Jean Ruth Rawson, Individually, and as Administratrix of the Estate of Thomas Roy Rawson, Deceased v. Calmar Steamship Corporation, a Corporation

On the morning of June 16, 1958, the decedent, Rawson, and one Ross, fellow longshoreman, were on the weather deck of the S. S. Kenmar, the Calmar Company ship which was berthed at a dock in Seattle with cargo to be there unloaded. The night before, the crew of the vessel had uncradled the ship’s booms from their fixed positions in which they rode at sea. The port boom for the No. 3 hatch had been upright against the mast. The crew had lowered the boom perhaps to an angle of about 65° with the deck, or one-third of the way down.

The purpose of lowering the boom is to get it into a working position for use during the loading or unloading of cargo from the hatch. It is a normal occurrence, even though the crew has set the booms, that longshoremen find some adjustment of position is necessary. This, Rawson and Ross, who was working with him, were doing. Ross appears to have been acting under the direction of the former at the material time.

To adjust the boom it was necessary to use a topping lift winch, part of a ship’s normal equipment adjacent to a hatch. (This particular winch was perhaps rigged so that it could have been used in the unloading of cargo, but in practice it was…