Court Opinion

ID: 9448504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:38:10.709487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:27.630973
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
This appeal is from the dismissal of a third-party complaint on the basis of the pleadings alone. The third-party complaint was filed in accordance with Rule 14(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., which allows the defendant in an action to file such a complaint “upon a person not a party to the action who is or may be liable to him for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim against him.” Under the Rule, the court has discretion to determine whether it will allow the third-party complaint to be filed, but having been allowed, the complaint becomes subject to the general rules of pleading. By its own terms, Rule 14 provides that defenses, cross-claims, and counterclaims must be filed in accordance with Rules 12 and 13. Under the definition of Rule 7, a third-party complaint, like an original complaint, is a pleading whose form is prescribed by Rule 8. It would therefore appear that a third-party complaint is subject to the same liberal rules of construction as an original complaint. A liberal construction is also dictated by the purpose of Rule 14 itself ■—to do away with circuity of action. 3 Moore, Federal Practice, p. 412, § 14.04, p. 417, § 14.07. See also Jones v. Waterman S. S. Co., 3 Cir., 1946, 155 F.2d 992, 997; Nora v. Pittston Stevedoring Co., E.D.N.Y., 1950, 90 F.Supp. 35, 36. In Travelers Ins. Co. v. Busy Electric Co., *4385 Cir., 1961, 294 F.2d 139, 143, this Court applied to a third party complaint the test stated in Conley v. Gibson, 1957, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99:
“In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.”
We have often approved the wise statement of Judge Sibley for this Court in De Loach v. Crowley’s, Inc., 5 Cir., 1942, 128 F.2d 378, 380:
“Under the Rules of Civil Procedure a case consists not in the pleadings, but the evidence, for which the pleadings furnish the basis. Cases are generally to be tried on the proofs rather than the pleadings.”
See also Des Isles v. Evans, 5 Cir., 1952, 200 F.2d 614, 616.
It is especially important in this case that the issues be decided upon the proofs and not the pleadings because of the difficult nature of the legal issues involved. Otherwise, we may find ourselves exploring theories of liability and deciding legal questions which would prove to be abstract and nonexistent under the facts of the case as revealed by the evidence.
Halliburton has alleged that Norton breached its contractual warranty of workmanlike services by the manner in which it removed the cementing head. In a somewhat similar situation where a shipowner has been subject to a personal injury suit due to the failure of a stevedoring company to perform its duties in a workmanlike fashion, the Supreme Court has implied such a warranty in the stevedoring contract and allowed recovery against the stevedore. See Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 1956, 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133; Weyerhaeuser S. S. Co. v. Nacirema Co., 1958, 355 U.S. 563, 78 S.Ct. 438, 2 L.Ed.2d 491; Crumady v. The Joachim Hendrik Fisser, 1959, 358 U.S. 423, 432, 79 S.Ct. 445, 3 L.Ed.2d 413. To date, this rule has not been widely extended beyond the stevedore-shipowner relationship. It is, however, open to the third-party plaintiff to show, if he can, that there is a similar need for a federal maritime rule to govern the offshore gas and oil contracts here in question. Cf. Wilburn Boat Co. v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., 1955, 348 U.S. 310, 75 S.Ct. 368, 99 L.Ed. 337. Also in issue is the nature of the contracts involved. It does not appear from the pleadings whether there is a direct contractual relationship between Halliburton and Norton, or whether they have each contracted through a third party, the well owner. Looking to the pleadings as a whole, the original complaint of the injured workman alleges, that “Halliburton Company had furnished certain equipment to the Plaintiff’s said employer,” Norton. The-third-party complaint then alleges, breach of an implied contractual warranty. Under these allegations, I think it is open to Halliburton to show a direct contract with Norton. Or, in the alternative, it may be able to show that, it is a third-party beneficiary on Norton’s contract with the well owner. See Waterman Steamship Corp. v. Dugan & McNamara, Inc., 1960, 364 U.S. 421, 81 S.Ct. 200, 5 L.Ed.2d 169.
Perhaps the leading case allowing indemnity against an employer who had' protected himself with workmen’s compensation is Westchester Lighting Co. v. Westchester County Small Estates Corp., 1938, 278 N.Y. 175, 15 N.E.2d 567. In that case an independent contractor had been hired to make certain repairs and in the process of performing his services ruptured a gas line. Before the escaping gas was discovered, an employee of the contractor was overcome. His widow recovered from the landowner, who then sued for indemnity from the contractor on the ground that he had breached an independent duty or obligation in the performance of his services; the contractor pleaded the exclusive remedy clause of the New York Workmen’s. *439Compensation law, McKinney’s Consol. Laws, c. 67, § 1 et seq., from which the Longshoremen’s Act and many other state compensation acts were derived. The court reversed the lower court’s denial of the indemnity, holding that “an independent duty or obligation owed by the employer to the third party is a sufficient basis for the action.” 15 N.E.2d at 569. This doctrine, however, got little real support until the Supreme Court’s decision in Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., supra, where the Court found that a similar independent obligation to perform services in a workmanlike fashion was “the essence of petitioner’s stevedoring contract” and found an implied contractual warranty. When the situation arose where the shipowner and stevedore were not tied directly by contractual relations, the Court had no trouble in allowing the shipowner to recover as a third-party beneficiary on the stevedore’s contract with the shipping agent. Crumady v. The Joachim Hendrik Fisser, supra.
