Court Opinion

ID: 9445659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:35:31.025971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:21.900724
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
However the defendant’s duty is defined here, liability would seem clear or at least so apparent as to justify the moderate award the jury gave. Putting a loose canvas on a steep flight of stairs is an invitation to injury; that the practice had been followed for some time without casualty can be only sheer luck. Two small tacks, removable by hand alone, were placed at the front of each tread on either side. That was all; nothing held the material going back to the rear of the tread or up the riser to the tread above. Each day the ship was in port the ship’s porter, Bourdon, in the scope of his employment removed the canvas by just picking it up, “and the tacks come out by themselves”; then after washing the steps, he retacked the canvas in the same position. The opportunities for loose or bulging canvas to trip users of the stairs are so obvious to anyone who has ever mounted a stairway that not surprisingly the jury found Bourdon had actual knowledge of the danger, but was too lazy to remedy it by securing the material properly.
Neither under the erroneous charge which the trial court gave the jury nor under the more favorable instructions to which the plaintiff was entitled was it necessary to show that the defendant company (i. e., its top officers) had actual knowledge of the danger: (1) If liability rests on Bourdon’s affirmative negligence in improperly tacking the carpet, his employer is vicariously liable without fault of its own on principles of respondeat superior; (2) if the fault is the company’s failure to repair or warn of a hidden dangerous condition, actual knowledge of the employee who created it may be imputed to the employer because the knowledge concerns a matter as to which the employee acts within the scope of his employment, e. g., 1 Restatement, Agency § 272, comment a2 (1933); In re Texas City Disaster Litigation, 5 Cir., 197 F.2d 771, affirmed 346 U.S. 15, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427; Cashin v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 96 Mont. 92, 108, 28 P.2d 862, 868; (3) if, contrary to the charge, the plaintiff was an invitee the company owed him a duty to inspect for hidden dangers, and actual knowledge of the danger need not be shown; and (4) if, contrary to the charge, the plaintiff was entitled to a seaworthy staircase the shipowner was liable without fault, though it lacked knowledge of the unseaworthy condition, Alaska S. S. Co. v. Petterson, 347 U.S. 396, 74 S.Ct. 601, 98 L.Ed. 798.
In view of these facts it may seem academic to spend much time discussing the particular legal theory on which recovery should be based. But for future cases the point may be important or decisive, and I therefore turn to it. After discussing the applicable law, I shall try to establish that (1) the plaintiff was an invitee; (2) even as a licensee the plaintiff can recover on these facts; (3) the owner’s duty to keep the vessel seaworthy extends to social guests of resident seamen visiting them aboard ship.
1. Federal maritime law applies. Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 409, 74 S.Ct. 202, 205, 98 L.Ed. 143, holds that a federal court whose jurisdiction stems from the diverse citizenship of the parties must apply federal maritime law where (a) the tort occurred in navigable waters; (b) the complaint sounds in negligence and unseaworthiness — rights of recovery “rooted in federal maritime law”; and (c) the tort is “maritime” in the sense of Atlantic Transport Co. of West Virginia v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52, 61-63, 34 S.Ct. 733, 58 L.Ed. 1208, 51 L.R.A.,N.S., 1157. The Imbrovek case involved the jurisdiction *180of admiralty courts over torts in navigable waters which are part of a state, from which it follows that those torts are “maritime” in the meaning of Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, supra, 346 U.S. 406, 74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143, which can be remedied in a federal court of admiralty. In the Imbrovek case, supra, 234 U.S. 52, 61-63, 34 S.Ct. 733, 58 L. Ed. 1208, the Supreme Court declined to decide whether location in navigable waters was alone sufficient to make a tort “maritime” or whether further nautical flavor was required. But under either test this plaintiff’s claim qualified: It occurred aboard an ocean-going vessel; plaintiff’s reason for being aboard was to visit a resident seaman; the accident was partially due to the steep stairway peculiar to ships. I conclude that the district court erred in applying state rather than the general maritime law to the case.1
2. The plaintiff was an invitee. Any discussion of the categories of invitee, licensee, and trespasser would be quite inadequate without the observation that these distinctions have been more and’ more obscured during the last century as courts have moved toward imposing on. owners and occupiers a single duty of reasonable care in all the circumstances. See the authorities collected in 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.1 (1956). The concept of invitee has been broadening as courts have oscillated between viewing “invitation” or “economic benefit” as the essence of the category. See 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.12 (1956). Under either approach the guest of a resident seaman should qualify as an invitee in the eyes of contemporary federal maritime law.2
If invitation is the touchstone, it must be shown that persons authorized by the defendant led the plaintiff to believe that the owner intended the premises to be used by visitors for this purpose and adapted the premises for that use. 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.12 (1956). This requirement was met by evidence that plaintiff knew his presence aboard was authorized by an official visitor’s pass obtained by his seaman host; that plaintiff was not shown the limitations written on that pass; and that plaintiff saw the canvas placed on the stairways to keep them neat and clean for visitors while the ship was in port.
