Court Opinion

ID: 9466416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:14:57.551911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:43.056793
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent, although I would affirm the holding below that the vessel’s failure to remove the spreader was not negligent.
The court below concluded that the shipowner was not negligent because it had reason to believe that the longshoremen were capable of curing and would cure the defective condition on deck. My view is that this ruling was erroneous in law and was in part based on omissions to find facts, and that this requires a remand for further consideration.
To begin with, the findings below appear to have confused the stevedore’s responsibility in connection with the locker with its responsibility to clean the deck. In concluding that the longshoremen were capable of curing “the situation,” the court relied partly on the undisputed fact that “[t]hey requested the necessary material to cure the situation.” But the “situation” there described was the cleaning of the locker. (At the request of the longshoremen, the vessel supplied shovels and pails to enable the longshoremen to clean out the deep liquid in the locker.) There is no testimony whatsoever that the longshoremen requested material to make the deck safe. Indeed, in a related matter, the court responded to appellant’s request for a finding with respect to the ship’s notice of the presence of liquid from the sheep drums “in the locker and on-the deck” by finding that the ship had actual notice of liquid “in or about the locker,” but omitted to render any finding with respect to the deck.
Thus, it is incorrect to imagine any supposed communication between the stevedores and the crew concerning the slippery deck and to see that as a basis of the ship’s reliance on the clean-up efforts of the stevedores. The only apparent communication concerned pails and shovels for cleaning the locker, which is an area that is less open and obvious than the deck and which is, in my view, one where the ship’s responsibilities are probably therefore less extensive.
Another basis of the holding below was the trial judge’s evident construction of the Safety and Health Regulations for Long-shoring, 29 C.F.R. § 1918.91(c) (requiring the stevedore to secure the elimination of slippery conditions as they occur), as imposing an exclusive duty upon stevedores. See Lubrano v. Royal Netherlands Steamship Co., 572 F.2d 364, 373-74 (2d Cir. 1978) (Moore, J., dissenting); see also Canizzo v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 579 F.2d 682, 688 (2d Cir. 1978) (Friendly, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 929, 99 S.Ct. 316, 58 L.Ed.2d 322 (1978) (33 U.S.C. § 941(a) imposes safety obligation on stevedore). But the regulations specifically provide that they do not relieve vessels “from responsibilities or duties now place upon them by law, regulation or custom.” 29 C.F.R. § 1918.2(b). If the stevedore (and plaintiff) were contributorily negligent, the plaintiff’s recovery against the vessel may be reduced under the principles of comparative negligence, but it should not be eliminated. See Napoli v. Hellenic Lines, Ltd., 536 F.2d 505, 508 (2d Cir. 1976).
Once we reject the proposition that the shipowner, under the regulations, never has any responsibility for obvious, dangerous conditions on the deck of which the stevedore is aware, we must examine the record to determine whether the shipowner, in the *437exercise of reasonable care, should have furnished sand, sawdust or some other material to cover the spill. Under Napoli, supra, the applicable standard is one based on Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343A. “Under this rule, a vessel is liable to longshoremen only for injuries resulting from obvious dangers which it should reasonably anticipate that the longshoremen would be unable to avoid.” 536 F.2d at 509.
The question thus becomes when a ship must “reasonably anticipate” that even an obvious danger will not be avoided. Judge Friendly’s “justifiable reliance” concept, discussed in his dissent in Canizzo, supra, 579 F.2d at 687, which the court below relied on — a reliance which the majority here seems to adopt — gives one answer. A ship, he says, may anticipate avoidance of the problem, justifiably relying on the stevedore to act, whenever the reasonable, i. e., not negligent, course of action for the stevedore is so to act. In other words, the emphasis is shifted to the standard of conduct imposed on the stevedore. Whenever the stevedore would be negligent if it failed to correct the obvious danger, the argument runs, then reliance on the stevedore by the ship is justifiable and the ship itself is not, under Napoli, negligent. Or, as the court below put it, paraphrasing the Canizzo dissent, the ship is “entitled to assume that [the stevedore will] perform the job in a workmanlike fashion.”
