Court Opinion

ID: 9463281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:02:20.465846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:00.885356
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
Although the question is a very close one, I cannot, upon reflection, agree with the majority’s conclusion that § 5 of the Act bars an individual, who is subject to its terms, from recovering against an employer whose negligent operation of his vessel was the proximate cause of the employee’s injury. Although I appreciate that there are arguments for the proposition that the judge-made exceptions to § 5 should have no applicability to negligence actions, I think the Court’s opinions in Reed v. The Yaka, 373 U.S. 410, 83 S.Ct. 1349, 10 L.Ed.2d 448 (1963) and Jackson v. Lykes, 386 U.S. 731, 87 S.Ct. 1419, 18 L.Ed.2d 488 (1967) strongly suggest, if they do not compel, a contrary result. However unsatisfactory these opinions may be as matters of statutory construction, I can find no warrant to disregard their plain teachings. The Supreme Court has said nothing to discredit them, see Buzynski v. Oliver, 538 F.2d 6 (1st Cir. 1976) and Congress has not, insofar as this case is concerned, attempted to overrule them.1
*242Although I do not quarrel with the majority’s discussion of Reed and Jackson’s precursors, I think it useful to summarize my own understanding of the statutory background of this case. Section 5 of the Act bars, in language which admits no exceptions, all actions at law or in admiralty by a longshoreman against his employer. Section 33, however, preserves the longshoreman’s rights against individuals other than his employer, generally a shipowner. After Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099 (1946), a longshoreman’s remedies against a third party-shipowner included an unseaworthiness action, as well as the traditional negligence remedy. The Act, as written, provided no clear answer to the question whether a shipowner, who was found liable to a longshoreman, had any rights against the longshoreman’s employer. In Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 72 S.Ct. 277, 96 L.Ed. 318 (1952), the Court held that a shipowner who had been found liable to a longshoreman in negligence, had no right to contribution against the longshoreman’s employer. Although Halcyon reserved the point, id. at 286 n. 12, 72 S.Ct. 277, subsequent decisions interpreted Halcyon as establishing the proposition that § 5 precluded imposing liability on an employer by reason of the employer’s having breached a duty he owed a longshoreman. See Cooper Stevedoring Corp. v. Kopke, Inc., 417 U.S. 106, 112-15, 94 S.Ct. 2174, 40 L.Ed.2d 694 (1974). Halcyon, however, proved not to be the Court’s last word on the subject. In Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956), the Court held that a shipowner had a right to full indemnification from the longshoreman’s employer if the employer had breached its warranty of workmanlike service — which the Court implied into the stevedoring contract — and thereby caused the longshoreman’s injury. This right of indemnification existed whether the basis of the shipowner’s liability to the longshoreman was negligence, see Weyerhaeuser Steamship Co. v. Nacirema Operating Co., 355 U.S. 563, 78 S.Ct. 438, 2 L.Ed.2d 491 (1958), or unseaworthiness. See Crumady v. The Joachim Hendrik Fisser, 358 U.S. 423, 79 S.Ct. 445, 3 L.Ed.2d 413 (1959).
Although Ryan and its progeny produced results that were arguably inconsistent with Halcyon and § 5, their reasoning was consistent with these authorities. See Reed v. The Yaka, supra at 418, 83 S.Ct. 1349 (Harlan, J., dissenting); compare Italia Societa v. Oregon Stevedoring Co., Inc., 376 U.S. 315, 321, 84 S.Ct. 748, 11 L.Ed.2d 732 (1964). Nothing in the statute or in Halcyon necessarily precluded the imposition of liability on an employer by reason of the employer’s having breached a duty it owed the shipowner. I note that the employer, by entering into a contract that expressly provided that there was no warranty, presumably could have avoided indemnification liability. But see Proudfoot, “The Tar Baby": Maritime Personal Injury Indemnification, 20 Stat.L.Rev. 423 (1968) (suggesting the employer’s duty to the vessel owner is grounded in tort).
Although it is not clear that the majority is making a contrary assumption, I also note that the shipowner’s right to indemnification was by no means automatic. He had to establish both a breach of warranty and a causal relationship between the breach and the longshoreman’s injury. I presume that there have been cases in which the shipowner was wholly responsible for the state of affairs which caused the longshoreman’s injury. See Proudfoot, supra, 20 Stan.L.Rev. at 437.
Although Ryan is at least arguably consistent with Halcyon and § 5’s literal command, the cases which I find most germane to the case at bar — Reed and Jackson — are not, as the Court itself appears to have recognized. See Reed, supra at 414, 83 S.Ct. 1349. There the Court permitted a direct action by the longshoreman against his employer, sanctioning the imposition of liability on the employer by reason of its breach of a duty it owed the employee. Although the Court on the facts of Reed could have reached the identical result by a different means, see G. Gilmore and C. *243Black, The Law of Admiralty 444-45, it declined to do so. Id. at 412, 83 S.Ct. 1349. Nor can Reed be explained, as the majority suggests, as simply a means of “short-circuiting” the normal three party procedure of a direct action against the vessel owner, who, in turn, would sue the employer for indemnification. Jackson v. Lykes, supra, in reliance on Reed, permitted a direct action in a context in which there was no third party vessel owner on the scene. Reed and Jackson rested on the ground that a longshoreman, who could have recovered in unseaworthiness against a third party shipowner, should have the same rights against a shipowner who also happened to be his employer. Jackson, supra at 735, 87 S.Ct. 1419; Reed, supra at 415, 83 S.Ct. 1349. Section 5, under these decisions, does not deprive a longshoreman of the “traditional remedies of the sea” in a case in which his employer happens to own the vessel upon which the longshoreman was injured. See Reed, supra at 413, 83 S.Ct. 1349.
