Taylor v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.

621 F.2d 88, 1980 A.M.C. 1133, 8 OSHC (BNA) 1277, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 17988
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedMay 1, 1980
DocketNo. 79-1061
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 621 F.2d 88 (Taylor v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taylor v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 621 F.2d 88, 1980 A.M.C. 1133, 8 OSHC (BNA) 1277, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 17988 (4th Cir. 1980).

Opinion

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:

This is an action against the defendant shipowner by the plaintiff longshoreman to recover in negligence for injuries incurred by him while working in a reefer space of the vessel. The district court found that the shipowner was not negligent and granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff has appealed. We affirm.

The plaintiff, with commendable frankness, accepts the correctness of the district court’s reasoning that he had, under the 1972 Amendments of the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Act, no right of action by way of “a negligence case against the shipowner . . . based upon the longshoring regulations imposed upon the stevedore-employer, on unseaworthiness or any theory of non-delegable duty.” He thereby concedes by implication that if the principles enunciated in Chavis v. Finnlines Ltd. O/Y, (4th Cir. 1978) 576 F.2d 1072; Riddle v. Exxon Transp. Co., (4th Cir. 1977) 563 F.2d 1103; Bess v. Agromar Line, (4th Cir. 1975) 518 F.2d 738, and Gay v. Ocean Transport & Trading Ltd., (5th Cir. 1977) 546 F.2d 1233, and Anuszewski v. Dynamic Mariners Corp., Panama, (D.Md.1975) 391 F.Supp. 1143, aff’d., (4th Cir.) 540 F.2d 757 (1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1098, 97 S.Ct. 1116, 51 L.Ed.2d 545 (1977), are applicable to this case, the dismissal of his action by the district court was proper. But he contends that his claim of liability “is not founded upon [the] concepts” found controlling in those cases, since he declares that his action is “based [entirely] upon a Coast Guard regulation unmistakably imposing [as he views] affirmative duties upon the vessel and her officers which the defendant violated.” The Coast Guard regulation on which he relies is set forth in 46 C.F.R. § 97.70-15(c) (1977).1 He distinguished the cases such as Chavis and other like cases, cited supra, in which the vessel was found not liable for injuries to a longshoreman caused by inhaling carbon monoxide gas while the longshoreman was working under the control and supervision of his stevedore-employer, as inapplicable because, whether from inadvertence or whatnot, the Courts in those cases had not considered the Coast Guard Regulation on which the longshoreman in this case rests his right of action. He suggests that, if the Coast Guard Regulation had been called to the Court’s attention in those cases, the result would likely have been different. Finally, he cites Speller v. American Export Lines, Inc., (E.D.Va. 1975) 1977 A.M.C. 501, in support of his position.

As thus framed by the appellant, the issue in this appeal is whether a longshoreman injured by reason of carbon monoxide poisoning incurred while engaged in stowing cargo in a hold of a vessel as an employee of the stevedore who had complete control over and supervision of his work can maintain a right of action in negligence against the vessel based on the application of the Coast Guard Regulation, cited supra. The District Court answered the question in [90]*90the negative and denied recovery. We agree with that result, though not entirely for the same reasons as those given by the district judge. We shall state briefly our reasons for so concluding.

We note at the outset that the plaintiff concedes that the Secretary of Labor has issued regulations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)2 governing the responsibility of the stevedore to conduct tests and to take appropriate action for the protection from carbon monoxide poisoning of the health and lives of longshoremen employed by it while working in the hold of a ship where a gasoline combustion motor is being operated.3 These regulations have been repeatedly held to impose an affirmative duty on the stevedore, the violation of which would be negligence. It is, however, the plaintiff’s position that, in addition to this duty imposed on the stevedore by the OSHA regulations, a like and “parallel” duty is imposed by the Coast Guard regulation, referred to supra, on the vessel to protect the longshoreman while working for the stevedore, in the hold of the vessel. What the plaintiff in effect argues is (1) that there is a like regulation issued separately by both the Coast Guard and the Secretary of Labor under their own special statutory authority, both of which prescribe the steps to be taken to protect the longshoreman while working as an employee of the stevedore in the hold of a vessel and (2) that the longshoreman may rest a claim of negligence on both or either of these separate regulations issued by the two separate agencies.

It is true that the Safety and Health Regulations for Longshoremen, as issued by the Secretary of Labor under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 29 U.S.C. § 651, et seq., 29 C.F.R. § 1918.-98(a)(1)(i)(ii) and (iii), and the Coast Guard Regulations, issued under Coast Guard’s general authority, 14 U.S.C. § 2, 46 C.F.R. § 97.70-15(a)(b) and (c), are in essence identical in the tests they prescribe for work in areas rendered dangerous by the likely presence of poisonous fumes. Each set of regulations imposes an obligation that, when “power-operated industrial trucks” are used in an area of the vessel “exposed to carbon monoxide or other hazardous vapors” the ship or stevedore, as the case may be, is required to see “that tests of the carbon monoxide content of the atmosphere are made as frequently as conditions require to insure that dangerous concentrations do not develop * * * in the area in which persons are working” and that the tests be conducted “by persons acquainted with the test equipment and procedure.” The regulations proceed to be specific on the atmospheric levels to be maintained in the areas: Thus, the carbon monoxide concentration is to be “maintained at not more than 50 parts per million (0.005%) as a time-weighed average, and persons shall be removed from the area if the concentration exceeds 75 parts per million (0.0075%).” The Longshoring Regulations do not prescribe any particular employee of the stevedore as responsible for seeing that the regulation is observed; the Coast Guard Regulation designates the “senior deck officer” as the responsible party for overseeing the observance of the regulation. Under the plaintiff’s argument, both of these regulations are applicable whenever the stevedore, as independent contractor having complete control over and responsibility for stowing cargo on a vessel and for the safety of his employees engaged in that work, introduces a power-operated industrial truck into any area of the vessel exposed to hazardous vapors while performing its duties as a stevedore.

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621 F.2d 88, 1980 A.M.C. 1133, 8 OSHC (BNA) 1277, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 17988, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taylor-v-moore-mccormack-lines-inc-ca4-1980.