These facts distinguish the cases cited by my brothers where the finders of fact decided that the invitation was extended by a crew member without the shipowner’s authority and no conduct of the shipowner suggested apparent authority of the crew member to extend such consent, e. g., Metcalfe v. Cunard S. S. Co., 147 Mass. 66, 16 N.E. 701 (plaintiff slipped through an unattended gate not officially open to visitors on that day and went up the freight gangplank under the erroneous impression that his friend was aboard the vessel); Kosba v. Bank Line, D.C.Md., 46 F.2d 119 (the pass informed the plaintiff that he was permitted aboard for the private business of the captain, and not in the interest of the ship); Silverado S. S. Co. v. Prendergast, 9 Cir., 31 F.2d 225, certiorari denied Prendergast v. Silverado S. S. Co., 280 U.S. 557, 50 S.Ct. 17, 74 L.Ed. 612 (the ship’s master, without authority, took a drunken friend aboard in the middle of the night); Apostolou v. S. S. Eugenia Chandris, D.C.Or.1938 A.M.C. 995, appeal dismissed 9 Cir., 103 F.2d 1006 (plaintiff was invited aboard by a steward who had no authority, actual or apparent, to issue the invitation); Gunnarson v. Robert Jacob, Inc., 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 170, certiorari denied Robert Jacob, Inc., v. Gunnarson, 303 U.S. 660, 58 S.Ct. 764, 82 L.Ed. 1119 (the master invited his son aboard without the real or apparent authority of the shipowner).
That the present plaintiff had an implied invitation is supported by cases *181labeling as “invitees” persons who came aboard without conferring the slightest economic benefit upon the shipowner and without express invitation, e. g., Radoslovich v. Navigazione Libera Triestina, S. A., 2 Cir., 72 F.2d 367 (a bargee crossing the shipowner's vessel to get to the pier to enjoy his leisure is an invitee); Griffiths v. Seaboard Midland Petroleum Corp., D.C.Md.1933 A.M.C. 911 (plaintiff, crossing the shipowner’s vessel to get to the pier, is an invitee). Cf. The Francesca, D.C.W.D.N.Y., 19 F.Supp. 829, 1937 A.M.C. 1006 (a high duty of care is owed to a gratuitous passenger); Calanchini v. Bliss (The Cayuga), 9 Cir., 88 F.2d 82, 1937 A.M.C. 203 (same); McLoughlin v. Mulqueen, D.C.E.D.N.Y.1929 A.M.C. 1626 (an infant child of a crew member’s social guest may be an invitee) .
Frequently admiralty courts have used the economic benefit approach, substituting the label “business visitor” for “invitee.” Plaintiff qualified as a “business visitor,” since the shipowner benefits by having his employees enjoy necessary recreation, as recognized in the cases allowing seamen to recover maintenance and cure for injuries suffered in the course of shore-side recreation, e. g., Warren v. United States, 340 U.S. 523, 71 S.Ct. 432, 95 L.Ed. 503 (the seaman fell out of the window of a room adjoining a dance hall after drinking wine); Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co. of N. J., 318 U.S. 724, 63 S.Ct. 930, 87 L.Ed. 1107 (the seaman was injured while ashore on personal business); Farrell v. United States, 336 U.S. 511, 69 S.Ct. 707, 93 L.Ed. 850 (the seaman fell in a dry dock while returning to his ship after overstaying his leave); Nowery v. Smith, D.C.E.D.Pa., 69 F.Supp. 755, affirmed 3 Cir., 161 F.2d 732 (the seaman was injured in a barroom fist fight).