As reasoned, Reed and Jackson seem dis-positive of the case at bar. Since appellants clearly would have been able to recover against a negligent third party-shipowner, these cases appear to compel the conclusion that appellants should also be able to recovery against a negligent employer-shipowner.
I am not persuaded by the argument that unseaworthiness claimants should have greater rights than negligence claimants. Certainly there is nothing in the language of § 5 that would support such a distinction. While I recognize that unseaworthiness and negligence are distinct remedies, see Usner v. Luckenbach Overseas Corp., 400 U.S. 494, 91 S.Ct. 514, 27 L.Ed.2d 562 (1971), I see nothing in the distinction between the two that suggests that negligence claimants should be discriminated against. Clearly, it is difficult to justify the conclusion that a negligent employer-shipowner is entitled to the protections of § 5 while an employer whose vessel is unseaworthy through' no fault of his own is not.
In saying this, I recognize that the result in Usner would have made little sense if the Court had believed that a longshoreman had a negligence action against his employer in all cases. See G. Gilmore & C. Black, supra at 390. There, the employer’s negligence — which the Court held did not render the vessel unseaworthy and the vessel owner liable — occurred in the course of stevedoring activities, not in the course of the operation of a vessel. My view, which is consistent with the implications of Usner, is that § 5 bars an action if the cause of action does not arise from the employer’s activities as a shipowner. Compare Atkins v. Greenville Shipbulding Corp., 411 F.2d 279 (5th Cir. 1969). Reed and Jackson carve out an exception to § 5 which is limited to “the traditional remedies of the sea”, see Reed, supra at 413, 83 S.Ct. at 1352 — that is remedies against a shipowner, regardless of his status, for harm caused in the course of traditional shipping operations. Thus, the fact that the Court assumed that § 5 barred a direct negligence action on those facts is not inconsistent with the conclusion I reach today.
I am also unpersuaded by the argument the majority bases upon the precursors of Reed and Jackson. Given the reasoning of Reed and Jackson, I doubt it is proper to place much reliance on the “chain of logic” that led to the undermining of § 5. The Reed-Jaekson Court, as I have noted, did not conceive of those cases as establishing a procedural shortcut. Indeed, since there presumably are situations in which a shipowner would have no right of indemnification against the employer, Reed-Jackson could not have proceeded on the assumption that the provision of a direct action against the employer made no economic difference in a case in which there was a third party in the background. But even if it is appropriate so to treat Reed and Jackson, I am not persuaded by the argument the majority offers for treating negligence and unseaworthiness claimants differently. A shipowner has the same basic right to indemnification whether the basis for his liability is negligence or unseaworthiness. See Weyer*244haeuser Steamship Co. v. Nacirema Operating Co., supra.2 So even conceiving of Reed and Jackson as creating a procedural shortcut, I see no justification for a rule that they do not apply to negligence claimants.3
Because I disagree with the majority on the effect of § 5, I must address the issue the majority did not find it necessary to reach: whether the district court erred in concluding that plaintiffs failed to sustain their burden of producing evidence of the employer’s negligence and in entering a judgment for the defendant at the close of plaintiff’s evidence. I think this was error. Plaintiffs’ expert testimony regarding the custom and practice of vessels during docking and undocking was, in my view, probably sufficient to satisfy plaintiffs’ burden of production. In any case, the evidence was that Mr. Murphy was not warned in any manner that the vessel was about to pull away, and, in my view, that was sufficient evidence of the vessel’s negligence to shift the burden of production to the defendant. I need not express any view on whether plaintiff may have been contributorily negligent and whether he might have been barred under the law of comparative negligence.
I would vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for a new trial.

. Although 1 dissent, I emphasize that I do not view my interpretation of pre-1972 law as having any substantial implications for the interpretation of the Act as amended in 1972. The amended § 5 constitutes a clear attempt by Congress to overrule the line of cases culminating in Reed, see Cooper Stevedoring Co. v. Kopke, Inc., 417 U.S. 106, 113 n. 6, 94 S.Ct. 2174, 40 L.Ed.2d 694 (1974), and I would not feel haunted by Reed’s ghost if I were called upon to construe the 1972 amendments. It appears that Congress has commanded us to wipe the slate clean. But see Griffith v. Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp., 521 F.2d 31 (3d Cir. 1975).

. Cooper Stevedoring Co. v. Fritz Kopke, Inc., supra at 114-15, 94 S.Ct. 2174 is not inconsistent with Weyerhaeuser. It simply states Halcyon’s rule regarding contribution, which, of course, is not the same thing as indemnification. See Italia Societa v. Oregon Stevedoring Co., supra at 321, 84 S.Ct. 748.

. I am satisfied that appellants were subject to the Act and will not address the related question whether the federal negligence remedy should be construed as subject to the limitations of the Massachusetts Workmen’s Compensation Act.