Court Opinion

ID: 9492375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:39:49.193851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:16.656247
License: Public Domain

RYMER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I part company because our review of whether Captain Farr’s negligence was a superseding intervening cause should be for clear error, not de novo as the majority appears to assume. “A district court’s findings of negligence, including issues of proximate cause, are reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard.” Exxon Co. v. Sofec, Inc., 54 F.3d 570, 576 (9th Cir.1995), aff'd, 517 U.S. 830, 116 S.Ct. 1813, 135 L.Ed.2d 113 (1996). As the Supreme Court emphasized, “[t]he issues of proximate causation and superceding cause involve application of law to fact, which is left to the factfinder, subject to limited review.” Exxon, 517 U.S. at 840-41, 116 S.Ct. 1813. Simply because we might apply the Restatement factors for determining “superseding intervening cause” differently to the facts does not mean that the district court erred as a “matter of law.” See ante at 1168, 1170.
Following a two day bench trial the district court found that “Farr’s actions in stepping immediately adjacent to the engine block while it was being lifted could not have been anticipated and were the sole proximate cause of the accident.” This finding was based on evidence that, for one reason (e.g., he feared the engine would smash the nearby alarm panel) or another (e.g., he thought the engine was “caught up” on the engine room ladder), Captain Farr disregarded both his years of training and his common sense by purposefully stepping dangerously close to the swinging engine. He did this without alerting either Buno (the NC mechanic, who had turned to retrieve his tools) or his engineer, Graybeal, who was operating the overhead hoist on the deck above. Because doing so ran counter to training, and was out of the ordinary, I don’t see how we can say as a matter of law that there was nothing “extraordinary” about what happened. Rather, it seems to me, the district court who heard the evidence was within its discretion in determining that Farr’s sudden relocation to within the fall radius of the suspended engine block was not “normal” or “reasonably foreseeable.” See Hunley v. Ace Maritime Corp., 927 F.2d 493, 497 (9th Cir.1991) (holding a negligent intervening action supersedes prior negligence where the latter action is “neither normal nor reasonably foreseeable”).
I would, therefore, affirm.