Background
Amie Jackson, a stevedore employed by Patrick Stevedores Holdings Pty Ltd, was injured aboard the MV Kota Lambang at Port Botany on 22 August 2018. While container-lashing work was underway, two portable stowage hooks holding lashing bars gave way. The bars fell onto and trapped her right leg and foot. The ship was owned and operated by Pacific International Lines (Private) Limited.
The new hooks had been obtained shortly before the incident. They were wider, less reinforced and inadequately specified compared with the older hooks they replaced. Many hooks were already full or nearly full when unloading began. Jackson suffered a serious right ankle injury, later neck and shoulder injuries associated with treatment and crutch use, and an exacerbation of pre-existing psychiatric and substance-use conditions.
The Court’s Holding
Harrison AsJ held that the shipowner breached its duty of care by inadequately specifying and fitting equipment that was not fit for its intended purpose. The foreseeable risk was that inadequately designed hooks would fail and seriously injure stevedores. The Court rejected the shipowner’s argument that the defect was merely latent and not discoverable by reasonable inspection.
The employer also breached its duty, though to a lesser degree. Its safety facilitator should have alerted the shipowner that the hooks were full or close to full and requested that they be emptied before work began. Liability was apportioned 80% to the shipowner and 20% to the employer. Jackson was not contributorily negligent, and the risk of sudden hook failure was not an obvious risk. Judgment was entered against both defendants, with damages and cross-claim amounts to be calculated by agreement.
Key Takeaways
- A shipowner must take reasonable care that ship-supplied equipment used by stevedores is fit for purpose.
- An employer may remain liable where its pre-operation safety process fails to address an apparent operational hazard.
- Pre-existing psychiatric and spinal conditions did not defeat recovery where the incident materially aggravated them.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes a shipowner’s responsibility for unsafe vessel equipment from a stevedoring employer’s responsibility for the safe conduct of cargo operations. Both duties may be engaged by the same incident, but responsibility depends on each party’s actual role in creating or addressing the risk.
It also illustrates the treatment of pre-existing vulnerabilities in damages assessments: defendants must compensate for a material aggravation, while the court may account for the prospect that pre-existing conditions would independently have affected future earning capacity.