IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
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No. 97-30942
Summary Calendar
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DENNIS R. TROSCLAIR and CYNTHIA R. TROSCLAIR,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
PRIDE OFFSHORE SERVICES, INC., and SIGNAL MUTUAL ASSOCIATION,
Intervenors-Plaintiffs-
Appellees,
VERSUS
HALLIBURTON COMPANY, et al.,
Defendants,
HALLIBURTON COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
(95-CV-3053)
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September 8, 1998
Before JOLLY, SMITH, and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:*
In this diversity action for negligence, Dennis Trosclair sued
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion
should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
Halliburton Company (“Halliburton”) for injuries sustained while
working on a fixed platform off the coast of Louisiana. A jury
awarded $705,000 in damages and future medical expenses. Because
the negligence complained of was not the legal cause of Trosclair’s
injury, we reverse.
I.
The material facts are not in dispute. Pride Offshore
Services, Inc. (“Pride”), is a drilling contractor engaged by Shell
Offshore, Inc. (“Shell”), to perform drilling operations on Shell’s
Platform C, located off the coast of Louisiana. Trosclair was an
experienced “toolpusher” employed by Pride, and as such he
supervised the work of Pride’s drilling crews and roustabout crews
on the platform.
Shell also engaged defendant Halliburton Company (“Hal-
liburton”) to perform cement work on Platform C. The apparatus
required to perform this work consisted of a mixing tank (in which
dry cement is mixed with water to prepare it for use) and a pumping
section (which pumps the mixed, liquid cement to wherever it is
needed).
Following the uneventful completion of cementing operations,
Todd Defelice, a Halliburton employee, commenced his cleanup of the
cementing apparatus. He began by filling the mixing tank with
water, in order to wash out cement residue. He then opened the
tank’s discharge valve, to drain the cement residue into a
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discharge line leading to the Gulf of Mexico. Because of a
blockage, however, the mixing tank did not drain when he opened the
valve.
As per standard procedure, Defelice disconnected the discharge
line from the discharge valve. As the valve was not closed when he
did this, water and cement residue poured onto the platform floor.
Defelice then attempted to reattach the line. At some point either
before or during this reattachment, someone closed the valve.1
Trosclair, observing Defelice’s difficulties, volunteered to
help. Together with Defelice, Trosclair picked up the line to
attach it to the valve. Although the line was heavy, weighing
approximately fifty pounds, Trosclair was accustomed to lifting
such heavy objects as part of his employment duties. This time,
however, Trosclair injured his back in doing so.
II.
While Halliburton raises numerous issues on appeal, resolution
of the issue of legal cause alone is dispositive. As legal cause
is a legal issue, the appropriate standard of review is de novo.
Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U.S. 225, 231 (1991); Todd v.
State, 699 So. 2d 35, 39 (La. 1997).
A.
1
The record is imprecise as to whether it was Defelice or Trosclair who
closed the valve, but this fact is immaterial.
3
Louisiana follows the “duty/risk” inquiry for determining
liability for negligence under LA. CIV. CODE. ANN. art. 2315 (West
1997). Mathieu v. Imperial Toy Corp., 646 So. 2d 318, 321 (La.
1994). One of the elements of this inquiry is “legal cause,” also
known as “proximate cause.” Id. at 322.
Legal cause is satisfied when the harm resulting from a
defendant’s actions is substantially related to the risk created,
taking into account the foreseeability of the harm and the “ease of
association” of the harm to the risk. Roberts v. Benoit,
605 So. 2d 1032, 1052-58 (La. 1992). This is “primarily a policy
decision.” Id. at 1060 (Lemon, J., concurring).
B.
The negligence arises from the actions of Defelice, who
allowed cement sludge to spill onto the deck. On the other hand,
the injury complained of arises from Trosclair’s voluntary decision
to help. The critical question is whether Defelice’s (and thus
Halliburton’s) negligence in allowing cement sludge to spill onto
the deck can constitute the legal cause of the injury. We conclude
that it cannot.
The foreseeable harm in allowing something to spill is that
someone may slip or fall on the spill, or that otherwise
unhazardous activities might become hazardous because of the
presence of the spill. For the most part, only injuries caused in
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this way can easily be associated, as a matter of law, with the
risk created by the spill.
Trosclair, however, did not slip or fall on the sludge, nor
did the cement sludge make his lifting of the discharge line
particularly difficult or hazardous. He merely performed his usual
duties in the customary manner; the only relationship between his
injury and Halliburton’s negligence is that the latter prompted him
to undertake the voluntary actions that led to the former. This
establishes only cause-in-fact, a mere predicate to legal cause.
Roberts v. Benoit, 605 So. 2d 1032, 1052 (La. 1991).
The nexus required to find legal causeSSi.e., the more
specific nexus between the risk created and the harm causedSShas
not been demonstrated; Trosclair injured himself during the
ordinary performance of his employee responsibilities, and the
negligence in question did not make these responsibilities (that
is, the lifting of heavy objects) different in either kind or
degree from his past performance of them. For this reason, on
analogous facts, Louisiana courts have held that legal cause does
not exist.2
2
See Pratt v. Lifemark Corp., 531 So. 2d 488 (La. App. 4th Cir. 1988), writ
denied, 536 So. 2d 1214 (La. 1989) (hospital’s negligence in failing to provide
sufficient number of orderlies not the proximate cause of doctor’s injury, incurred
as he attempted to transfer a patient into the operating room; duty to provide
orderlies is to guard against the risk of harm to patients, not to doctors);
Mitchell v. Fidelity & Cas. Co., 488 So. 2d 1089 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1986) (holding
that motorist’s negligence in losing control of vehicle, causing it to fall into a
ditch, was not the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury, incurred as he attempted
to help motorist push car out of the ditch; duty to drive carefully is one owed to
pedestrians and other drivers, not to individuals who voluntarily assist motorist
in non-emergency situations).
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This result is sensible. Imposition of liability in such a
situation would suggest that all employees have a right to recover
amounts in addition to workers' compensation when their on-the-job
injuries can be fortuitously linked to the negligence of a
co-worker, even if that negligence in no way increased the
difficulty or risk of harm arising out of plaintiff’s ordinary
course of employment. This rule would lead to particularly curious
results where an employee’s obligations are indeed triggered by the
negligence of another.
Take, for example, a supermarket janitor, whose job it is to
clean up the spills of others. Is it possible that every time he
bends over to mop up a negligently-caused spill, a viable personal
injury suit is spawned if he pulls a muscle in doing so? The
answer must be no, for the ordinary, unexceptional, everyday risks
associated with one’s employment are assumed, and cannot be the
basis of a tort action. See W. PAGE KEETON ET AL., PROSSER AND KEETON ON
THE LAW OF TORTS § 68, at 480-81 (5th ed. 1984).
REVERSED.
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