Court Opinion

ID: 9472802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:11:25.413155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:09.490213
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I. IRRECONCILABLE VERDICTS
Plaintiff Kokesh alleged that defendant American Steamship Company (ASC) should be held liable for his claimed injury as a seaman aboard the vessel Consumers Power, because of a negligent breach of its duty to use reasonable care under the cir*1097cumstances by “deliberately flooding the decks ... and deliberately failing to make the deck reasonably safe by placing nonskid material on the clear and shiny surface.” Further, plaintiff contended that the Consumers Power was unseaworthy at the time and place of claimed injury for its failure to fulfill “its absolute duty to provide a reasonably safe deck area for the plaintiff to work in and further arose by inappropriately requiring the deck to be flooded from ballast tanks____” The jury held for plaintiff on the negligence claim but held for defendant ASC that it had met its absolute duty to provide a seaworthy vessel as to claims describing negligent conduct under the Jones Act count, even though plaintiffs claims described essentially the same conduct as negligence under the Jones Act and as unseaworthiness under the companion maritime law count.
In this case plaintiff described the factual basis for the Jones Act (negligence) claim in almost the same terms as the unseaworthiness, strict liability claim. In a similar kind of case involving like claims, pertaining to a fall and asserted injuries on a slippery deck, another court has held that a verdict for defendant on the unseaworthiness count is essentially inconsistent and irreconciliable with a verdict for plaintiff on a negligence claim arising out of the same set of circumstances and the same kind of dual claim from a single accident or episode. Bernardini v. Rederi A/B Saturnus, 512 F.2d 660 (2d Cir.1975). See also Turner v. “The Cabins," Tanker, Inc., 327 F.Supp. 515 (D.Del.1971).
As in the two cases above cited, it appears that a holding that there was nothing in the condition of the vessel, Consumers Power, including its decks and ballast tanks, which might render the defendant liable on an unseaworthy basis (a more demanding standard than negligence), is irreconcilable with a holding that the failure to furnish non-skid material on a deck subject to flooding from overflowing ballast tanks renders the defendant liable for negligence. See Spano v. N.V. Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd, 472 F.2d 33, 35 n. 1 (2d Cir.1973); Nosal v. Calmar Steamship Corp., 339 F.Supp. 1235, 1238 (E.D.Pa.1972), aff’d, 475 F.2d 1395 (3d Cir.1973); Poller v. Thorden Lines A/B, 336 F.Supp. 1231, 1232 (E.D.Pa.1970).
Plaintiffs claim here essentially was that allowing or even bring about flooding of the decks from overflowing ballast tanks in the absence of non-skid deck material or covering was a negligent condition causally related to plaintiffs fall and his injuries. Plaintiff claimed, and argued, that it was an unseaworthy condition and defendant should be held liable under maritime law principles; he argued also that defendant was negligent in permitting or countenancing this same condition and should be held liable under the Jones Act. Plaintiff, under these circumstances, by pressing these two essentially like claims, was taking the risk of inconsistent verdicts, which might be very difficult to reconcile or not even subject to reconciliation. Thus, although defendant did not object to the instructions that the two claims be considered separately, I am persuaded that one cannot logically and consistently reconcile the affirmative Jones Act verdict with the negative maritime unseaworthiness holding, and that allowing the two verdicts to stand works a prejudice and permits doubt and uncertainty to prevail. The insistence upon pressing these claims under these circumstances invited error, and the court’s agreement to submit them and its failure to set aside the negligence verdict, in my view, was not harmless error.
II. EXCESSIVE DAMAGES
Even if plaintiff were entitled to the benefit of a Jones Act verdict despite the serious misgivings above expressed, I would find the jury’s award of $500,000 to be grossly excessive. Kokesh testified that he was not sure about his earnings at the time of the injury in question but was “some place” in the “twenty, thirty” range. He also testified that he was found fit to return to work within three months of his injury and hospitalization and has continued to be employed in other than seaman-*1098longshoreman work earning about $10,000 a year. At most, this would establish a $20,000 differential in annual earnings, and despite “discomfort” in the back and neck area, Kokesh is neither seriously nor substantially disabled.
Even with a fair award for pain and suffering to be taken into account, in the light of the evidence in this case, the award was clearly beyond the bonds of reasonableness. Failure to instruct on reduction of damages to present value is also a factor to be considered in respect to this excessive award. See Rodgers v. Fisher Body Division, 739 F.2d 1102 (6th Cir.1984). I would therefore remand the case on this basis also.