GUTIERREZ v. WATERMAN STEAMSHIP CORP.
No. 229
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 21, 1963.—Decided May 13, 1963.
373 U.S. 206
Antonio M. Bird argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
T. E. Byrne, Jr. and Mark D. Alspach filed a brief for Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co., Ltd., et al., as amici curiae, urging affirmance.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a longshoreman unloading the S. S. Hastings at Ponce, Puerto Rico, slipped on some loose beans spilled on the dock and suffered personal injuries. He subsequently filed a libel against the Hastings, claiming damages for injuries caused by the ship‘s unseaworthiness and by the negligence of its owner, the respondent corporation. The case was tried in admiralty before the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and the court found the following facts relevant in the present posture of the case. 193 F. Supp. 894.
The cargo of beans was packed in broken and defective bags, some of which were being repaired by coopers aboard the ship during unloading. Beans spilled out of the bags during unloading, including some from one bag which broke open during unloading, and the scattering of beans about the surface of the pier created a dangerous condition for the longshoremen who had to work there. The shipowner knew or should have known that injury was likely to result to persons who would have to work around the beans spilled from the defective bags, and it was negligent in allowing cargo so poorly stowed or laden to be unloaded. Petitioner fell on the beans and injured himself, and such injuries were proximately caused by the respondent‘s negligence and the unseaworthiness of its cargo or cargo containers.
Respondent appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which reversed with directions to dismiss the action. 301 F. 2d 415. It held that respondent had not been negligent, as a matter of law, because it “had neither control of nor even a right to control” the pier. The court also stated that petitioner did not prove what particular beans he slipped on, and that the ones responsible for his fall might have come from a bag that “for all that appears” may have been dropped and broken open due to some third party‘s negligence. As for seaworthiness, the court held that the shipowner was not responsible for the lading, or cargo containers, stating: “The very fact that unseaworthiness obligations are ‘awesome’ . . . suggests that they should not be handled with prodigality. We are unwilling to recognize one here.” Finally, it reversed the conclusion below as to laches, since the availability to respondent of the witnesses when the libel was filed was not as advantageous to it as would have been an opportunity to examine them at an earlier date. That this was preju-
I.
At the outset we are met with an issue which is said to be jurisdictional. Counsel for respondent candidly admits failure to raise the point below, but as is our practice we will consider this threshold question before reaching the merits. McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U. S. 162, 167-168; Ford Motor Co. v. Treasury Dept., 323 U. S. 459, 467; Matson Nav. Co. v. United States, 284 U. S. 352, 359 (admiralty case); Grace v. American Ins. Co., 109 U. S. 278, 283; Hope Ins. Co. v. Boardman, 5 Cranch 57; see Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 371 U. S. 812; Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 305-306.
Respondent contends that it is not liable, at least in admiralty, because the impact of its alleged lack of care or unseaworthiness was felt on the pier rather than aboard ship. Whatever validity this proposition may have had until 1948, the passage of the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, 62 Stat. 496,
II.
As indicated, supra, the trial court found respondent negligent in allowing the beans to be unloaded in their defective bagging, when it knew or should have known that injury was likely to result to persons having to work about the beans that might, and did, spill. There was substantial evidence to support these findings. Wit-
The force of these fact findings is not lessened by the contention that respondent did not control the pier or have “even a right to control that locus,” 301 F. 2d, at 416. We doubt that respondent had no license to go upon the pier at which it was docked and clean up the loose beans, if it had wanted to; the beans were its cargo that it was unloading onto the pier. But we may put this aside, since control of the impact zone is not essential for negligence. The man who drops a barrel out of his loft need not control the sidewalk to be liable to the pedestrian whom the barrel hits. See Byrne v. Boadle, 2 H. & C. 722 (Exch.). And the same holds for the man who spills beans out his window, on which the pedestrian slips. Respondent allowed the cargo to be discharged in dangerous and defective bagging, from which beans were leaking before discharge of the cargo began. It had an absolute and nondelegable duty of care toward petitioner
III.
The trial court also found unseaworthiness in the condition of the bagging. Two questions are raised in this connection: (1) whether the use of defective cargo containers constitutes unseaworthiness, and (2) whether the shipowner‘s warranty of seaworthiness extends to longshoremen on the pier who are unloading the ship‘s cargo.
