Kirsch v. Plovidba’s Empirical Analysis
971 F.2d 1026 · 1992
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2020 · most notably Howlett v. Birkdale Shipping Co., S.A. (1994), United States v. Rodriguez-Preciado (2005)
21 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1330 (§ 2 of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976) · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 33 U.S.C. § 905 · 33 U.S.C. § 933 · 33 U.S.C. § 941
Relies on Scindia Steam Navigation Co. v. De Los Santos · Federal Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Burnside Shipping Co. · Helaire v. Mobil Oil Co. · Treadaway v. Societe Anonyme Louis-Dreyfus · Harris v. Reederei
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] shipowner can, ordinarily, reasonably rely on the stevedore (and its long-shore employees) to notice obvious hazards and to take steps consistent with its expertise to avoid those hazards where practical to do so. ... [A] shipowner may be liable for failing to eliminate an eliminable hazard only if it should have expected that its expert stevedore would not avoid the hazard and conduct cargo operations safely.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The defendants do have a duty to warn of latent defects in the cargo stow and cargo area. This duty is a narrow one and attaches only to latent hazards defined as hazards that are not known to the stevedore and that would be neither obvious to nor anticipated by a skilled stevedore in the competent performance of his work. The duty encompasses only those hazards that are known to the vessel or should be known to it in the exercise of reasonable care. As I mentioned above, the defendants are not liable if the danger that caused Plaintiff Hill’s injuries would have been obvious to a reasonably competent stevedore. However, there is an exception to this rule. The defendants may be liable for an obvious hazard because custom, positive law, or contract instructs the ship owner to rectify the particular hazard, regardless of its obviousness. For example, where a ship owner should know that longshore workers frequently confront rather than avoid a type of obvious hazard, the ship owner may be negligent in not limiting the hazard.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“if the shipowner should have expected that the stevedore and its longshore workers could not or would not avoid the danger and conduct cargo operations reasonably safely.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.