# Scindia Steam Navigation Co. v. De Los Santos

> Supreme Court of the United States · April 21, 1981 · 451 U.S. 156

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428294

## Case

- **Full name:** SCINDIA STEAM NAVIGATION CO., LTD. v. DE LOS SANTOS Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** April 21, 1981
- **Citations:** 451 U.S. 156; 49 U.S.L.W. 4405; 101 S. Ct. 1614; 68 L. Ed. 2d 1; 1981 U.S. LEXIS 20
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** White, Burgee, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
- **Cited by:** 603 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428294

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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 abolish…
- 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”
- observing that, with the 1972 amendments to the LHWCA, "the longshoreman's right to recover for unseaworthiness was abolished" and "his right to recover from the shipowner for negligence was preserved in § 905(b), which provided a statutory negligence action against the ship"

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428294. Public record. Not legal advice.