Albert Howlett v. Birkdale Shipping Co., S. A. (512 U.S. 92)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 13, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 512 U.S. 92 · 114 S. Ct. 2057
- Decided
- June 13, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1993
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. Under § 5(b) of the Longshore and. Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 905(b), a shipowner must exercise ordinary care to maintain the ship and its equipment in a condition so that an expert and experienced stevedore can load and unload cargo with reasonable safety. As a corollary to this duty, the shipowner must warn the stevedore of latent hazards, as the term is defined in maritime law, that are known or should be known to the shipowner. This case requires us to define the circumstances under which a shipowner must warn of latent hazards in the cargo stow or cargo area. I The case arrives after a grant of summary judgment to respondent Birkdale Shipping Co., S. A., so we consider the facts in the light most favorable to petitioner Albert Howlett. Howlett, a longshoreman employed in the Port of Philadelphia by stevedore Northern Shipping Co., was injured while discharging bags of cocoa beans from a cargo hold on the MV Presidente Ibanez, a ship owned and operated by Birkdale. During the unloading operation, Howlett and three other longshoremen hooked up a draft, or load, of bags stowed on the tween deck of the hold. When the ship’s boom lifted the draft out of the hold, an 8-square-foot area of the tween deck was exposed. Howlett, who was standing on surrounding bags, jumped down about three feet to the deck,…
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