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Owner of Drilling Rig Not Liable for Injury Caused by Broken Flip-Flop

Case:   Myers v. Hercules Offshore Servs., L.L.C.
             United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
             2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 17047 (5th Cir. La. Sept. 25, 2015)

Garrard Myers injured his left ankle when he slipped and fell in the shower while aboard Hercules’ drilling rig in May 2013.The very next month Myers filed suit against Hercules under the Jones Act and general maritime law. The case proceeded to a bench trial in September 2014.

The issue for the trial court was causation, as two different versions of the accident were presented. Plaintiff testified that when exiting the shower stall adjacent to his bunkroom, he slipped on the shower floor and injured his ankle. The rig owner’s representative, however, testified that when he asked Myers what happened, Myers “explained that his slipper broke and he slipped in the shower.” The representative also testified that Myers prepared an incident report detailing that his flip-flop broke.

The district court found that Myers failed to establish either negligence or unseaworthiness because the “weight of the evidence” led to the conclusion that his injury occurred when his flip-flop broke. The Judge also concluded the rig was stationary and secured to the water bottom at the time of the accident and “[t]here are no regulations or other requirements that such a vessel have handrails in the shower.” As such, the court determined the rig was not unseaworthy for lacking handrails or mats in the shower.

The Court of Appeals found no fault in the trial judge’s findings, agreeing it was permissible for the factfinder to choose between two possible views of the evidence. The appellate court further dispensed with the notion that the trial court failed to “closely” inspect the flip-flops at issue to assess whether they were indeed broken as claimed. The court found, “When physical evidence is introduced at a bench trial, neither case law nor common sense establishes a minimum distance the judge must be from that evidence before the judge’s obligation to consider the evidence is satisfied. The district judge saw the evidence and gave it the weight she thought it deserved.”

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