OPINION OF THE COURT
ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.
The central dispositive issue on this appeal is the question of the relative responsibility of stevedore and shipowner for longshoreman safety under the 1972 Amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. Marant, a longshoreman injured in unloading a cargo, brought this negligence action against Farrell Lines, the shipowner. The trial court charged the jury that stevedore and shipowner had concurrent responsibility for longshoring safety and the jury, by special verdict, found the stevedore and shipowner equally at fault in causing the injury. Damages were stipulated and judgment for the full amount was entered against Farrell. Farrell appealed. We reverse.
I
Marant was employed as a longshoreman by the Lavino Shipping Company, an independent stevedoring contractor hired by Farrell Lines to discharge a cocoa bean cargo from its vessel, the S.S. African Moon, in Philadelphia. The beans had been loaded in Africa by African longshoremen under the supervision of the vessel’s officers and, although the testimony was disputed, witnesses for the plaintiff testified that the cargo had been improperly stowed “bag on bag” (each layer of bags running in the same direction as the layer beneath it) instead of in the safer “lock stow” (each layer of bags running perpendicular to the layer beneath it). Marant was injured when a tier of bags collapsed and hit him. A witness testified that the collapsing tier was about 15 feet high, that it stood behind another tier 12 feet high, and that Marant was standing 6 or 7 feet from the tier that fell on him. The central issue at trial was the method adopted in stowing the bags.
The jury returned a liability verdict against Farrell. By special interrogatories it determined that Marant was not contrib-utorily negligent, that Lavino and Farrell were both negligent, and that each had contributed 50 percent to the happening of the accident. Damages were stipulated as $20,000 and the district court entered judgment in favor of Marant and against Farrell in that amount. Farrell’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial was denied.
Farrell raises the following points on appeal:
(1) Under the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, the stevedore has the primary responsibility for longshoremen’s safety and the vessel’s duty is only to disclose latent defects of which it has knowledge. Under this law and the factual circumstances, the district court erroneously failed to direct a verdict for Farrell. In addition, it incorrectly charged the jury as to Farrell’s duty under the law and compounded that error by repeating the original confusing charge verbatim when asked by the jury for clarification of the relative duties of vessel and stevedore.
(2) Under the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, a vessel cannot be held liable where the stevedore contributed to a longshoreman’s injury.
[144]*144(3) The jury verdict was clearly against the weight of the evidence.
(4) Where the jury found that Farrell’s negligence contributed 50 percent to the happening of the accident, Farrell should be assessed only 50 percent, or $10,000, of the stipulated damages of $20,000.
II
As a preliminary matter, we will deny Farrell’s request for a directed verdict in its favor. We cannot say, as a matter of law, that the record is “critically deficient of that minimum quantum of evidence from which a jury might reasonably afford relief.” Denneny v. Siegel, 407 F.2d 433, 439 (3d Cir. 1969).
Farrell has challenged specifically that portion of the trial court’s charge which informed the jury that “[t]he responsibility for the safety of the longshoreman lies concurrently or jointly with the longshoreman’s employer, and with the shipowner.” (546a-547a) Farrell asserts that this is an inaccurate statement of the relative responsibilities imposed by the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA and that the trial court should have charged, as Farrell requested (405a), that the primary responsibility for longshoremen’s safety was on the stevedore. A recent decision of this court, not available to the district court at the trial of this case, substantiates Farrell’s position. Accordingly, on the basis of Brown v. Rederi, 545 F.2d 854 (3d Cir. 1976), we will order a new trial.
As Judge Van Dusen has recently observed, speaking for this court, “express language in the statute and the legislative reports accompanying the 1972 Amendments amply demonstrate that for reasons of policy the major responsibility for the proper and safe conduct of the work was to be borne by the stevedore.” Brown v. Re-deri, at 860. This was an important aspect of the legislative plan, intended to focus responsibility for longshoremen’s safety on those best able to improve it, the stevedores. To say that responsibility is concurrent or joint is plainly inconsistent with the intention of the Act to place primary responsibility on the stevedore.
The principle of concurrent or joint responsibility was stated as the first substantive legal precept in the charge. It was reiterated later when the court told the jury that it was their job to decide if the stevedore was “solely or concurrently” responsible (548a), and it was, at least by implication, reinforced when the court charged that “[t]he duty to provide a reasonably safe place to work can rest upon more than one party, and it includes the owner of the vessel.” (549a) After being sent out to deliberate, the jury returned to ask the court, inter alia: “Is it the ship’s responsibility to provide a safe and reasonable place for the men to work in the hold as per your charge?” (569a-570a) The court answered by repeating verbatim the portion of its charge beginning:
You have for your determination the claim that the owner of the vessel or its agents were negligent toward plaintiff, a longshoreman. The shipowner, for its part, denied plaintiff’s allegation of negligence.
