Seattle Stevedore Company v. Compania Maritima and Maritime Company of the Philippines

On July 20, 1963, the Seattle Stevedore Company was engaged in stowing cargo aboard the S.S. Manila pursuant to an oral contract with Compañía Marítima and Maritime Company of the Philippines, the vessel’s owner. “The cargo being loaded in the No. 5 ’tween deck area was rolls of paper, uniform in diameter but of varying lengths ranging from 36" to 52" and weighing upwards to 2000 pounds each. This cargo was to be stowed on the round, two tiers high. The second tier of rolls was stowed without the use of any gear or equipment other than a single track made of hatch-boards 12 inches in width. The floor or working surface on which Russell Sterling [one of the longshoremen employed by Stevedore] worked, consisting of the tops of the previously stowed rolls of paper, was uneven * * * there being a substantial valley from the crown of one roll to the crown of the adjacent roll. In moving a roll from the square of the hatch to the final resting place on the single track, the longshoreman lost control of the roll so that it tipped off the track crushing Russell Sterling * * *. Seattle Stevedore Company was in complete and exclusive control and charge of the method and manner in which the…