# Zinnel v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.

> Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit · December 7, 1925 · 10 F.2d 47

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9637889

## Case

- **Full name:** Zinnel v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- **Decided:** December 7, 1925
- **Citations:** 10 F.2d 47; 1926 A.M.C. 632; 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 2213
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Hough
- **Judges:** Hough, Hand, MacK, Circuit-
- **Cited by:** 45 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/9637889

## Opinion text

HOUGH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part). I agree with this opinion regarding the admission in evidence of the photograph and the effect- of previous decisions of this court as to assumption of risk; but I cannot approve of the obvious intent of the majority to dump this ease on a jury with no more or different testimony than that which is now before us. Whenever a jury is asked to declare whether a certain act or omission is “lack of care according to the circumstanc'es” — i. e. negligent — proof of the circumstances includes proof as to what skilled men habitually do under similar circumstances, unless the occurrence at bar is so familiar to a jury of the vicinage as to need no such exposition. Injury by a vehicle to a foot passenger on a New York street crossing is an instance of such familiarity.
But the present decision invites, by easy possibility, a jury of tailors and haberdashers to pass judgment on how to make a wet and rolling deck in a seaway a “safe place to work”; for there is no evidence at all as to what good seamanship, not the fears of tailors, require on such a ship at such a time. In my opinion, no ease along these proper lines was made for a jury, and the result below was right.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9637889. Public record. Not legal advice.