78 F. 600 | N.D. Cal. | 1897
This is the usual proceeding, under sections 4282-4285 of the Revised Statutes and the rules of the supreme court of the United States made thereunder (G-en. Adm. Rules 54-58), to determine and limit the liability, if any there be, of the owners of the American schooner Pioneer for certain injuries alleged to have been sustained by one Robert Lynas, while employed on said schooner. Lynas instituted, on November 25, 1895, an action in the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco, state of California, against the petitioners in this proceeding and one Gr. T. Morse, to recover damages in the sum of $50,000 for certain injuries alleged to have been sustained by and through the negligence of the petitioners and G-. T. Morse. It seems that the latter person was also a part
The salient facts of the case are as follows: The schooner Pioneer, owned by the petitioners, was lying, on the 25th of August, 1891, in the Bay of San Francisco, alongside a wharf or dock near Fourth and Channel streets, and, at the time the respondent Lynas was injured, was being loaded with barrels of cement or lime. The schooner lay with her port side to the wharf. The respondent Lynas was then in the employ of the owners of the vessel as a ship carpenter, engaged between-decks in making certain repairs in the forward hold of the vessel. These repairs consisted, for the most part, in strengthening the knees of the schooner, and refastening the ceiling, as far as it could be done, with big spikes. While engaged in this labor, with several other shipwrights, it was necessary for the respondent to come up on deck in order to cut pieces of iron into holts of the desired length. This portion of the work could not be done
Under the above state of facts, two questions are presented to the court for its determination: (1) Whether or not there was any negligence on the part of the petitioners, their agents or-servants, in the loading of the barrel of cement which struck the respondent; and (2) whether the petitioners, or any of them, had any privity or knowledge of the negligence, if it should be determined that there was any, which would make them personally liable. It is contended by respondent that the negligence consisted in the fact that he received no warning of the proximity of the swinging barrel rthich struck him; and, further, that the machinery and appliances used in hoisting and lowering the barrel, which struck him, were negligently and carelessly prepared, handled, and operated. On behalf of the petitioners it is contended that full and adequate warning was given, and that- the appliances used for loading were properly prepared, handled, and operated, and that the accident -to the respondent arose by reason of his own negligence in attempting to pass forward on the port side of the vessel, across which barrels were swung from the rail to the hatch, and as to which, it is claimed, he had been repeatedly and seasonably warned. I hardly think that the respondent has established that there was anything wrong or defective in the machinery or appliances used in loading. Some testimony was introduced on behalf of⅝ respondent for the purpose of showing that there was no guy attached to the barrel which struck the respondent; but this testimony will hardly justify such a conclusion. The witness, who testified that he rushed on deck immediately after the accident and that he did not see any guy rope, admitted that he was considerably excited at the time. On the other hand, the witnesses for the petitioners all agree that there was a guy rope oh this particular occasion, the first mate swearing that he handled'it himself. This ground of negligence will therefore be dismissed without further consideration.
Before disposing of the other ground of negligence urged, viz. the failure to give sufficient and timely warning, it is important to ascertain where Lynas was at the time he was struck by the barrel. The determination of this fact necessarily involves the question as to whether or not the respondent was guilty of contributory negligence in being in a place in which he should not have been at the time he was injured. In this connection it is claimed by the petitioners that the respondent, when he was struck, had stepped on deck from the-hatchway, and, instead of passing directly forward by the starboard side, had taken the longer course by the port side — the dangerous side — of the vessel; and that he
We now come to the question whether the respondent received any warning, and, if so, whether it was an adequate and a seasonable warning. The respondent testified that he received no warning of any sort from the first mate or any one else connected with the loading. It is true that one of his physicians testified that he had an impairment of hearing previous to the accident, and, as a direct result of the injury, he had lost entirely the hearing of the right ear, but it nowhere appears from the evidence that such impairment of hearing, as there was, seriously affected the respondent’s ability to hear any warning that may have been given, provided he were within ordinary hearing distance. But, aside from this, the respondent is corroborated by three witnesses, all of whom were shipwrights engaged in working with the respondent in the forward part of the hold that morning. They all testify that they heard no warning. An attempt was made to contradict these witnesses by the testimony of the captain, first and second mates. But their testimony, at the most, simply amounts to this: that a general -warning was given by the first mate when the loading commenced, or, to use the words of the second mate, the first mate came to the hatch, and “sang out” for the'men in the hold to look out when they came up the ladder. “He did not tell us personally; he sung out to everybody.” It is not claimed by these witnesses that warning was given every time a barrel was swung over the hatchway, nor that on the occasion when the respondent was hit by the barrel any warning was then given. The captain admits
“It is undoubtedly true that the master assumes the duty towards his.servant oí providing him with a reasonably safe place in which to work; that this duty is a positive and personal one; and that, it delegated to a subordinate, it remains, nevertheless, in law, the act of the master.”