In view of the shipowner’s liability to the seaman for injuries suffered in shore-side recreation, it is in the owner’s economic interest to encourage recreation aboard ship, rather than ashore, thus making the seaman’s activities subject to control and the men available on ship whenever needed. That benefit to the shipowner may be thus indirect should be no more fatal to plaintiff’s preferred status here than in the cases where we have labeled a person on board a transatlantic liner to see a passenger off a “business visitor” of the shipowner. McCann v. Anchor Line, 2 Cir., 79 F.2d 338; accord, Voirin v. Compagnie General Transatlantique (The Champlain), 151 Misc. 498, 270 N.Y.S. 643, 1934 A.M.C. 25.
Pertinent, too, is the role which the landlord and tenant relationship plays in mitigating the concept of “licensee” in cases ashore. Persons who are not “invitees” vis-a-vis the owner of a building are owed the same high duty of care when injured in the common hallways or approaches over which the owner retains control because they are social guests of the owner’s tenants, e. g., Pessagno v. Euclid Inv. Co., 72 App.D.C. 141, 112 F.2d 577; Klotz v. Ganz, 296 N.Y. 715, 70 N.E.2d 538; Bowers v. City Bank Farmers Trust Co., 282 N.Y. 442, 26 N.E.2d 970. True, courts sometimes fail to make clear whether such persons are regarded as invitees or persons in the shoes of the tenant, since in either event they are owed the duty of reasonable care to make the area reasonably safe, e. g., 2 Restatement, Torts §§ 360, 332, comment h (1934); 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.17 (1956); Boyce v. 228th and Carpenter Ave. Holding Co., 295 N.Y. 575, 64 N.E.2d 282. But the result is the same.
Placing this higher duty on the owner to these persons is quite fair because the individuals injured expect the passageways to be made safe for them; the owner anticipates their presence there; and the owner is the only person in a position to discover the danger and avoid the accident by reasonable precautions. Aboard vessels, of course, the resident seaman is not technically a tenant; but his social guest is entitled to the higher duty of care owed a tenant’s guest for the reasons stated. Perhaps the closest shoreside analogy to plaintiff is a resident janitor’s social guest, held to be an invitee. Mercier v. Bushwick Sav. Bank, *182261 App.Div. 151, 24 N.Y.S.2d 666, affirmed 261 App.Div. 1105, 27 N.Y.S.2d 1003. How strange it is after Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099; Alaska S. S. Co. v. Petterson, supra, 347 U.S. 396, 74 S.Ct. 601, 98 L.Ed. 798; and Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, supra, 346 U.S. 406, 74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143, that a federal court is unwilling to read federal maritime law as imposing a duty on the shipowner as broad as a landowner’s duty ashore!
My brothers balk at such a conclusion, pointing to the restrictions which a shipowner places on the visiting hours of seamen’s guests; but similar limitations surround a transatlantic passenger’s visitor, who is an invitee, e. g., Voirin v. Compagnie General Transatlantique (The Champlain), supra, 151 Misc. 498, 270 N.Y.S. 643, 1934 A.M.C. 25 (the court ignored the restrictions written into the visitor’s pass); McCann v. Anchor Line, supra, 2 Cir., 79 F.2d 338. Of course the shipowner may restrict the hours of the invitation, but there is no showing here that such limitations were violated or that they were brought to the attention of the plaintiff.
3. The defendant breached the duty owed a licensee. But the plaintiff’s recovery can be justified even if he is saddled with the dolorous sobriquet of “licensee.” As indicated previously, Bourdon could be found to have had actual knowledge of the danger; and this knowledge may be imputed to the defendant employer. Whether the negligence be viewed as an “activity” (Bourdon’s daily retacking of the canvas) or a “condition of the premises” (the dangerous stairway), the defendant owed the plaintiff a higher duty of care than the majority opinion suggests.
a. The defendant’s negligent activity. “There are a good many dicta — mostly in older cases — and some holdings to the effect that the occupier of land owes the bare licensee no greater duty than to refrain from intentional, or willful or wanton, misconduct towards him. ‘The prevailing view is to the contrary, however, and it is now generally held that in cases involving injury resulting from active conduct, as distinguished from conditions of the premises, the landowner or possessor may be liable for failure to exercise ordinary care towards a licensee whose presence on the land is known or should reasonably be known to the owner or possessor.’ * * * At any rate, there is well-nigh universal agreement that the duty of care is owed to licensees whose presence is to be expected.” 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.10 (1956), quoting Oettinger v. Stewart, 24 Cal.2d 133, 138, 148 P.2d 19, 22, 156 A. L.R. 1221, and collecting state law authorities. In admiralty the law is the same, e. g., The Yuri Maru-Juan, D.C. E.D.Pa., 17 F.2d 318, 1927 A.M.C. 571; Calanchini v. Bliss (The Cayuga), supra, 9 Cir., 88 F.2d 82, 1937 A.M.C. 203; The Francesca, supra, D.C.W.D.N.Y., 1937 A.M.C. 1006; Voirin v. Compagnie General Transatlantique (The Champlain), supra, 151 Misc. 498, 270 N.Y.S. 643, 1934 A.M.C. 25 (dictum).