The first question is not one of first impression, for it was decided in petitioner‘s favor in Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc., v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355. There a longshoreman was injured when a bale of burlap cloth fell on him because the metal bands wrapped about the bales, cf. Cotton-Tie Co. v. Simmons, 106 U. S. 89, broke while the bales were being hoisted with a hook and winch. The trial court charged the jury that “if you find that the bands of the bale were defective, were inadequate, or insufficient . . . then you might find the defendants liable under the doctrine of unseaworthiness.” Id., at 361, n. 3. The charge became critical in the posture of the case before this Court because the Court of Appeals had reversed the portion of the judgment in favor of the stevedore on the shipowner‘s claim for indemnity because both had been negligent, in the Court of Appeals’ view of the jury‘s special findings. This Court reinstated the original judgment because “there is a view of the case that makes the jury‘s answers to special interrogatories consistent,” namely, on the matter covered by the proper charge on unseaworthiness, and therefore the interrogatories “must be resolved that way . . . [to avoid] a collision with the Seventh Amendment.” Id., at 364. That unseaworthiness could be predicated upon the defectiveness of the
The holding in Ellerman is consistent with earlier decisions.4 Seaworthiness is not limited, of course, to fitness for travel on the high seas; it includes fitness for loading and unloading. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85. It has already been held that when cargo is stowed unsafely in the hold a longshoreman injured thereby may recover for unseaworthiness. E. g., Rich v. Ellerman & Bucknall Co., 278 F. 2d 704, 706 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Curtis v. A. Garcia y Cia., 241 F. 2d 30, 33-34 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Palazzolo v. Pan-Atlantic Corp., 211 F. 2d 277, 279 (C. A. 2d Cir.), aff‘d on other grounds, 350 U. S. 124, 134; see Morales v. City of Galveston, 370 U. S. 165, 170 (dictum).5 And in at least one case it has been held that a longshoreman could recover for injuries caused by a “latent defect” in a cargo crate which broke when the longshoreman stood on it. Reddick v. McAllister Line, 258 F. 2d 297, 299 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
These cases all reveal a proper application of the seaworthiness doctrine, which is in essence that things about a ship, whether the hull, the decks, the machinery, the tools furnished, the stowage, or the cargo containers, must be reasonably fit for the purpose for which they are to be used. See Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U. S. 539, 550; Morales v. City of Galveston, 370 U. S. 165, 169, 172 (dissenting opinion). A ship that leaks is unseaworthy; so is a cargo container that leaks. When the shipowner
The second question is one of first impression in this Court, although other federal courts have already recognized that the case law compels this conclusion. Strika v. Netherlands Ministry of Traffic, 185 F. 2d 555 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Robillard v. A. L. Burbank & Co., 186 F. Supp. 193 (S. D. N. Y.); see Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Cordray, 258 F. 2d 214, 218 (C. A. 9th Cir.). In Strika, while the longshoreman was working on the dock, use of an improper wire cable caused a hatch cover to fall on him. Building on such cases as O‘Donnell v. Great Lakes Co., 318 U. S. 36, where seamen recovered under the Jones Act for injuries due to the owner‘s negligence despite their being ashore at the time, and Sieracki, supra, where longshoremen aboard ship doing seamen‘s tasks were permitted to recover for unseaworthiness, the court held that the tort of unseaworthiness arises out of a maritime status or relation and is therefore “cognizable by the maritime [substantive] law whether it arises on sea or on land.” Accordingly, the court permitted recovery for unseaworthiness. See also Hagans v. Farrell Lines, 237 F. 2d 477 (C. A. 3d Cir.), where the point was assumed in a case involving a longshoreman on the pier struck with sacks of beans when a defective winch did not brake properly.
In Robillard, supra, a longshoreman was injured when, because of unseaworthy stowage and overladen drafts, he was struck by some cargo that was knocked off the deck onto the pier. The court found “the logic of these authorities . . . [Sieracki, Strika, etc.] ineluctable” and
We agree with this reading of the case law and hold that the duty to provide a seaworthy ship and gear, including cargo containers, applies to longshoremen unloading the ship whether they are standing aboard ship or on the pier.
IV.
