Venue: |
US Court of Appeals, 2nd Cir.
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Facts: |
Carroll's bargeman went ashore, and was therefore unavailable to
oversee the "drill out" of the Anna C, which came
unmoored and smashed into a tanker whose propeller made a
hole in the Anna C's side, causing her to sink with
government-owned cargo. This was during WWII, incidentally. |
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Posture: |
Finding at trial for the plaintiff(?); there's confusion about
admiralty law here-- people are trying to reduce the damages
and recover the value of the barge. It's not really important.
The main thing is Learned Hand's formula. |
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Issue: |
How do we decide if there's negligence here? |
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Holding: |
There is negligence. Reversed, and remanded for allocation of
damages. |
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Rule: |
If the Burden of prevention is less than the product of the
Probability of harm and the Loss due to injury, then you're
negligent not to undertake that burden. |
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Reasoning: |
It was prety obvious that there'd be barge-moving, under the
busy harbor circumstances, and it's pretty clear that
barge-moving entails some risk, or else we wouldn't have
barge monitor guys. So, skipping out on that duty represents
a shirking of the burden to prevent harm. |
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Dicta: |
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