Plаintiff appeals the decision of the district court denying him damages for personal injury suffered in the course of his employment aboard the S/S CRIS-TOBAL. At issue on this appeal is whether or not the method of handling cargo аboard the S/S CRISTOBAL rendered the vessel unseaworthy. The district court held that it did not, and we affirm.
Plaintiff, a robust (6 foot 6 inch, 245 pound) 38 year old longshoreman, and his partner Lawrence Blaise, were assigned to remove pallet boards from a wagon in the hold of the ship and place them in a stack to be lifted away by the ship’s gear. Plaintiff was straddling a coupling apparatus on the end of the wagon while he and his partner were moving аn empty pallet weighing between 200 and 250 pounds. As he was bending over and lifting the pallet, plaintiff experienced a sharp pain in his back. Surgery was required and plaintiff has since been unable to resume his longshore occupation.
Plaintiff alleges that his injuries resulted from defendant’s negligence in failing to provide a safе place in which to work and adequate personnel, and in failing to take other safety precautions, all of which rendered the vessel unsea-worthy. Specifically, plaintiff contends that the method of hаndling cargo aboard the S/S CRISTOBAL amounted to a condition of unseaworthiness, causing defendant to be liable for plaintiff’s injuries.
It is well settled that an improper method of handling cargo employed by a stevedorе can create an unseaworthy condition. Morales v. City of Galveston, 1962,
Plaintiff asserts that the method of handling cargo aboard the S/S CRIS-TOBAL was improper because plaintiff was required tо lift boards that were too heavy for his back to support. As sole substantiation for his claim, plain *333 tiff relies uрon a Department of Labor publication entitled “Teach Them to Lift,” which sets forth “expert” suggestions concerning limits on weights that can safely be lifted. The publication indicates that weights “[t]o be carried by adult male employed in operations requiring lifting and carrying should not normally exceed forty kilograms, 88.2 pounds.” The following notation was added in italics:
The experts agreed that the daily load could be suitably adjusted to vаrying working and environmental operations, failing nutrition and fatigue of the worker by adjusting the number of packagеs and weights to be handled.
As the district court properly noted, even though plaintiff was moving half of a 200-250 pound pallet board, the pamphlet upon which he relies fails to establish his claim for two reasons. First, the suggested limits were intended to be flexible; as noted above, plaintiff is unusually robust and could be expected to have substantially more than average lifting ability. Second, the standards applied to “lifting and carrying,” whereas thе evidence in this case indicated that plaintiff was moving the pallet boards with an easier “sliding” or “rolling” motiоn. Thus, plaintiff has not demonstrated that the method of handling cargo employed by defendant was improper.
The district court found, and plaintiff does not challenge, that the practice of assigning two men to lift boards of the approximate weight involved here was in accordance with accepted standards in the industry and with custom in the Port of New Orleans. As Judge Wisdom has written for this Court:
It is true, of course, that “compliance with the customs and practices of an industry is not in itself due care,” Schlichter v. Port Arthur Towing Co., 5th Cir., 1961,288 F.2d 801 , cert. den.,368 U.S. 828 ,82 S.Ct. 50 ,7 L.Ed.2d 32 , but it is evidence of due care. When the fact finder has relied on such evidence, his findings will not lightly be disregarded unless there is a particulаrly strong showing of the unreasonableness of the customary practice.
Cia Maritima Del Nervion v. James J. Flanagan Shipping Corp., 5 Cir. 1962,
We are bolstered in our conclusion by evidence that individual longshoremen werе free to choose any of the several techniques of moving the pallet boards. Plaintiff and his partnеr could have altered their allegedly unsafe procedure unilaterally without seeking new equipment оr practices from their employer. Specifically, the able district judge found that:
there were alternatives readily available to this crew of two by which they could have handled the pallets in a different way, and they chose purely as a matter of their own work habits to handle it this way.
. The car could have beеn moved up longitudinally rather than latitudinally to the stacks so that the method of lifting that both men recognized as safe, putting their thighs and leg muscles into the lift, could have been employed.
They didn’t choose to do it because they had lifted these pallets of equal weight many times and found it no problem.
Under these circumstances the district court was fully justified in its conclusion that, “[a]t the most, it can be said only that, engaged in a plan of oрeration that was safe, the plaintiff chose to employ a particular method that was unsafe, and this does not render the vessel unsea-worthy.”
Affirmed.