Finally, we have concluded that the ruling of the trial court on laches is not plainly erroneous and should not have been reversed. The test of laches is prejudice to the other party. Gardner v. Panama R. Co., 342 U. S. 29, 30-31; Cities Service Co. v. Puerto Rico Co., 305 F. 2d 170, 171 (C. A. 1st Cir.) (both unreasonable delay and consequent prejudice). The trial court, having heard the witnesses testify, concluded that there was no prejudice. The Court of Appeals had no warrant to reverse this finding as plainly erroneous merely because in some way it might have been more advantageous to respondent to question the witnesses sooner than it did.6 Nor can
The Court of Appeals erred in setting the judgment of the District Court aside. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
The decision in this case has importance in admiralty law beyond what might appear on the surface. It marks another substantial stride toward the development by this Court of a doctrine that a shipowner is an insurer for those who perform any work on or around a ship subject to maritime jurisdiction. While my primary disagreement with the Court goes to its holding on unseaworthiness, I am also unable to agree with its views on the negligence issue.
I.
The shipowner‘s duty with respect to seaworthiness is a duty to furnish a vessel that is reasonably fit for its intended use—one that is staunch and strong, that is fitted out with all proper equipment and in good order, and that carries a sufficient and competent crew and com-
The Court, however, has concluded that it is bound by the determination last Term, in Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc., v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355, to hold that defective cargo may in and of itself render the shipowner liable for unseaworthiness. I must admit that some language in that case (369 U. S., at 364) does appear to stand for this proposition. But I think it fair to suggest that it was negligence, not unseaworthiness, on which
The Court‘s decision after Ellerman, in Morales v. City of Galveston, 370 U. S. 165, is the strongest evidence that Ellerman was not regarded as establishing the fundamental change in the law of unseaworthiness for which it is now cited. In Morales, a longshoreman working in the hold of a ship had been injured by the fumes emanating from grain that had been improperly treated with an excessive amount of a chemical insecticide. The grain in question had been found to be “contaminated,” although not due to the fault or with the knowledge of the city or the shipowner, and the question before this Court was whether the longshoreman could recover for unseaworthiness. The Court sustained the conclusion of the lower courts that he could not, because under the circumstances
“What caused injury in the present case, however, was not the ship, its appurtenances, or its crew, but the isolated and completely unforeseeable introduction of a noxious agent from without. The trier of the facts ruled, under proper criteria, that the Grelmarion [the ship] was not in any manner unfit for the service to which she was to be put, and we cannot say that his determination was wrong.” 370 U. S., at 171.
The crucial point for present purposes is that both the majority and the dissenting opinions in Morales viewed the issue in terms of the seaworthiness of the ship: whether or not it should have had a forced ventilation system in the hold. Nowhere was it even suggested that liability for unseaworthiness could arise solely by virtue of the defective state of the cargo itself, even though its contaminated and unsafe condition had clearly been established and was not in dispute. Thus the Court in Morales unanimously ignored the possibility of a doctrine which the Court today concludes was squarely established less than three months earlier, in Ellerman.4
II.
In order to conclude that the respondent shipowner was negligent in the circumstances presented here, it was necessary for the trier of fact to find that the respondent knew or should have known of the defective condition of the bags being unloaded. It is doubtful that such a
Even assuming for present purposes that the necessary finding as to notice was made, I believe that the judgment on negligence cannot be sustained, for there is no evidence whatever to support such a finding. The evidence in the record, including the landing report, relates only to the stevedore company‘s knowledge of the condition of the bags. There is nothing to suggest that any agent or employee of the respondent was or should have been in the area, or knew or should have known of the condition of the cargo at the time of unloading.5 And of course there is no basis in law for charging the shipowner with responsibility for any negligence on the part of the stevedore company.
Whether from the standpoint of negligence or unseaworthiness I see no basis for the holding in this case. Presumably the result reached by the Court would be the same—at least consistency demands that it should be the same—if this accident had occurred on the dock while the beans were being loaded rather than unloaded. Yet in neither case is there warrant for holding the shipowner to have breached any obligation, for in neither case does it own or control the place where the accident occurred and in neither case is the ship‘s equipment, property, or crew in any way responsible, with or without fault, for the injury.
Accordingly, I would affirm.