Court Opinion

ID: 9449586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:16:20.068092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:53.872657
License: Public Domain

CONNALLY, District Judge
(concurring specially).
In the light of the obligation imposed upon the master of a vessel to use all reasonable care to protect and safeguard the members of his crew, I am of the view that the evidence is sufficient to support the findings of the trial court that the master was at fault in failing to take measures to protect the seaman who undertook to reboard his vessel. However, I find myself unable to agree with the majority that both of the vessels involved were unseaworthy, simply because the seaman undertook the foolhardy step of jumping from one to the other while both vessels were rocking wildly in a rough sea, and was injured in the process.
Both vessels were staunch, tight and true in all particulars. There was no glob of grease nor smear of slime or fish gurry involved here. There was no defect of a permanent or temporary nature. There is no reason to doubt that both vessels afforded safe means of boarding if secured alongside a dock, or the drilling platform. The basis for the holding is the general statement that there is a duty to afford a seaman a reasonably safe means of boarding and departing from the vessel. But this, like other generalities in the law, must be applied within reasonable limits.
These were small vessels, and as found by the trial court, not ordinarily equipped with bosun’s chairs, gangways, and ladders ; and the use of such appurtenances would have been impracticable. Had either vessel been equipped, as proctor for plaintiff suggests, with a boom and with swinging line or some similar Rube Goldberg type device to transfer a seaman from one vessel to the other, I venture to say it would never have been used.
Both vessels and their appurtenances were, in my judgment, reasonably fit, and reasonably suitable for their intended service. If these vessels were unseaworthy because an injury of this type occurred, then it has become the duty of the ship owner to furnish an accident free ship. (Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U.S. 539, 80 S.Ct. 926, 4 L.Ed.2d 941.)
I would concur in the affirmance on the negligence theory alone.