The responsibility for the safety of a longshoreman lies concurrently or jointly with the longshoreman’s employer and with the shipowner.
(570a) We have no way of knowing, of course, but it seems not unlikely that the equal responsibility portion of the jury instructions played a part, at least, in the jury’s decision that the vessel and the stevedore were equally at fault in causing the accident.
The question of relative legal responsibility went to the very essence of the case; the jury’s question amply evidences their awareness of its importance. Particularly under these circumstances, we believe that Farrell is entitled to a new trial. Upon remand, the district court will now have the 'advantage of our analysis of the 1972 Amendments in Brown, supra, and also in Griffith v. Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp., 521 F.2d 31 (3d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 ^U.S. 1054, 96 S.Ct.
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OPINION OF THE COURT
ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.
The central dispositive issue on this appeal is the question of the relative responsibility of stevedore and shipowner for longshoreman safety under the 1972 Amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. Marant, a longshoreman injured in unloading a cargo, brought this negligence action against Farrell Lines, the shipowner. The trial court charged the jury that stevedore and shipowner had concurrent responsibility for longshoring safety and the jury, by special verdict, found the stevedore and shipowner equally at fault in causing the injury. Damages were stipulated and judgment for the full amount was entered against Farrell. Farrell appealed. We reverse.
I
Marant was employed as a longshoreman by the Lavino Shipping Company, an independent stevedoring contractor hired by Farrell Lines to discharge a cocoa bean cargo from its vessel, the S.S. African Moon, in Philadelphia. The beans had been loaded in Africa by African longshoremen under the supervision of the vessel’s officers and, although the testimony was disputed, witnesses for the plaintiff testified that the cargo had been improperly stowed “bag on bag” (each layer of bags running in the same direction as the layer beneath it) instead of in the safer “lock stow” (each layer of bags running perpendicular to the layer beneath it). Marant was injured when a tier of bags collapsed and hit him. A witness testified that the collapsing tier was about 15 feet high, that it stood behind another tier 12 feet high, and that Marant was standing 6 or 7 feet from the tier that fell on him. The central issue at trial was the method adopted in stowing the bags.
The jury returned a liability verdict against Farrell. By special interrogatories it determined that Marant was not contrib-utorily negligent, that Lavino and Farrell were both negligent, and that each had contributed 50 percent to the happening of the accident. Damages were stipulated as $20,000 and the district court entered judgment in favor of Marant and against Farrell in that amount. Farrell’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial was denied.
Farrell raises the following points on appeal:
(1) Under the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, the stevedore has the primary responsibility for longshoremen’s safety and the vessel’s duty is only to disclose latent defects of which it has knowledge. Under this law and the factual circumstances, the district court erroneously failed to direct a verdict for Farrell. In addition, it incorrectly charged the jury as to Farrell’s duty under the law and compounded that error by repeating the original confusing charge verbatim when asked by the jury for clarification of the relative duties of vessel and stevedore.
(2) Under the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, a vessel cannot be held liable where the stevedore contributed to a longshoreman’s injury.
[144]*144(3) The jury verdict was clearly against the weight of the evidence.
(4) Where the jury found that Farrell’s negligence contributed 50 percent to the happening of the accident, Farrell should be assessed only 50 percent, or $10,000, of the stipulated damages of $20,000.
II
As a preliminary matter, we will deny Farrell’s request for a directed verdict in its favor. We cannot say, as a matter of law, that the record is “critically deficient of that minimum quantum of evidence from which a jury might reasonably afford relief.” Denneny v. Siegel, 407 F.2d 433, 439 (3d Cir. 1969).
Farrell has challenged specifically that portion of the trial court’s charge which informed the jury that “[t]he responsibility for the safety of the longshoreman lies concurrently or jointly with the longshoreman’s employer, and with the shipowner.” (546a-547a) Farrell asserts that this is an inaccurate statement of the relative responsibilities imposed by the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA and that the trial court should have charged, as Farrell requested (405a), that the primary responsibility for longshoremen’s safety was on the stevedore. A recent decision of this court, not available to the district court at the trial of this case, substantiates Farrell’s position. Accordingly, on the basis of Brown v. Rederi, 545 F.2d 854 (3d Cir. 1976), we will order a new trial.
