Court Opinion

ID: 9470215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:59:41.336731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:47.166542
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case involves an attack on a grant of directed verdict to the defendants in a wrongful death action under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 688, and the general maritime law of the United States. The plaintiff alleges that the defendant corporation was negligent in its assumed duty to ascertain the health of the decedent-employee, and that such negligence and failure to provide adequate medical care in light of his condition resulted in his death.
In my view, the majority misconstrues the relaxed standards of proof on liability in Jones Act cases and fails to recognize the nature of the plaintiff’s claims. I must therefore dissent.
I
Normally, I would agree with the majority that appellate review of a directed verdict is to determine whether, viewing the evidence most favorably to the party against whom the verdict was granted, reasonable persons could come to but one conclusion. Coffy v. Multi-County Narcotics Bureau, 600 F.2d 570 (6th Cir.1979). This case does not, however, present a normal situation. What takes it out of the ordinary is the Jones Act. The Jones Act has a much lower evidentiary threshold for submission of the case to the jury. As a result, even marginal claims should not be foreclosed from jury consideration. Leonard v. Exxon Corporation, 581 F.2d 522, 544 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 923, 99 S.Ct. 2032, 60 L.Ed.2d 397 (1979); Lies v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 641 F.2d 765, 770 (9th Cir.1981).
The Supreme Court has chastised the lower federal courts for failing to recognize the special nature of the Jones Act cases:
The kind of misconception evidenced in the opinion below, which fails to take into account the special features of this statutory negligence action that make it significantly different from the ordinary common-law negligence action, has required this Court to review a number of cases. In a relatively large percentage of the cases reviewed, the Court has found that lower courts have not given proper scope to this integral part of the congressional scheme.
Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 509, 77 S.Ct. 443, 450, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957). The majority construes the proof standards contrary to the way Congress had intended them to apply to liability under the Jones Act. Most specifically, the majority fails to heed Rogers’s message concerning the minimal threshold for reaching the jury on issues of negligence and causation.
II
In Rogers, the Supreme Court noted that the amendments to the Jones Act have clearly shown Congress’s intent to make its remedial scope much larger than normal *849tort notions would allow. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. at 507, 77 S.Ct. at 449. The law was enacted because:
.. . the Congress was dissatisfied with the common-law duty of the master to his servant. The statute supplants that duty with the far more drastic duty of paying damages for injury or death at work due in whole or in part to the employer’s negligence. The employer is stripped of his common-law defenses ....
The Congress when adopting the law was particularly concerned that the issues whether there was employer fault and whether that fault played any part in the injury or death of the employee should be decided by the jury whenever fair-minded men could reach these conclusions on the evidence. Originally, judicial administration of the 1980 Act substantially limited the cases in which employees were allowed a jury determination. That was because the courts developed concepts of assumption of risk and of the coverage of the law, which defeated employee claims as a matter of law. Congress corrected this by the 1939 amendments and removed the fetters which hobbled the full play of the basic congressional intention to leave to the fact-finding function of the jury the decision of the primary question raised in these cases — whether employer fault played any part in the employee’s mishap.
Cognizant of the duty to effectuate the intention of the Congress to secure the right to a jury determination, this Court is vigilant to exercise its power of review in any case where it appears that the litigants have been improperly deprived of that determination.
352 U.S. at 507-09, 77 S.Ct. at 449-50 (emphasis added, footnotes omitted).
It is against this background that the grant of directed verdict in this case must be examined.
Ill
The defendant contends, and the district court ruled, that the plaintiff has not met the evidentiary threshold for reaching the jury because (1) the defendant company never had knowledge of the decedent’s condition and thus could not have been negligent, and (2) there is no evidence to provide a causal link from an act of negligence on their part to the resultant death. The majority finds these arguments persuasive. Because I believe they misconstrue the negligence and causation standards stated in the Jones Act and reiterated in Rogers, I cannot agree.
Negligence
It is clear that the defendant did not have knowledge of the decedent’s cardiovascular problems from the report of the August 17, 1978 examination. That report was incomplete. It failed to note what conditions might prevent the decedent from working and failed to answer whether or not he was able to perform his job. In addition, the company does not appear to have received notice of the condition from the hospital reports stemming from the October 1978 hospitalization. Finally, the events surrounding the death appear to indicate that the captain and crew would have little reason to have believed the decedent was in serious trouble.
Yet, knowledge is not the linchpin of the plaintiff’s negligence claim. The plaintiff alleges that the company should have known. Its failure to know is alleged to be a breach of a duty owed to the plaintiff that gives rise to liability.
This theory has ample support. While it is clear that a company is not required to offer examinations and a precondition of employment, once the company makes it a policy to do so, it must carry out that policy with care and in a non-negligent manner, Gunston v. United States, 235 F.Supp. 349 (N.D.Ca.1964); Isgett v. Seaboard Coast Line R. Co., 332 F.Supp. 1127 (D.C.S.C.1971). The record shows that the company required such examinations. The examination report came to the company incomplete. The company did not inquire about the ability of the decedent to work. Moreover, it did not request or examine the x-rays which would have shown a cardiovascular condition.
*850Here, it is not significant that the doctor was negligent, or that the company did not use its own doctor for the examination. The duty that arises from the pre-employment examination policy is non-delegable, and the company can be held liable for the doctor’s negligence. Isgett v. Seaboard Coast Line R. Co., supra. Moreover, in Jones Act cases, only the “slightest” evidence of negligence need be shown to reach the jury. Perry v. Morgan Guarantee Trust, 528 F.2d 1378 (5th Cir.1976).
The facts of this case meet the minimal test for reaching the jury on the issue as to whether the defendant negligently carried out its duty, albeit, a self-imposed one, to examine and certify the employee for work.
The Causal Connection
A finding that there is a jury issue on the issue of negligence, however, does not end the inquiry. In order to make out a claim, the plaintiff must show a causal connection between the negligent act and the resultant death. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railway Company, 352 U.S. 500, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957).
In Rogers, the Supreme Court made clear that Congress intended a minimal showing on causation to reach the jury. The normal tort “proximate cause” notion was strictly rejected by Congress. Rather, the test as to whether a Jones Act case goes to the jury is;
whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.
352 U.S. at 506, 77 S.Ct. at 448. The proof can be entirely circumstantial, and the fact that the jury may also, with reason, attribute the death to other causes, including contributory negligence, does not bar the case from the jury. Id. at page 508, 77 S.Ct. at page 449.
Here, reasonable persons could differ as to whether the negligence in failing to discover decedent’s condition played even the slightest part in his death. Though not stressful, his job required that he be away from medical care, work long hours and under non-normal conditions. Had he or the company known of the condition, there might have been medical help on board and he might have sought it rather than returning to his bunk. Moreover, had he or the company known of the condition, he may not have gone to work. While I would not say that the evidence is such that the plaintiff should prevail, I firmly believe that there is some evidence — enough to pass the minimal requirements of the Jones Act to reach the jury.
I would vacate the directed verdict and remand the case to permit the plaintiff to put her case before the jury.