prod.liab.rep.(cch)p 10,768 Eugene Bilderbeck v. World Wide Shipping Agency, a Corporation, Frankolyn Shipping, Ltd Star Shipping A/s

Eugene Bilderbeck, an injured longshoreman, appeals from a summary judgment in favor of defendant shipowners. The district court granted summary judgment after striking from Bilderbeck’s pleading his allegations of liability based on a theory that the shipowner had placed on the market or in the workplace a dangerously defective product (ship). We affirm.

In 1972, Congress amended the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 , et seq., to foreclose a shipowner’s previous “no fault” liability based on a theory of unseaworthiness or nondelegable duty. Scindia Steam Navigation Co. v. De Los Santos, 451 U.S. 156, 165 , 101 S.Ct. 1614, 1621 , 68 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981); see 33 U.S.C. § 905 . In return for a longshoreman’s loss of the right to collect compensation from the stevedore and then sue the ship for unseaworthiness, his compensation payments from the stevedore for injuries incurred in the course of employment were substantially increased. Scindia, 451 U.S. at 165 , 101 S.Ct. 1621 . The longshoreman still has a right to seek “third party” recovery from the shipowner for its negligence, but the stevedore’s obligation to indemnify the shipowner if the…