The Ryan doctrine did not come limited to the stevedoring situation, however. As already pointed out, it had been the law of New York for some time in the service contract area. After Ryan, a number of other state and federal courts have extended the theory of the doctrine, and the rationale of recovery. In the recent case of McDonnell Aircraft Corp. v. Hartman-Hanks-Walsh Painting Co., Mo.1959, 323 S.W.2d 788, the employee of a contractor hired to paint the third party’s plant was injured by high tension wires and sued to recover from the third party. The third party brought in the contractor on the ground that the eon-tractor had breached its duty of performance since it had been warned of the open wires. The court found that the facts alleged in the pleadings established .a common-law right of indemnity on the basis of active/passive negligence. It then turned to the typical exclusive remedy clause of the Missouri compensation .act and, citing Ryan, concluded that facts which support a common-law indemnity would also support an implied contractual warranty not barred by the act. In a similar fashion in American President Lines, Limited v. Marine Terminals Corp., 234 F.2d 753 (9th Cir., 1956), cited with approval in Weyerhaeuser S. S. Co. v. Nacirema Co., supra, the court determined that the facts supported a common-law indemnity for active/passive negligence and then shifted to Ryan and the implied contractual warranty to avoid the exclusive remedy clause of the Longshoremen’s Act. Other courts, while not using the contractual warranty language, have come to the same result. In American District Tel. Co. v. Kittleson, 8 Cir., 1950, 179 F.2d 946, the court held that proof of a common-law indemnity on the basis of active/passive negligence was not barred by the exclusive remedy clause of the Iowa compensation act on the ground that, as in Westchester, supra, the facts indicated breach of “an independent duty owed by the employer to the third party.” If this were a post-1956 decision, the court could as easily have called it a breach of an implied contractual warranty. In General Electric Co. v. Moretz, 4 Cir., 1959, 270 F.2d 780, the shipper, in spite of the Tennessee compensation act, was allowed an indemnity over against the carrier for a personal-injury recovery by the carrier’s truck driver, because ICC regulations made the carrier responsible for the proper loading of the truck and the bills of lading agreed to hold the shipper harmless for damage inflicted on the cargo. In that case, the “independent duty” was based on these promises and regulations and an indemnity was allowed even though the shipper had himself loaded the truck and breached his duty under other ICC regulations to load it properly. In Burris v. American Chicle Co., 2 Cir., 1941, 120 F.2d 218, the independent duty was based on state law.
Turning to the present case, the majority has held on the pleadings that the appellants could prove no “independent duty” owed by Norton to Halliburton either directly or as third-party beneficiary. The majority is of the opinion that “it would take the most artificial and tor*440tuous reasoning” to conclude that under any set of facts the driller might have obligated himself for the benefit of third-party suppliers to handle their equipment in a proper workmanlike fashion. It is at this point that we disagree.
To distinguish the stevedore case, the majority stresses the unique circumstances of his relation to the shipowner, such as his expertise, his special competence to handle equipment which has undergone the rigors of the sea, and his warranty to guard against the unforeseen. Upon reflection, however, the driller on an oil barge is not in a far different situation. A driller is in a hazardous business under any circumstances; since he handles unusually complex equipment and a highly volatile material, the likelihood of accidents and extraordinary damage is great. Upon a drilling barge, the small working space accentuates these factors, and added to them are the corrosive maritime factors of the sea and open weather. The driller’s special situation is further emphasized by the fact that he is in control of the drilling barge, drilling equipment, and all the operations connected with the creation of a producing well. Under his general control a whole stream of independent contractors bring on special equipment and carry out specialized operations, such as the cementing of the well. Many of these operations, as in this case, are then turned over to the driller for completion and the equipment put in his control. While in his control it is subject to all the normal drilling hazards plus the added maritime factors mentioned above, factors which are part of the driller’s specialized knowledge. Under such circumstances, sloppy performance, insufficient precautions, failure to guard against the effect of maritime factors on equipment most probably designed for shore use, can not only enhance the possibility of serious injury, but open the supplier of special equipment to liability he may not have been able to foresee. Equipment, which was otherwise of sound construction, may prove “defective” under the unusual stresses present on a drilling barge; it may prove “defective” if negligently handled; it may actually be defective under any circumstances, but so obviously so that the most amateur driller should have noticed. Added to this is the fact that the supplier is no longer present a,nd able to control the further handling of the equipment or even observe how it is handled—-he has entrusted it to the care and expertise of the driller. Under such circumstances would it be “most artificial and tortuous” to reason that the driller warrants to the independent contractors that he will exercise the care that is to be expected of an expert who offers specialized services under very hazardous circumstances. I am unable to say that there might not arise under such circumstances an independent duty between the driller and the supplier either directly or as third-party beneficiary that the driller will carry out his services in a workmanlike manner.
The majority stresses that to supply defective equipment under any circumstances is such an act of affirmative negligence that it could never be the “passive, technical, or constructive” negligence which would justify the shifting of liability. I would only point out that such affirmative acts are present in many cases, and the courts have decided that the balancing of such factors is for the jury. In Weyerhaeuser, supra, the shipowner, against all customary practice and good judgment, had allowed temporary winch shelters to go to sea and then turned them over to the stevedore. In Crumady, supra, the shipowner had set the governor on the loading boom at twice the recommended safe load. In Moretz, supra, the shipper himself had negligently loaded the truck. But in each case the Court ruled that it was for the jury to weigh this failure against the primary warranty of the injured party’s employer. Or, as suggested above, the defect may only appear because of unusual hazards which are primarily in the-specialized sphere of the warrantor.
*441The foregoing long and discursive statement of possible situations which would entitle the third-party plaintiffs to relief is justified only because the majority declines to follow the rule generally applicable to the effect that the case should be tried on the proofs rather than the pleadings.
I respectfully dissent.