William O. Douglas

“ We, the shipping company, were not negligent in failing to get it out of the way.'
'The plaintiff asserts here and asks you to believe and to weigh in the balance toward meeting the burden which he has to establish by the fair preponderance of the evidence that this officer was there but did not stop the operation. The defendant says, 'If you find, no matter what the officer says, that this was being unloaded in a reasonably safe manner then we were not liable; it may well be that the Atlantic & Gulf stevedores are liable, but we were not liable. ”

“ It also charged that if the verdict was for Beard, the jury should determine whether petitioner created the condition that made respondents liable. It charged:
'There again you have to run the whole gamut of facts in the case. You will have to decide whether or not there was an unreasonable discharge of this cargo, an unsafe method used in the discharge of this cargo, in the placing of the hook. Did they breach that contract to do it in a workmanlike manner with the utmost care? The steamship company says, 'Yes, they did. They breached that contract. They did not do it in a workmanlike manner. ”

“ Dugan & McNamara, 364 U.S. 421, 423, 81 S.Ct. 200, 201, 5 L.Ed.2d 169) , petitioner was liable, as a matter of law, to respondents. For if it was negligent for respondents to permit Beard to work in an unsafe place, it was 'equally negligent' for petitioner to handle the cargo in the manner in did, in light of the unsafe place where Beard worked. 289 F.2d 201, 207.
The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the judgment in favor of Beard and against respondents on the issue of negligence (without reaching the question of unseaworthiness) , but reversed the judgment in favor of Atlantic. ”

“ The discharging operation consisted of pulling the bales from their stowed positions to the hatch and then raising them vertically through the hatch and lowering them onto the pier. This was accomplished by using a ring to which six equal-length ropes were attached. ”