Court Opinion

ID: 9443339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:17:57.672648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:27.375027
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am not satisfied that the evidence justified a finding of negligence on February fifth. The hospital had returned Poin-dexter with a report that his was a medical case which could be better dealt with in Havana. True, the hospital supposed that the ship would sail at 5:30 on that day; and Poindexter got worse during the night. However, I cannot find that the master knew that the hospital’s advice was based upon the ship’s sailing on the fifth, and indeed there is no evidence that it was, although perhaps the jury was free to assume that the hospital would have held him longer if it had learned of the delay. Be that as it may, what could a master be expected to know about stomach ulcers? He had expert advice, and I submit that he was entitled to rely upon it.
Whether he should have acted sooner at Havana when the ship got there at 6:30 P.M. on the sixth, is a different matter. Poindexter’s sickness had then continued for nearly 36 hours after he came back from the hospital, he had become very ill indeed, and I will assume that the jury would have been justified in finding that the master should have acted that night. However, there was no evidence to support a verdict that, assuming the master was then negligent, his failure caused Poin-dexter’s death. It is clear from Burbank’s own testimony that there was at the very best no more than an equal chance that the peritonitis was not then twelve hours old; and, if it was, there was little chance that surgery could have saved Poindexter. A preponderance of evidence at least means that the chances are better than even that the disputed allegation is true. I cannot find a shred of evidence in this record to prove that there was more than an even chance that anything could have been done in Havana. Therefore, I should have dismissed the complaint on the ground (1) that no negligence was shown in Cardenas; and (2) that, if negligence was shown in Havana, the plaintiff failed to prove that it caused Poindexter’s death.