Court Opinion

ID: 9466415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:14:57.5486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:43.054848
License: Public Domain

SIFTON, District Judge
(concurring in result):
I concur with Judge Meskill in affirming the judgment of the District Court. I do so because, in my view, Judge Lasker found that the ship did not have constructive notice — and because there was no basis in the record for a finding of actual notice — of the presence of the slippery condition on the deck. That the ship did not have constructive notice of the condition which caused plaintiff’s fall is a finding amply supported by the evidence which showed that, having undertaken to take care of the situation revealed on opening the second locker, the stevedore instead made it worse by rolling the leaking cargo across the deck where the brine became mixed with graphite spilled by the stevedore during the unloading of the first locker.
The dissent assumes that Judge Lasker did not make any factual finding with regard to the ship’s notice of the condition on the deck which caused plaintiff’s fall, but rather, decided the case on the basis of a legal conclusion that, even if the ship had notice, liability was appropriately placed with the stevedore by reason of the doctrine of primary and secondary responsibility set forth in Judge Friendly’s dissent in Canizzo v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 579 F.2d 682, 688—90 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 929, 99 S.Ct. 316, 58 L.Ed.2d 322 (1978).
I find this assumption difficult to reconcile with Judge Lasker’s statement in his opinion below that he was aware of the differing rules of law set forth in the dissent in Canizzo and in other cases in this Circuit, and his further statement that, in *436the circumstances of this case, it would make no difference in result which of the differing legal theories he applied. To me, these statements make clear that the legal conclusion reached by Judge Lasker was not, as the dissent assumes, that the ship’s responsibility is as a legal matter secondary to that of the stevedore, but rather, that on the facts shown here, including such factual matters as the existence of the Safety and Health Regulation for Longshoring, 29 C.F.R. 1918.91(c), placing certain responsibilities with regard to cleaning up slippery conditions on the stevedore, it would be unreasonable to conclude that the ship should have foreseen the sloppy procedures followed by the stevedore which resulted in the dangerous condition that caused plaintiff’s fall.