Connelly v. Cunard Steamship Co.

Headnote

Negligence — master and servant — ships and shipping — longshoreman working in hold of vessel injured by fall of draft of cargo owing to breaking of chain.

Connelly v. Cunard Steamship Co., 203 App. Div. 884 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered December 11, 1922, affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a verdict in an action to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff through the negligence of defendant, his employer. Plaintiff was working as a longshoreman in one of the holds of the defendant’s steamship Vellavia, stowing railroad rails, which were being put on board from a lighter alongside. There were two rails in each draft, .held together in a chain sling. The rails were from forty-five to sixty feet in length and weighed about 1,500 pounds each. While one of these drafts, consisting of two rails, was being lowered, and after it had been swung on board from the lighter, and while directly over the hatch and being lowered, the lower end of the rails being then about three feet below the coamings

of the hatch, one of the links of the chain sling, to wit, the one which held the hook, known as the crown link, suddenly broke, precipitating the rails into the hatch and causing the injury to the plaintiff.