## Facts

- Henry Ferguson worked as a second baker aboard the passenger ship *Brazil*, owned and operated by Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.
- Part of Ferguson’s duties required filling waiters’ orders for ice cream.
- A waiter ordered 12 portions of ice cream stored in a two-and-one-half-gallon container kept in a deep freeze, making it extremely hard.
- The hemispherical scoop furnished to Ferguson could not remove the ice cream due to its hardness.
- To serve the order, Ferguson used a sharp butcher knife kept nearby, chipping at the ice cream.
- The knife struck an especially hard spot; Ferguson’s hand slipped onto the blade, resulting in the loss of two fingers on his right hand.
- Ferguson testified the ice cream could have been loosened safely with an ice chipper, which he had used on other ships, but no such tool was provided on the *Brazil*.
- Evidence indicated the scoop was inadequate for the ice cream’s condition and that the extreme hardness resulted from a crew member’s failure to move the ice cream from the deep freeze to a tempering chest in time to soften it.
- Ferguson sued under the Jones Act (applying FELA’s negligence standard); a jury awarded him $17,500, but the Second Circuit reversed on foreseeability grounds.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the Jones Act/FELA standard, the evidence was sufficient to permit a jury to find employer negligence for failing to provide an adequate tool and maintaining conditions that made the task unsafe.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit.
- The Court held there was sufficient evidence for a jury to decide whether the employer was negligent in failing to furnish an adequate tool to perform the task safely.
- The jury’s verdict for Ferguson was effectively reinstated.

## Legal Principles

- In Jones Act cases incorporating FELA negligence principles, the evidentiary threshold for submitting negligence and causation-related questions to the jury is low when there is a reasonable basis in the record.
- An employer’s failure to furnish reasonably safe and adequate tools for assigned work can support a finding of negligence.
- Appellate courts should not remove a Jones Act/FELA case from the jury by treating foreseeability as a bar where the record provides evidence from which negligence may reasonably be inferred.

## Conclusion

The Court held that evidence of dangerously hard ice cream caused by shipboard handling and the absence of a safe, suitable implement (such as an ice chipper) allowed a jury to find negligence under the Jones Act/FELA standard, making reversal of the jury verdict improper.


Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 352 U.S. 521 (1957)