As Judge Van Dusen has recently observed, speaking for this court, “express language in the statute and the legislative reports accompanying the 1972 Amendments amply demonstrate that for reasons of policy the major responsibility for the proper and safe conduct of the work was to be borne by the stevedore.” Brown v. Re-deri, at 860. This was an important aspect of the legislative plan, intended to focus responsibility for longshoremen’s safety on those best able to improve it, the stevedores. To say that responsibility is concurrent or joint is plainly inconsistent with the intention of the Act to place primary responsibility on the stevedore.
The principle of concurrent or joint responsibility was stated as the first substantive legal precept in the charge. It was reiterated later when the court told the jury that it was their job to decide if the stevedore was “solely or concurrently” responsible (548a), and it was, at least by implication, reinforced when the court charged that “[t]he duty to provide a reasonably safe place to work can rest upon more than one party, and it includes the owner of the vessel.” (549a) After being sent out to deliberate, the jury returned to ask the court, inter alia: “Is it the ship’s responsibility to provide a safe and reasonable place for the men to work in the hold as per your charge?” (569a-570a) The court answered by repeating verbatim the portion of its charge beginning:
You have for your determination the claim that the owner of the vessel or its agents were negligent toward plaintiff, a longshoreman. The shipowner, for its part, denied plaintiff’s allegation of negligence.
The responsibility for the safety of a longshoreman lies concurrently or jointly with the longshoreman’s employer and with the shipowner.
(570a) We have no way of knowing, of course, but it seems not unlikely that the equal responsibility portion of the jury instructions played a part, at least, in the jury’s decision that the vessel and the stevedore were equally at fault in causing the accident.
The question of relative legal responsibility went to the very essence of the case; the jury’s question amply evidences their awareness of its importance. Particularly under these circumstances, we believe that Farrell is entitled to a new trial. Upon remand, the district court will now have the 'advantage of our analysis of the 1972 Amendments in Brown, supra, and also in Griffith v. Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp., 521 F.2d 31 (3d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 ^U.S. 1054, 96 S.Ct. 785, 46 L.Ed.2d 643 (1976); and we will direct consideration of [145]*145these precedents insofar as they are relevant to issues that may be raised.1
Ill
As a new trial will be required in any event, it is not necessary for us to meet appellant’s additional points. We will take this opportunity, however, to express our concern about the question of apportionment of damages in cases where it is found that stevedore and vessel have been concurrently at fault. We recognize that the apportionment question is fraught with difficulty, that it involves largely intractable conflicting interests, and that it implicates in contradictory ways three ordinarily separate fields of law, to-wit, the common law of torts, statutory workmen’s compensation law, and the law maritime. But, as we view it, there are really only three alternatives.
First, the vessel could be made to pay the whole of the damages without reduction for the stevedore’s fault and without contribution from the stevedore. Second, the vessel, after paying the whole of the damages, might be held entitled to a true “contribution” from the stevedore, either in a fixed percentage or according to relative fault. Third, the vessel might be held entitled to a reduction of liability or a “credit” because of the stevedore’s concurring fault, again, either in a fixed percentage or according to relative fault. This last concept of a credit to the vessel is a relative newcomer on the legal scene. It has been espoused by some of the commentators,2 and embraced by several federal trial courts,3 but, to date, has not found wide acceptance in appellate jurisprudence.
A fixed 50 percent reduction of recovery was allowed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a case implicating the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, Murray v. United States, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 91, 405 F.2d 1361 (1968), and has come to be known as a “Murray Cred[146]*146it”. Judge Leventhal, writing for a panel of himself, Judge McGowan, and now-Chief Justice Burger, explained the result thus:
A tortfeasor jointly responsible with an employer is not compelled to pay the total common law damages. The common law recovery of the injured employee is thus reduced in consequence of the employee’s compensation act, but the act gave him assurance of compensation even in the absence of fault.
Ibid, at 1366. The Murray Credit was subsequently extended to a case arising under the pre-1972 LHWCA, Dawson v. Contractors Transport Corp., 151 U.S.App.D.C. 401, 467 F.2d 727, 729-30 (1972), Judge McGowan further elaborating the result as follows:
Since employers covered by workmen’s compensation statutes are not liable in tort to their injured employees, other tortfeasors are not entitled to contribution from negligent employers, and thus, before Murray, bore the entire burden of the tort damages.