b. The condition of the premises. An owner need not inspect his premises to discover dangerous conditions that might imperil licensees, but if “he learns of such a condition and should realize that it is unreasonably dangerous to a licensee, and if the occupier ‘cannot reasonably assume that the licensee knows [of the condition], or by a reasonable use of his faculties would observe’ it, then the occupier is under the duty to use due care to avoid the injury, either by-removing the danger or by giving reasonable warning of its presence.” 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27.9 (1956). Here, too, admiralty law is in accord, e. g., The Blue Moon III, D.C. W.D.N.Y., 60 F.2d 653 (the owner of a vessel is liable to a social guest because the owner’s employee failed to warn the guest of a slippery deck created by the employee).
4. Recovery for unseaworthiness. The shipowner’s duty to keep the vessel seaworthy extends to persons other than seamen and stevedores. In Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, supra, 346 U.S. 406, *183412, 413, 74 S.Ct. 202, 207, 98 L.Ed. 143, the Supreme Court was asked to limit its historic decision in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, supra, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099, to “stevedores,” but it refused with these words: “These slight differences in fact cannot fairly justify the distinction urged as between the two cases. Sieracki’s legal protection was not based on the name 'stevedore' but on the type of work he did and its relationship to the ship and to the historic doctrine of seaworthiness. The ship on which Hawn was hurt was being loaded when the grain loading equipment developed a slight defect. Hawn was put to work on it so that the loading could go on at once. There he was hurt. His need for protection from unseaworthiness was neither more nor less than that of the stevedores then working with him on the ship or of seamen who had been or were about to go on a voyage. All were subjected to the same danger. All were entitled to like treatment under law.”
While it is true that the Supreme Court referred to the type of work done by Hawn as one reason for allowing him to recover for unseaworthiness, I do not believe performance of “ship’s work” is a sine qua non to recovery on that theory. The Sieracki case, which Pope & Talbot, Inc., followed, gave as the reason for extending the unseaworthiness doctrine to certain nonseamen the similarity of such individuals to seamen as regards exposure to the same dangerous appliances, inability to bear the expense of injury, inability to discover or remove the dangerous condition, inability to recover for the loss from their employer, and inability to distribute the loss to the shipping industry as well as the shipowner. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, supra, 328 U.S. 85, 95-96, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099. Plaintiff meets these criteria.
My colleagues do not decide the validity of the disclaimer of liability in the pass, which was not shown to the plaintiff in any event. I find it has no legal effect. Moore v. American Scantic Line, 2 Cir., 121 F.2d 767.
Apart from its effect on the present litigants, I find our present decision most unfortunate, because it seems another instance of judicial meddling with jury verdicts with which the judges disagree. Further, this seems to me another instance, such as Avlon v. Greencha Holding Corp., 2 Cir., 239 F.2d 616, where originally the deductions made in attempted subservience to state law resulted in a federal inflexibility, and resulting inhumanity, which in my opinion would not be found in the state law itself. See Curren v. O’Connor, 304 N.Y. 515, 109 N.E.2d 605; Vorce v. Murray, 143 App. Div. 962, 128 N.Y.S. 528; Friedman v. Berkowitz, 206 Misc. 889, 136 N.Y.S.2d 81; Higgins v. Mason, 255 N.Y. 104, 174 N.E. 77 (dictum) — holding owners liable to licensees for active negligence. Compare Annotation, Liability to bare licensee as affected by distinction between active and passive negligence, 156 A.L.R. 1226. But whatever be the inconsistencies discovered or apprehended in local New York law, the admiralty law, I submit, should be, and is, clear cut. I would restore the jury verdict.

. Even under New York law I think liability follows under the cases I cite at the ind of this opinion.

. Freeman v. United Fruit Co., 223 Mass. 300, 111 N.E. 789, applying the nonmaritime Massachusetts law of 30 years ago, held to the contrary.