Lloyd v. T. Hogan & Sons, Inc.

128 Misc. 665, 219 N.Y.S. 750, 1927 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 798
CourtCity of New York Municipal Court
DecidedFebruary 2, 1927
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 128 Misc. 665 (Lloyd v. T. Hogan & Sons, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering City of New York Municipal Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lloyd v. T. Hogan & Sons, Inc., 128 Misc. 665, 219 N.Y.S. 750, 1927 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 798 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1927).

Opinion

Shientag, J.

The plaintiff at the time he claims he was injured was employed by the defendant as a stevedore on a lighter, and at the time of the injury assisted in the loading of coal from the lighter to a steamship moored at a pier. The injury was, therefore, to a person engaged in a maritime service and occurred in navigable waters. The defendant after interposing what in effect is a general denial as to the allegations of negligence, sets up three separate defenses: First, contributory negligence; second, the fellow-servant rule; and third, assumption of risk. The defendant’s answer was served on October 10, 1926. The plaintiff moved on November 13, 1926, to strike out the separate defenses as insufficient in law. The defendant’s preliminary objection is that under rule 109 of the Rules of Civil Practice, such a motion must be made within ten days after the answer is served. That rule, however, must be read in connection with section 98 of the Civil Practice Act, which authorizes the court, except where such action is specifically prohibited by statute, to extend the time for the making of any motion “ upon good cause shown although the application for same is not made until after the expiration of the time appointed or allowed.” There is no provision prohibiting the court from extending the time within which to move to strike out a separate defense as insufficient in law, and such extension may, therefore, be granted for good cause. (See Fiorello v. N. Y. Protestant, etc., Socy., 217 App. Div. 510.) The basis of the plaintiff’s motion is the decision in International Stevedoring Company v. Haverty (272 U. S. 50), rendered by the United States Supreme Court on October 18, 1926, which was certainly not available to the plaintiff within ten days after the defendant’s answer was served upon him. Upon learning of this decision plaintiff promptly made the motion, which is now pending. In the Haverty Case (supra) the action was for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, a longshoreman, while engaged in stowing freight in the hold of a vessel. The action was against the stevedoring company which employed him. The United States Supreme Court held that the [667]*667plaintiff in that case was engaged in a maritime service formerly-rendered by the ship’s crew, and was entitled to the benefit of the so-called Jones Act (38 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1185, chap. 153, § 20, approved March 4, 1915, as amd. by 41 id. 1007, chap. 250, § 33, approved June 5, 1920), which provides that any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, * * * and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply.” The court, in construing the scope of the provision of the Jones Act above quoted, said: It is true that for most purposes, as the word is commonly used, sievedores are not seamen.’ But words are flexible. The work upon which the plaintiff was engaged was a maritime service formerly rendered by the ship’s crew. (Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, 62.) We cannot believe that Congress willingly would have allowed the protection to men engaged upon the same maritime duties to vary with the accident of their being employed by a stevedore rather than by the ship. The policy of the statute is directed to the safety of the men and to treating compensation for injuries to them as properly part'of the cost of the business. If they should be protected in the one case, they should be in the other. In view of the broad field in which Congress has disapproved and changed the rule introduced into the common law within less than a century, we are of opinion that a wider scope should be given to the words of the act, and that in this statute ( seamen ’ is to be taken to include stevedores engaged as the plaintiff was, whatever it might mean in laws of a different kind.” The questions to be determined by this motion are, therefore: First, whether a stevedore engaged as the plaintiff was at the time of his injury may be termed to be a seaman within the meaning of the Jones Act, above referred to, and, second, if he shall be so included, to what extent have the common-law defenses to a negligence action been limited in his case? Since the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (244 U. S. 205, 223 [1917]) and Knickerbocker Ice Company v. Stewart (253 id. 149 [1920]) the lot of an injured longshoreman has not been a particularly happy one. In the Jensen Case (supra), which was decided by a closely divided court (Holmes, Pitney, Brandéis and Clarke, JJ., dissenting), it was held in effect that the New York Workmen’s Compensation Law did not apply to injuries sustained by a person in a maritime employment where his injury occurred in navigable waters. In that case the longshoreman was killed at the ship-end of a gangway while unloading his employer’s [668]*668steamship. The basis of the court’s decision was in substance that the provisions of the New York State Workmen’s Compensation Law when applied to maritime injuries were void, as being in contravention of article 3, section 2, of the United States Constitution, which extended the judicial power of the Federal government to “ all cases of Admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction ” and of the provisions of the Federal Judicial Code adopted pursuant thereto. In the Stewart Case (supra) the court (the same four justices dissenting) held to be unconstitutional an amendment to the Federal Judicial Code saving claimants’ rights under State workmen’s compensation laws in situations otherwise governed by Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen. The court held that this attempted amendment • was unconstitutional, as being a delegation of the legislative powers of Congress to the several States and as being in conflict with the purpose of the Constitution with reference to uniformity of the maritime law. The confusion which it was predicted at the time would result from these decisions certainly came to pass, and brought about many curious results. In a subsequent case, for example, that of State Industrial Commission v. Nordenholt Corporation (259 U. S. 263 [1922]) the United States Supreme Court held that the New York State Workmen’s Compensation Law did apply to an injury received by a longshoreman employed under a maritime contract who was injured on a dock, an extension of the land.” Thus the longshoreman acquired a sort of dual personality. Working for the same employer, doing the same kind of work, his right to compensation under the State Workmen’s Compensation Law depended upon whether his injury was received on the dock or on the vessel. If he were injured on a gangplank between the vessel and the shore his rights depended upon the precise spot where the tort was consummated. (For an interesting and instructive note covering this entire subject see Harvard Law Review, January, 1927, p. 485.) The decision in the Haverty Case (supra),

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Terwilliger v. Terwilliger
201 Misc. 453 (New York Supreme Court, 1951)
Hartmann v. American Mercury, Inc.
12 Misc. 2d 1045 (New York Supreme Court, 1945)
Duke v. Helena-Glendale Ferry Co.
159 S.W.2d 74 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1942)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
128 Misc. 665, 219 N.Y.S. 750, 1927 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 798, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lloyd-v-t-hogan-sons-inc-nynyccityct-1927.