To mitigate the harshness of this result, we held in Murray that a person against whom the employee was awarded damages in a tort action could reduce the judgment by 50 per cent if he could show that the employer’s negligence contributed to the injury.3
3 Murray was itself an extension of this court’s rule in Martello v. Hawley, 112 U.S. App.D.C. 129, 300 F.2d 721 (1962), where we held that when a plaintiff settled his claim against one tortfeasor, another tortfeasor against whom the plaintiff actually brought suit was entitled to reduce a resulting judgment by 50%
Although Murray involved the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, 5 U.S.C. § 8101 et seq. (1970), its rationale applies equally to the virtually identical provisions of the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. (1970). . . .
While Dawson did apply the credit concept to the LHWCA, the 1972 amendments were not implicated in the case and, accordingly, the question may be considered open whether the District of Columbia Circuit will continue to adhere to Dawson in cases arising under the 1972 amendments.
The idea of a reduction of recovery proportioned according to fault — an “Equitable Credit” — has been rejected by the only Court of Appeals that has directly considered it, the Ninth Circuit. In Dodge v. Mitsui Shintaku Ginko, 528 F.2d 669, 672 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 944, 96 S.Ct. 1685, 48 L.Ed.2d 188 (1976), Senior Judge Brown rejected “both the Murray and Shellman [Equitable Credit] Doctrines because they are contrary to the greater weight of authority, and also because they impose unjustified burdens upon the injured longshoreman.” Judge Brown reaffirmed this result, on identical grounds and for the same panel, in a companion case, Shellman v. United States Lines, 528 F.2d 675 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 936, 96 S.Ct. 1668 (1976).
The Second Circuit in Landon v. Lief Hoegh & Co., 521 F.2d 756 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1053, 96 S.Ct. 783, 46 L.Ed.2d 642 (1976), held that the stevedore was not a necessary or indispensable party in an action by the longshoreman against the vessel, but did not adjudicate the specific question of a credit. Similarly, the Supreme Court precedent most often cited on the question, Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 72 S.Ct. 277, 96 L.Ed. 318 (1951), denied contribution from the stevedore-employer to the vessel but did not directly present for adjudication the possibility of a credit. And it is well established that “[a] decision is not authority as to any questions of law which were not raised or presented to the court, and were not considered and decided by it, even though they were logically present in the case and might have been argued, and even though such questions, if considered by the court, would have caused a different judgment to be given.” H. Black, Law of Judicial Precedents 37 (1912). See Kramer v. Scientific Control Corp., 534 F.2d 1085, 1090 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 830, 97 S.Ct. 90, 50 L.Ed.2d 94 (1976).
Though our research has not been exhaustive, we do not perceive a “greater weight” of authority on the issue of a credit. On the contrary, our observation would be that, of the two courts of appeals that have considered the general credit concept [147]*147under the LHWCA, one has accepted it, albeit prior to the 1972 amendments, and one has rejected it. We have found no Supreme Court precedent directly disposi-tive of the issue, and the district courts are in disarray. Under these circumstances, and particularly in view of the Supreme Court’s activist attitude in maritime matters, see United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U.S. 397, 95 S.Ct. 1708, 44 L.Ed.2d 251 (1975), we believe that the question of a possible credit to the vessel in cases of concurrent stevedore-vessel negligence is, at least in this circuit, very much an open question.
The concurring opinion expresses concern that any credit or apportionment rule would lead to increased litigation and that, even “if” the present rule is unfair, change should come from Congress. This court being already inundated with LHWCA litigation to interpret the 1972 amendments, it is difficult — though concededly frightening— to imagine an increase. It would seem as likely, however, that a rule which equitably apportioned liability according to fault might decrease litigation and promote settlement, especially by removing the incentive of a large judgment against a shipowner who is only partly at fault. As the Supreme Court has recently observed: “Experience with comparative negligence in the personal injury area teaches that a rule of fairness in court will produce fair out-of-court settlements.” United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., supra, 421 U.S. at 408, 95 S.Ct. at 1714. Concerning the propriety of judicial as against legislative action in this field, we will resist today the temptation to continue the venerable debate. Suffice it to say, in Judge Walter Schaefer’s eloquent words, that “most depends upon the judge’s unspoken notion as to the function of his court. If he views the role of the court as a passive one, he will be willing to delegate the responsibility for change, and he will not greatly care whether the delegated authority is exercised or not. If he views the court as an instrument of society designed to reflect in its decisions the morality of the community, he will be more likely to look precedent in the teeth and to measure it against the ideals and the aspirations of his time.” W. Schaefer, Precedent and Policy, 34 U.Chi.L.Rev. 3 (1966) (quoted in R. Aldi-sert, The Judicial Process at 802, 814 (1976)). Although we have indicated some of our concerns on the difficult issue of apportionment, we emphasize, again, that we expressly do not decide the issue at this time.
The judgment of the district court will be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with the foregoing.