Alaska Steamship Co., Inc. v. Petterson (347 U.S. 396)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 5, 1954 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 347 U.S. 396 · 74 S. Ct. 601
- Docket
- No. 287
- Argued
- March 8, 1954
- Decided
- April 5, 1954
- Term
- October Term 1953
- Vote
- 6–3
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Warren, Justice Black, Justice Douglas, Justice Clark, Justice Reed, Justice Minton
- Dissenting
- Justice Frankfurter, Justice Burton (wrote), Justice R. H. Jackson
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. The judgment is affirmed. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, 100; Pope & Talbot v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406. Mr. Justice Burton, with whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Jackson join, dissenting. The Sieracki and Pope & Talbot cases cited as the basis for the Court’s decision do not justify the result announced. They evidence this Court’s latest and broadest statement of a shipowner’s liability for the unseaworthiness of his ship arid its equipment, but they do not reach the instant case. They assert the liability of a shipowner to stevedores and carpenters who, in consequence of the unseaworthiness of his ship or its equipment, are injured on board in navigable waters .while engaged in work connected with loading or unloading the ship. Those cases establish that such liability for unseaworthiness exists although the injured maritime workers are not employees of the shipowner but are employees of a third party who is under contract to supply stevedoring services. The question presented by the instant case goes further. It asks whether a shipowner is liable for injuries suffered on his ship by a stevedore, even when those injuries result from unseaworthiness of equipment that does not belong to the shipowner and is not part of the ship’s equipment, but belongs to the stevedore’s independent employer, is part of that employer’s loading equipment, and…
Excerpt of a 12,662-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.