Nicholas P. Boorus v. West Coast Trans-Oceanic Steamship Line and Standard Steamship Corp.

This is a suit for personal injuries arising out of a fist fight occurring between two crewmen of the S. S. Columbia Trader.

Stevedores finished loading that ship, owned by appellee, at a dock in San Francisco Bay at 11:40 P.M. on August 25, 1958 when beams and hatch-boards were put aboard. The longshoremen left the vessel five minutes later with hatchboards in place. The last line left the dock at 11:56 P.M. and at 11:58 P.M. the vessel started down San Francisco Bay for the Golden Gate in a thick fog. Securing the hatches, i. e., placing the tarpaulin and strongbacks over the hatch beams and securing them by wooden wedges, was next required on Hatches 2, 4 and 5. It is usually the ship’s carpenter who drives in such wooden wedges to make the hatch shipshape for wet weather.

When a ship is moving through fog it is sometimes necessary, in aid of a quick maneuver, to drop an anchor. As the* vessel leaves a dock, the ship’s carpenter first brings in the lines cast off from the dock, and then stands by the anchor windlass on the forecastle head to drop the anchor, if ordered to do so by a ship’s officer. The ship’s carpenter so stood by in this case. The chief mate of the S. S.…