Court Opinion

ID: 9461671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:22:23.957273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:13.240365
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
By a petition for rehearing shipowners raise a new and compound contention in support of their claim for indemnity, which essentially boils down to the assertion that the stevedore must answer for the negligence of its longshoreman even where such negligence occurred beyond the scope of their employment relationship. Shipowners base this theory upon cases holding that willful and unusually belligerent actions of a seaman, which assertedly exceed his duties unless taken in the interest of the ship, may nonetheless render the vessel unseaworthy. See Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., Inc., 1955, 348 U.S. 336, 340, 75 S.Ct. 382, 99 L.Ed. 354; Clevenger v. Star Fish & Oyster Co., 5 Cir., 1963, 325 F.2d 397, 400-02. We recognize the principle that an employer may be liable for injuries inflicted by its employee even though not strictly in the course of his employment, if it is closely connected. See, e. g., Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc. v. United States, ante. But cf. Stewart v. Steamer Blue Trader, 1 Cir., 1970, 428 F.2d 361 (per curiam). Thus, even willful conduct, of the sort involved in the cases cited by shipowners, may bind an employer. See Hartford Accident & Indemn. Co. v. Cardillo, 1940, 72 App.D.C. 52, 112 F.2d 11, cert. denied, 310 U.S. 649, 60 S.Ct. 1100, 84 L.Ed. 1415. The difficulty here is caused by the fact that the jury may have found the longshoreman’s negligent conduct quite unrelated to his work.
Moreover, even if the conduct of a seaman acting beyond the scope of his duties may constitute violation of his shipowner’s warranty of seaworthiness, it does not follow that the conduct of a longshoreman acting beyond the scope of his duties must transgress his stevedore’s guaranty. The stevedore’s warranty of performance is merely to render workman-like service, which by translation means to furnish workmen who will do their job in a safe and workman-like manner. It is in this area that the stevedore’s obligation to supply workers who will exercise care for their own safety applies. See Grayson v. Cordial Shipping Co., 7 Cir., 1974, 496 F.2d 710, 716; McLaughlin v. Trelleborgs Angfar-tygs A/B, ante; Arista Cia. DeVapores, S. A. v. Howard Terminal, ante. The special purpose of protecting seamen, as wards of the admiralty court, which forms the reason for the unlimited nature of the warranty of seaworthiness, does not carry over to the relationship between the shipowner and stevedore, which we hold, although broad, Santiago Martinez v. Compagnie Generale Trans-atlantique, 1 Cir., 517 F.2d 371, 1975 is confined to the contract. If, for example, a longshoreman hid in the hold and remained after hours to commit larceny, and assaulted a member of the crew who discovered him, we cannot think that the stevedore would be liable to the crewman for the injury, even though the shipowner might be. Nor, in such case, would we see any basis for requiring the stevedore to indemnify the shipowner. The present case, assuming that what the jury found to be the longshoreman’s contributory negligence was unconnected with his employment, is far weaker than that. Cf. LaBolle v. Nitto Line, N.D. Cal., 1967, 268 F.Supp. 16.
Petition denied.