The problem with this version of the rule, which it seems to me the majority here adopts, is that it virtually eliminates the possibility of negligence on the part of the ship in obvious danger cases. Almost by definition, failure by a stevedore to correct an obvious danger constitutes negligence. As a result this version makes the Napoli rule equivalent to the older Restatement rule rejected in that case, 536 F.2d at 508; ships would never be liable for obvious risks. And since they are not in any event liable for risks as to which they are not chargeable with knowledge, their liability overall would be reduced to a practical nullity.
Application of the Canizzo dissent is plainly inconsistent with Lopez v. A/S D/S Svendborg, 581 F.2d 319 (2d Cir. 1978), which held that negligence on the part of a stevedore in the face of obvious dangers does not rule out imposition of some liability, through comparative negligence, on the ship. Id. at 325. More fundamentally, such application is in my view inconsistent with Napoli itself, where the court clearly intended that ships should sometimes be obliged to anticipate the negligence of stevedores and to act to prevent harm:
Where dangers are unreasonable, their obviousness, standing alone, should not necessarily relieve a defendant of all responsibility for their presence. Although the invitee (or in this case the employee) may be under a duty to avoid harm likely to result to him from open and obvious dangers, he may not be in a position fully to appreciate the risk or to avoid the danger even though aware of it. For instance, his attention may be distracted or his duties as an employee may require his unavoidable exposure to it.
536 F.2d at 508 (emphasis added). Thus the reasonableness of a ship’s inaction in the face of an obvious danger may depend on the level of danger involved, as well as on the actual likelihood that the stevedore will take the objectively reasonable course of action and avoid the particular harm.
An important factor in assessing the likelihood that the stevedore will act is the customary division of responsibilities with respect to a given risk. The majority opinion, at 433, notes the testimony of the hatch boss Gonelli that it was his job to keep the deck clean. But Gonelli testified immediately thereafter that he also saw to it that the crew or his coworkers kept the deck clean or clear. This testimony certainly does not indicate that the stevedore had exclusive or even primary responsibility in this area.
In fact, this ship shared a large measure of that responsibility. This ship was the source of sand or sawdust to cover spills. Moreover, Chief Mate Fitzpatrick testified:
Q. Was it part of your duties to see that the deck area where the longshoremen had to work was safe?
*438A. Yes.
That it is the ship’s duty is substantiated by Part C §§ 1, 37 and 38 of the Joint Maritime Safety Code prepared by the New York Shipping Association, Inc., the International Longshoremen’s Association, and Port of New York Joint Safety Committee, which surely qualify under the Safety and Health Regulations as a “regulation or custom” and which read as follows:
1. The owner, master and officers of the vessel shall supply and maintain in safe condition for use all ship’s gear equipment, tools and work spaces which are to be used in stevedoring operations.
37. Grease, oils, etc., spilled where operations are being carried on shall be immediately covered by sand or other suitable materials.
38. A liberal supply of sand or other suitable material shall be kept readily available for use on slippery places.
The only testimony to the contrary is a nonresponsive answer by O’Connor, a stevedore superintendent, on recross that, although he doubted that the deck would have been wet from dew, “[i]f there is any slippage on the deck, I have to get sand to put it on it so there wouldn’t be any slippage.” O’Connor did not state that this is his exclusive responsibility, and counsel did not follow up the precise point.
This division of responsibility suggests that the longshoremen were quite likely in this case to rely on the crew to bring sand if necessary. Once the correct legal standard is applied, it is at least quite possible that the finder of facts would conclude that the ship should have anticipated that the longshoremen would take an undue risk and work on a slippery deck, rather than seek out a remedy from the ship’s crew. I would remand for further findings here.
Further findings are also necessary with respect to one other issue: was this danger known to the ship or so obvious that the ship should have known about it? The evidence here is far from clear. The court below may have meant to find that the vessel had actual notice of the conditions of the deck as well as of the locker. But I do not believe there was any direct testimony that it had actual notice, and the Chief Mate testified to the contrary. I do not think we can now conclude, as a matter of law, that the slippery condition was open and obvious enough that the vessel can be charged with knowledge, although, because the vessel actually knew of the conditions in the locker, perhaps it could be charged with knowing that the drums would also leak on the deck. Rather I would remand on this point as well.1

. Although the court also found that the vessel had no actual or constructive knowledge of the presence of graphite, this finding, even if correct, does not save the vessel from liability if it is chargeable with knowledge of the leaking drums on the deck, since the court found that the leaks were a contributing cause of the slipperiness.