Italia Societa Azioni Navigazione v. Oregon Stevedoring Company/Dissent Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

376 U.S. 315

Italia Societa Azioni Navigazione  v.  Oregon Stevedoring Company

 Argued: Jan. 8, 1964. --- Decided: March 9, 1964

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join, dissenting.

Today's decision is commanded neither by Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S.C.orp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133, and its progeny, nor by the general law of warranty. In Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 72 S.Ct. 277, 96 L.Ed. 318, and Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143, we held that the system of compensation which Congress established in the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act ^[1] as the sole liability of a stevedoring company to its employees prevented a shipowner from shifting all or part of his liability to the injured longshoreman onto the stevedoring company, the longshoreman's employer. Ryan held no more than that the shipowner could recover over from the stevedoring company, by invoking the legal formula of warranty, where there had been a finding that the stevedoring company had been negligent. ^[2] In the present case there is an express finding that the stevedoring company was not negligent.

Moreover, the Court here expands the general law of warranty in a way which I fear will cause us regret in future cases in other areas of the law as well as in admiralty. There is no basis in past decisions of this or any other court for the holding that one who undertakes to do a job for another and is not negligent in any respect nevertheless has an insurer's absolute liability to indemnify for liability to injured workers which the party who hired the job done may incur.

Finally, the contract under which the parties dealt here provided that the stevedoring company was to be liable for personal injuries resulting from its negligence, while the shipowner was to be liable for injury caused by its own negligence 'or by reason of the failure of ship's gear and/or equipment.' This provision appears on its face to put the burden of liability for unseaworthiness, which was the basis of the worker's recovery here, on the shipowner, leaving negligence as the only basis on which the stevedoring company could be held liable. The District Court so held. The contract is before us, and we are as competent to interpret it now, without remanding to the Court of Appeals, as we are to invoke 'policy' reasons in order to expand Ryan and impose new financial burdens on stevedoring companies in plain violation of the policy Congress adopted in the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act.

For these and other reasons cogently expressed in Judge Hamlin's opinion for the Court of Appeals, 310 F.2d 481, I dissent.

Notes

1. 44 Stat. 1424, as amended, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950.
2. Reed v. The Yaka, 373 U.S. 410, 83 S.Ct. 1349, 10 L.Ed.2d 448, held only that a longshoreman could bring a suit for unseaworthiness against a stevedoring company which chartered a ship and was the longshoreman's employer. In that case no issue as to an implied warranty of workmanlike service arose because the stevedoring company had agreed in any case to hold the shipowner harmless without regard to negligence, see D.C., 183 F.Supp. 69, 70; furthermore, the stevedoring company there was also the operator of the vessel, and therefore in that particular case was primarily liable for unseaworthine s.