INTERNATIONAL STEVEDORING COMPANY
v.
HAVERTY
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
A longshoreman employed by a stevedoring company was injured when a hatch tender failed to signal before lowering cargo onto him, and the defendant stevedore argued the fellow servant rule barred recovery. The Supreme Court held that the Seamen's Act of 1920, which eliminated the fellow servant defense for seamen, applies to stevedores engaged in maritime work on navigable waters, thus allowing the longshoreman to recover despite the common law fellow servant doctrine.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action brought in a State Court seeking a common law remedy for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, the respondent here, upon a vessel at dock in the harbor of Seattle. The plaintiff was a longshorenian^-engaged in stowing freight in the hold. Through the negligence of the hatch tender, no warning was given that a load of freight was about to be lowered, and when the load came down the plaintiff was.badly hurt. The plaintiff and the hatch tender both were employed by the defendant steveddre, the petitioner here, and the defendant asked for a ruling that they were fellow servants and that therefore the plaintiff could not recover. The Court ruled that if the failure of the hatch tender to give a signal' was the proximate cause of the injury the verdict must be for the plaintiff. A verdict was found for him and a judgment on the verdict was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. 134 Wash. 235, 245. A writ of certiorari was granted by this Court. 269 U. S. 549.
The petitioner argues that the case is governed by the admiralty law; that the admiralty law has taken up the common law doctrine as to fellow servants, and that by the common law the plaintiff would have no case. Whether this last proposition is true we do not decide. The petitioner cites a number of decisions of which it is enough to mention The Hoquiam, 253 Fed. Rep. 627, and Cassil v. United States Emergency Fleet Corporation, 289 Fed. Rep. 774. It also refers to an intimation of this Court that, whether the established doctrine be good or bad, it is not open to courts to do away with it upon their personal notions of what is expedient. It is open to Congress, however, to change the rule, and in our opinion it has done so. By the Act of June 5, 1920, c. 250, § 20; 41 Stat. 988, 1007, “any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with' the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply.” It is not disputed that the statutes do away with the fellow servant rule in the case of personal injuries to railway employees. Second Employers’ Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 49. The question, therefore, is how far the Act of 1920 should be taken to extend.
It is true that for most purposes, as the word is commonly used, stevedores are not “ seamen.” But words are flexible. The work upon which the plaintiff was engaged was a maritime service formerly rendered by the ship’s crew. Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, 62. We cannot believe that Congress willingly would have allowed the protection to men engaged upon the same maritime duties to vary with the accident of their being employed by a stevedore rather than by the ship. The policy of the statute is directed to the safety of the men and to treating compensation for injuries to them as properly part of the cost of the business. If they should be protected in the one. case they should be in the other. In view of the broad field in which Congress has-disapproved and changed the rule introduced into the common law within less than a century, we are of opinion that a wider scope should be given to the words-of' the act, and that in this statute “ seamen ” is to be taken to include stevedores employed in maritime work on navigable waters as the plaintiff was, whatever it might mean in laws of a different kind.
Judgment affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (100 total)
-
Seas Shipping Co., Inc. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85 (U.S. 1946)…ship’s service with the owner’s consent. For this view, in addition to the stated considerations of principle, the court rightly found support in the trend and policy of this Court’s decisions, especially in International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50; Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52; and Uravic v. Jarka Co., 282 U. S. 234. The Haverty case is of special importance. The Court of Appeals said, with reference to its bearing and that of the Imbrovek decision: “And so an injury to a…1 / 2
-
Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406 (U.S. 1953)…n employer for negligence in not providing safe conditions of work. And in 1926 this Court extended to them the additional benefits of the Jones Act, by construing “seaman” to include a longshore [*415] man. International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50. Congress, preferring a different mode of recovery for longshoremen than for seamen, displaced their right to sue their employer for negligence by a workmen’s compensation act applicable solely to longshoremen, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. Like other b…1 / 2
-
S. Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U.S. 251 (U.S. 1940)…”8 We think that this substitution has an important significance here. For we had held that longshoremen engaged on a vessel at a dock in navigable waters, in the work of loading or unloading, were “seamen.” International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50; Northern Coal Co. v. Strand, 278 U. S. 142. And, also, that such seamen if' injured on a vessel in navigable waters, unlike one injured on land, could not have the benefit of a state workmen’s compensation act. Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U…
Previewing 3 of 100 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Second Employers' Liability Cases. Mondou v. New York, 223 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1912)
- Atl. Transp. Co. of W. Va. v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52 (U.S. 1914)