Gries v. United States

205 F. Supp. 164, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4708
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedMay 10, 1962
DocketCiv. A. Nos. 12713-12715
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 205 F. Supp. 164 (Gries v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gries v. United States, 205 F. Supp. 164, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4708 (D. Md. 1962).

Opinion

R. DORSEY WATKINS, District Judge.

Plaintiff Gries and Taylor were and are employees of Bendix Radio Division of the Bendix Aviation Corporation. On November 21, 1959, in the ordinary course of their duties, they were assigned to make repairs to the radar installation on Texas Tower No. 2, owned by the United States Government and located on George’s Bank, approximately one hundred and ten miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. With the necessary equipment they drove to Otis Air Force base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and were there directed to New Bedford, Massachusetts. There they were assigned to a Government vessel, AKL-17. The vessel departed on November 23, 1959 and after making a stop at Texas Tower No. 3, it arrived off Texas Tower No. 2 at around 5:00 P.M. The trip had been a rather rough one and the seas were heavy when the AKL-17 finally made fast to the base of the Tower.

Texas Tower No. 2 is supported on three metal pilings and has two metal decks, the top one being some eighty feet above water level. On the top deck there are two fixed cranes used for lowering and raising material and personnel to and from vessels. The method employed on this occasion involved what is familiarly referred to as a “doughnut.” This is an inflated raft some ten feet in diameter with a floor and seats. Three cables connected to the doughnut and spaced approximately 120 degrees apart are fastened together some ten feet above the floor of the doughnut and the cable then ends in an eye which is joined with the head end of the crane cable. After some three or four passages of the doughnut in the removal of personnel and their gear and the taking on of the repair parts and the gear of the individual plaintiffs, the doughnut was lowered to the deck of the AKL-17 and the two individual plaintiffs, with two other individuals, entered the doughnut. The somewhat risky departure from the vessel was accomplished safely and the doughnut was raised some eighty to eighty-five feet to a point above the level of the top deck. Normally, it would then have been swung over and lowered on to the top deck. For some unexplained reason before this second movement was begun, apparently the cable broke, and the doughnut and its four occupants fell into the sea. Gries and Taylor received severe injuries, to be dealt with in more detail, and the other two occupants lost their lives.

Gries and Taylor instituted suits against the United States under the Tort Claims Act, Title 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680. In the course of preliminary discussions the Government commendably1 *suggested that suit under the Tort Claims Act might not be available in view of the provisions of Title 28, Section 2680(d) excluding from the provisions of the Tort Claims Act “[a]ny claim for which a remedy is provided by Sections 741-752,2 781-7903 of Title 46, re[166]*166lating to claims or suits in admiralty against the United States.” The complaints were accordingly amended so as alternatively to assert jurisdiction under Title 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 741-752 and/or §§ 781-790. It is conceded that jurisdiction exists under one or the other of these three statutory provisions.

At the conclusion of the trial, the Court requested that counsel file memoranda on the question of jurisdiction. That of the Government was first filed, and expressed the opinion that the suits were properly brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 741 et seq. This conclusion, which is accepted by counsel for plaintiffs, and which appeals to the Court (and see In the Matter of the Petition of the United States of America, as owner of the United States Air Force Texas Tower No. 4, a public vessel of the United States, for exoneration from or limitation of liability, D.C.S.D.N.Y.1962, 203 F. Supp. 215, Levet, D. J.), relieves the Court of the necessity of finding that the Texas Tower No. 2 was a “public vessel of the United States”, and of the task of attempting to construe the majority and dissenting opinions in Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 1958, 356 U.S. 252, 78 S.Ct. 687, 2 L.Ed.2d 737.

Suit has also been filed under the same statutory provisions cited above by The Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York, the compensation carrier of the employer. The Government at first contested the subrogation rights of the insurance carrier on the ground that the Air Force contract with Bendix for repair services on the Texas Towers was a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract and required the carriage of Workmen’s Compensation, and that the Government, having in effect paid the premiums for such coverage, under a third party beneficiary theory was itself entitled to such insurance protection. On further research the Government explicitly, and in the highest ethics of advocacy, abandoned this defense in view of the decision in United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. United States, 2 Cir. 1945, 152 F.2d 46.

The Government offered no evidence and does not seriously contest the applicability of res ipsa loquitur. The problem is therefore essentially the determination of the elements of damages and their fair evaluation.

Gries and Taylor both became unconscious during the course of the fall into the water and were unconscious, or semiconscious,4 for substantially the entire three days that they were kept on Texas Tower No. 2 after having been rescued from the water. First aid only was administered to the individual plaintiffs during their stay on the Texas Tower. By November 27 the weather had ameliorated so that it was possible to remove them by helicopter to Otis Air Force Base. They were taken by ambulance from the Air Base to St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, where they remained from November 27 to December 12, 1959. Both plaintiffs vividly recalled the painful trip from the Tower to St. Luke’s Hospital and the extreme pain whenever their bodies were moved, which was fairly constantly because of travel, x-rays, treatments and finally the affixing of plaster casts. There can be no question both from the nature of the injuries and the hospital charts that during this period of two weeks they were most uncomfortable and that numerous pain-relieving drugs had to be administered.

On December 12, 1959, a Bendix plane was sent to New Bedford with a special pilot and nurse. The seats had been removed from the cabin and special benches installed. The plaintiffs were taken by ambulance from St. Luke’s Hospital to an airplane, then flown to Friendship Airport at Baltimore, Maryland where they were met by an ambulance and taken to Union Memorial Hospital.

[167]*167The discharge diagnoses of St. Luke’s Hospital adequately summarize the nature of the injuries, although they do not reflect the pain and inconvenience associated with them. The following diagnoses are given:

Arnold Gries:

Comminuted Compression Fracture of L 5 Vertebra; Chip fracture of L 1, L 2 vertebra Wedging of T 11 and T 12 Vertebral bodies
Fracture of right 7th and 8th ribs, posteriorly Paralytic Ileus Fracture of Coccyx Post-Traumatic Compression of L 5 and S 1 nerve roots, left secondary to fracture of L 5 vertebra
Contusion atelectasis of right lung

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Related

Francese v. United States
229 F. Supp. 10 (E.D. New York, 1964)

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Bluebook (online)
205 F. Supp. 164, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4708, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gries-v-united-states-mdd-1962.