The rule is clearly stated by Mr. Justice Brewer in Railroad Co. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368, 386, 13 Sup. Ct. 914, 921, as follows:
“A master employing a servant impliedly engages with him that the place in which he is to work, and the tools or machinery with which he is to work or by which he is to be surrounded, shall-be reasonably safe. It is the master who •is to provide the place and the tools and the machinery, and when he employs one to enter his service he impliedly says to him that there is no other danger in the place, the tools, and the machinery than such as is obvious and necessary. Of course, some places of work and some kinds of machinery are more dangerous ' than others; but that is something which inheres in the thing itself, which is a matter of necessity, and cannot be obviated. But within such limits the master who provides the place, the .tools, and the machinery owes a positive duty to his employe in respect thereto. That positive duty does not go to the extent of a guaranty of safety, but it does require that reasonable precautions be taken to secure safety; and it matters not to the employe by whom that safety is secured, or the reasonable precautions therefor taken. He has a right to look to the master for the discharge of that duty; and if the master, instead of discharging it himself, sees fit to have it attended to by others, that does not change the measure of obligation to the employs, or the latter’s right to insist that reasonable precaution shall be taken to secure safety in these respects. Therefore it will be seen that the question turns rather on the- character of the act than on the relations of the employés to each other. If the act is one done in the discharge of some positive duty of the master to the servant, then negligence in the act is the negligence of the master.”
See, also, Hough v. Railway Co., 100 U. S. 213; Railroad Co. v. Herbert, 116 U. S. 642, 6 Sup. Ct. 590; Mullin v. Horseshoe Co., 105 Cal. 77, 38 Pac. 535, and cases there cited; Eingartner v. Steel Co. (Wis.) 68 N. W. 664; Anderson v. Bennett (Or.) 19 Pac. 765; McKinney, Fel. Serv. 73, § 28; Wood, Mast. & Serv. 695, § 334; Shear. & R. Neg. (3d Ed.) p. 119, § 92; 7 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 830, and cases there cited.
Applying this doctrine to the facts of the case at bar, it is evident that the forward hatchway was not a safe place, within the meaning of the rule, when an employe, while going up the hatchway, in the course of his employment on the vessel, was liable to be struck by a barrel swung over the hatchway, preparatory to its being lowered into the hold. That it was necessary for the respondent, in the course of his employment, to use the ladder in the forward hatch for the purpose of going up on deck and cutting the pieces of iron into bolts of the proper length, is affirmatively established by the evidence; and that those in charge of the loading were fully aware of and appreciated this fact is also clearly established. Some adequate provision should therefore have been made to protect the respondent from the danger that threatened him in the progress of his work. The evidence justifies the inference that not even a
In the view taken by the court, no question of the negligence of a fellow servant can arise in this case. The injury to respondent, under all the facts of the case, arose by virtue of the breach on the part of his employers, the petitioners, of a personal duly which they impliedly Owed him, to see to it that the places on the vessel in which he was compelled, in the course of his employment, and by reason of the nature of his duties, to proceed to and from, should be reasonably safe and free from danger; and, having failed to fully and properly discharge this personal duty, it is such negligence as entitles the respondent to recover for the damages he proximately sustained (hereby.
As the damages to he allowed will not:, in any event, exceed the sum of $12,000, the appraised value of the schooner Pioneer, it: is unnecessary to consider whether or not the petitioners, or any of them, had any privity or knowledge of the breach of duty or negligence which would render them, or any of them, personally liable to the respondent.
We come now to the question of damages. The respondent, at the time he was injured, was 48 years of age; was a married man; enjoyed good health; was a shipwright by trade, and earned from $94 to $90 a month. He had been continuously employed for the past eight years. He was injured on the morning of August 25, 1894. ¡Since that time he has not been able to work, except to do a little light work for a few hours. That he was severely injured is patent from the testimony of the two physicians who attended him. Dr. William P. Simpson, who was at the Receiving Hospital of the City and County of San Francisco when the respondent was brought there immediately after the accident, testified that: “he was brought to the Receiving Hospital in an unconscious condition; hemorrhage from both ears; contusion at the base of the head; and he was unconscious.” Dr. William B. Church testified that he was a regularly licensed physician and surgeon of the state of California; that he had practiced about thirty years; that he knew