DISTRICT COURT TOO READILY ADOPTED THE SHIP OWNER’S THEORY OF THE CASE WITHOUT PROPERLY DRAWING REASONABLE INFERENCES FROM THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED IN FAVOR OF THE PLAINTIFF LONGSHOREMAN.
ANTHONY PAPARO, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. M/V ETERNITY; DENHOLM SHIP MANAGEMENT, LTD., Defendants, Appellees.
No. 05-1767
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
433 F.3d 169; 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 152
January 5, 2006, Decided
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Plaintiff longshoreman appealed an order of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, which granted summary judgment to defendant ship owner on a claim for negligence under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C.S. § 905(b).
OVERVIEW: The longshoreman claimed that that the accident occurred when someone on board a ship prematurely used the ship's winch to haul a line back in, thus jerking the line out of the longshoreman's grip, causing him to fall. The ship owner contended that a co-worker was accumulating slack on the pilings, and that the ship's winch was not capable of running fast enough to first take up that slack and then yank the line from the longshoreman's grip hard enough to knock him down. The district court concluded that it was impossible for the accident to have occurred as the longshoreman theorized. The court held that the district court too readily adopted the ship owner's theory of the case without properly drawing reasonable inferences from the evidence presented in favor of the longshoreman. There were triable issues of material fact about the cause of the accident. An opinion by the ship owner's expert rested on disputed facts: the operating speed of the winch and the number of feet of slack that were out on the line between the ship and the longshoreman. It was not the case that the only possible cause for the accident was that accumulated slack fell from the pilings into the water.
OUTCOME: The court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the ship owner and remanded to the district court.
