Vittone v. American President Lines

228 Cal. App. 2d 689, 39 Cal. Rptr. 758, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1129
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 27, 1964
DocketCiv. 27907
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 228 Cal. App. 2d 689 (Vittone v. American President Lines) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vittone v. American President Lines, 228 Cal. App. 2d 689, 39 Cal. Rptr. 758, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1129 (Cal. Ct. App. 1964).

Opinion

BURKE, P. J.

Plaintiff, a longshoreman, was injured while engaged in discharging cargo from aboard the SS President Johnson, a vessel owned and operated by defendant American President Lines. He was employed by the Associated-Banning Company, a stevedoring corporation, an *691 independent contractor performing the unloading operations for defendant. Plaintiff brought an action sounding in negligence and unseaworthiness of vessel under the general maritime law and a jury found in his favor and awarded $50,000 damages against defendant American President Lines for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff. Defendant appeals from the judgment and the appeal involves only the unseaworthiness cause of action and asserted errors of the trial court in giving and refusing instructions pertaining to that issue.

The evidence adduced at the trial was substantially without conflict and a brief summary of it, viewed from the point of view of the prevailing party, follows.

The alleged unseaworthiness of vessel is related to the lack of dunnage between the layers of large steel pipe, their cantline stowage, the pipe being stowed metal to metal, upper tiers resting in the valleys of the lower tiers, and the inadequacy of the gear used in a pickup operation incidental to the discharge of the pipe. Ordinarily, dunnage, consisting of wood planks, is inserted between the layers of pipe in a cargo to permit the ready encirclement of each pipe by a choker line for removal by lifting from the hold by crane operation. Without dunnage, it is necessary to perform a preliminary pickup operation wherein one end of each pipe is lifted about 2 feet, the attending longshoremen then placing a 4-inch by 4-inch timber under the pipe, upon which the pipe is then lowered. It is then free from the other pipe on which it has rested and a choker line can be applied to it and the pipe lifted from the hold.

Normally four pipes are lifted in the preliminary operation at one time and again lowered, which was being done in the instant case by using a plasterboard bridle which had four hooks on it. When so lifted the pipes are moved out from the wing or side of the hatch to the center of the hatch and lowered on the 4-ineh by 4-ineh blocks. The plasterboard bridle is attached to a “blacksmith” from which run the cables to the cargo booms through a pulley and down onto the power driven winch drum. At the time of the accident here involved the four pipes had been lifted and plaintiff had picked up a 4-inch by 4-ineh block and was trying to place the block under the pipe. When he did so one of the pipes slipped from its hook, hit the 4-inch by 4-inch block, and it in turn struck plaintiff, breaking his jaw and causing other serious injuries.

*692 The plasterboard bridle method of discharging pipe was contended to be an unsafe method and complaints were made, to the supervising stevedore personnel prior to the accident. No complaint was made to defendant ship’s personnel. The danger of such method results from the fact that there is no purchase or grip between the metal pipe and metal hook. A safe method, in more common use in the Los Angeles Harbor area, for picking up 40-foot pipes, as here, was the sling and block pickup which involved inserting 4-inch by 4-inch blocks of 4 to 6 feet in length into each pipe (the pipes here were a little over a foot in diameter) and having a choker-sling wrapped around the protruding ends of the blocks and then lifted. When so lifted pressure is put on the block and it binds against the inside of the pipe preventing the pipe from slipping and falling. There is no metal to metal contact. The plasterboard bridle method is a faster method, however, and enables the stevedoring company to get more production. All the materials necessary to use both methods were available on board the vessel and in good condition at the time plaintiff was injured. All employees engaged in the unloading operations were longshoremen none a member of the ship’s crew; the longshoremen took no orders from the ship’s officers but received their supervision from the hatch boss, foreman for the stevedoring company. After the accident the longshoremen changed to the safe choker-sling method, with wooden blocks, to unload the remaining pipe.

Accordingly, the issue on appeal is whether the availability of proper gear on the vessel for a safe method of unloading avoids liability for the defendant shipowner, or the use of the improper gear, the plasterboard bridle method, fixes liability on defendant for the injuries sustained.

The evidence is clear and it is agreed that negligence might have been deemed by the jury to have been established, both in the method of cantline stowage used by defendant, without dunnage, and in the selection by the stevedoring company of the more hazardous method of performing the preliminary pickup operation which caused the accident. However, since the jury’s verdict may have been based on the theory of unseaworthiness, the judgment must stand or fall on the issue of whether or not the vessel was, in fact and in law, unseaworthy and whether this issue was submitted to the jury on proper instructions. Plaintiff contends that if unsafe gear was used, even though safe gear was made available by the ship and the selection was made by an independ *693 ent contractor, the vessel was legally and factually “unseaworthy” and liability attaches to the ship and her owner; defendant contends that the ship becomes unseaworthy under such circumstances only if the safe gear was not made available. The trial court gave an instruction which embodied plaintiff’s theory 1 and refused to give three instructions 2 requested by defendant and embodying its theory.

Though the forum herein is the state court of California, the federal maritime laws and decisions are controlling (Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 409 [74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143, 151]; Reynolds v. Royal Mail Lines, 147 F.Supp. 223, 226). The law does not impose upon a shipowner a duty to provide continuing observation and immediate supervision of work being done by a qualified independent stevedoring contractor in unloading ordinary cargo (Knox v. United States Lines Co. 294 F.2d 354). “Unseaworthiness” is explained in Doucette v. Vincent, 194 F.2d 834, at 837-838 as follows: “Nor is perfection required of shipowners by the maritime law of seaworthiness *694 for generally stated it is the shipowner’s duty under that law to provide a vessel sufficient, that is reasonably adequate, in materials, construction, equipment, stores, officers, men and outfit for the trade or service in which the vessel is employed.”

In The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, at page 175 [23 S.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed.

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Bluebook (online)
228 Cal. App. 2d 689, 39 Cal. Rptr. 758, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1129, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vittone-v-american-president-lines-calctapp-1964.