Court Opinion

ID: 9448538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:38:49.991386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:28.179848
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH C. HUTCHESON, Jr., Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Sometimes a case comes up on appeal to this court where the record as a whole creates a strong impression that a miscarriage of justice has occurred which cries out for relief. This is such a case, and, with deference to my associates, I must dissent from the affirmance and give my reasons for dissenting.
It is true that the jury did find against plaintiff on the special issues submitted. However, plaintiff-appellant insists: (1) that the Issue No. 1 on which the jury found against him, that his negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injury, is without support in the evidence; (2) that his motion for a directed verdict on the ground that the evidence established unseaworthiness as matter of law should have been granted; and (3) that there were procedural errors in the charge and in the admission of inflammatory evidence as to his marital irregularities which were completely irrelevant to the issue; and finally he insists that if there was evidence sufficient to take the case to the jury, it was error to deny his motion for new trial on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence.
I am of the opinion that there was reversible error in the admission of the evidence complained of. I am, also, of the opinion that, under the undisputed facts showing that the piace where, and the circumstances under which, plaintiff was working were inherently dangerous, and the vessel was, as to that portion of it, therefore, unseaworthy as matter of law, it was error to instruct the jury that the plaintiff assumed risks- arising from such unseaworthiness. It is. interesting to note that the thrust of the defense and its insistence that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence rests on the undisputed facts to which everybody téstified, that plaintiff, in the doing of his work, was obliged to be constantly on the alert for overhead beams and that his safety at all times depended upon his being quick enough to make the proper ducking motion at the proper time. The only claim that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence was the claim that he was not sufficiently alert at all times to duck so as to escape contact with the overhead beams. No one saw him when he was hurt, and plaintiff testified that he was very careful to duck.
The defense then comes down on the evidence to a conclusion that, because he was caught and pressed between the beam and the tractorvator, he must have failed to duck. To my mind this theory will not hold legal water. If the case was such as the witnesses all testified to, that he was driving the tractorvator in a situation of danger in a crowded space where injury was inevitable unless he made the right movements at the right time to avoid the danger, there was unseaworthiness as matter of law and plaintiff could not be charged with having assumed the risk of and from such unseaworthiness. This being so, the district judge erred in denying plaintiff’s motion to direct a verdict, and he also erred in submitting to the jury the issue No. 1 on which the jury found against him that his negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injury. In addition, if it might be claimed that there was evidence to take to the jury the question of unseaworthiness and that it was not error to refuse the directed verdict, it is quité clear that on the record as a whole the verdict could not stand against the mo*840iion tor new trial for want of sufficiency of the evidence.
Of the opinion, therefore, that the verdict and judgment may not stand, I respectfully dissent from their affirmance.