reasoning in part that under the 1972 Amendments the shipowner was not liable based on “congressional intent to foreclose the faultless liability of the shipowner based on a theory of unseaworthiness or nondelegable duty” and further explaining that the 1972 Amendments abolished “the longshoreman’s right to recover for unseaworthiness”
How later courts described this case
- reasoning in part that under the 1972 Amendments the shipowner was not liable based on “congressional intent to foreclose the faultless liability of the shipowner based on a theory of unseaworthiness or nondelegable duty” and further explaining that the 1972 Amendments abolished “the longshoreman’s right to recover for unseaworthiness”
- holding that a vessel may be liable “if it fails to exercise due care to avoid exposing longshoremen to harm from hazards they may encounter in areas, or from equipment, under the active control of the vessel during the stevedoring operation.”
- stating that the vessel owner may be liable “if it fails to exercise due care to avoid exposing longshoremen to harm from hazards they may encounter in areas, or from equipment, under the active control of the vessel”
- extending a vessel owner’s duty before turning the vessel over to a stevedore "at least to ... warning the stevedore of any hazards on the ship or with respect to its equipment that are known to the vessel or should be known to it in the exercise of reasonable care, that would likely be encountered by the stevedore in the course of his cargo operations and that are not known by the stevedore and would not be obvious to or anticipated by him if reasonably competent in the performance of his work.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun join, concurring.
My views are that under the 1972 Amendments: (1) a shipowner has a general duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances; (2) in exercising reasonable care, the shipowner must take reasonable steps to determine whether the ship’s equipment is safe before turning that equipment over to the stevedore; (3) the shipowner has a duty to inspect the equipment turned over to the stevedore or to supervise the stevedore if a custom, contract provision, law or regulation creates either of those duties; and (4) if the shipowner has actual knowledge that equipment in the control of the stevedore is in an unsafe condition, and a reasonable belief that the stevedore will not remedy that condition, the shipowner has a duty either to halt the stevedor-ing operation, to make the stevedore eliminate the unsafe condition, or to eliminate the unsafe condition itself.
*180 Since I read the Court’s opinion to be consistent with these views, I join the Court’s opinion.