Shell Oil Co. v. Allied Construction & Engineering Co.

Opinion

ROTH, P. J. Plaintiff Philip McMahon, a member of a work gang employed by respondent Allied Construction & Engineering Company (Allied), was injured aboard the vessel Cal Tide owned, (by bareboat charter) by appellant Shell Oil Company (Shell). Shell answered plaintiff’s complaint and cross-complained against Allied on the basis of indemnity clauses contained in the contract which both had executed to cover the maritime work in question and hereafter referred to in some detail. Plaintiff and Shell settled during the course of trial, the latter stipulating to an entry of judgment in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $70,000.

The cross-action was thereafter tried to the court sitting without a jury. [3]A memorandum of intended decision in favor of Allied was followed by proposed findings and conclusions prepared by Allied to which Shell objected. Shell also requested additional findings. The trial court adopted Allied’s findings and conclusions, and overruled and rejected Shell’s objections and request for additional findings. Shell appeals from the judgment entered in Allied’s favor.

Plaintiff’s injury occurred during the execution of the preparatory phase of a difficult maneuver which had as its object the relocation of the Blue Water, a floating drilling platform owned by Shell, by means of the Cal Tide. The latter vessel was equipped to hoist and drop into position the eight heavy anchors which held the Blue Water in place.

Critical to the operation, which was always executed by a special anchor moving crew, were four pendant cable drums which were used to store the cable used in raising and lowering the anchors. When the special anchor moving crew reported aboard at approximately 4:45 p.m. on February 4, 1965, the day of the injury, their foreman, Mr. Holder, was requested by one of Shell’s “operations assistants,” Mr. Douglas Smith, to remove “old” pendant cable which had been stored on one of the pendant cable drums. After issuing the instructions, Mr. Smith left for his office ashore.

The cable drum was equipped with a hydraulic power source which was operative on the day in question. The chain, however, which transmitted the power to the drum had been disconnected by agents and/ or orders of Shell’s agents and the Allied crew began to “free-wheel” the cable drum. It was in actuality in an effort to start the “free-wheel” that plaintiff climbed onto the support bracket of the drum and began pushing the drum’s spokes with his left foot—while holding on to the turning rim of the drum—that his left foot slipped, was caught between the spokes and the bracket, and was crushed.