Mr. Urti gave improper instructions to the bosun which might have caused excessive strain on the breasting line. In short, although it turned out that Urti was working under what proved to be unsafe conditions, there was no *671evidence that he helped to create the conditions or that he was aware of the potential hazards and ignored them. He was simply doing a job which he was ordered to do. He had no reason to question the appropriateness of his orders.