International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty

Haverty (plaintiff) was a longshoreman employed by International Stevedoring Company (IS) (defendant). Haverty was injured while stowing freight in the hold of a docked vessel. The hatch tender, who was also employed by IS, negligently failed to warn that a load was about to be lowered, and Haverty was seriously hurt when the load came down. Haverty brought a personal-injury action in Washington state court to recover damages from IS. IS sought a ruling that Haverty and the hatch tender were fellow servants, which would preclude Haverty from recovering from IS under the common-law fellow-servant rule. Congress’s Act of June 5, 1920, c. 250, § 20 (the Jones Act) provided that seamen who suffered personal injuries in the course of employment could maintain an action for damages and that the statutes modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railroad employees applied to actions brought by seamen. The court ruled that if the hatch tender’s failure to warn proximately caused Haverty’s injury, a verdict had to be returned for Haverty. A verdict was returned in favor of Haverty, and the Washington Supreme Court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court granted IS’s petition for a writ of certiorari. IS argued that the case was governed by the admiralty law and that the admiralty law had adopted the common-law fellow-servant rule.