## Facts

- Roger Murray, a longshoreman, worked aboard the container vessel M/V APL IRELAND.
- While descending a ladder holding rebar, the rebar contacted a vessel-provided floodlight, sending electrical current through Murray’s body and leaving a burn mark on his finger.
- Murray later reported symptoms including stuttering, balance and gait problems, and erectile dysfunction.
- Murray and his wife sued the vessel interests for negligence under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), alleging the vessel was turned over with a faulty floodlight.
- Plaintiffs presented a scientific expert on electrical injury and medical experts on injury and causation.
- A jury awarded Roger Murray more than $3.3 million and Elise Murray $270,000 for loss of consortium.
- The district court denied the defendants’ post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law, new trial, and remittitur.

## Issues

1. Whether the jury was improperly instructed that the LHWCA “turnover duty” requires the vessel owner to take reasonable steps to inspect the ship and its equipment before turnover and to deliver them in a reasonably safe condition.
2. Whether admitting the plaintiffs’ scientific expert testimony on low-voltage electrical shock and diffuse effects violated Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert.
3. Whether the district court erred in admitting the plaintiffs’ medical experts’ causation testimony.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment for plaintiffs.
- The court held the turnover-duty instruction was proper because delivering a reasonably safe vessel and equipment necessarily requires reasonable pre-turnover inspection.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the scientific expert testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert after assessing reliability.
- The court found no error in admitting the medical experts’ testimony; challenges largely went to weight rather than admissibility.
- Judge Bea dissented.

## Legal Principles

- Under the LHWCA, the vessel’s turnover duty includes turning over the vessel and equipment in a reasonably safe condition and entails reasonable steps to inspect for hazards discoverable by reasonable inspection.
- The turnover duty is framed by reasonableness and does not impose strict liability or make the vessel owner a guarantor of longshore worker safety.
- Rule 702 and Daubert require the trial court to act as a gatekeeper for expert reliability, but the evaluation is flexible; peer-reviewed publication and supporting scientific literature can support admissibility despite disputes about mechanisms or data limits.
- Disagreements with an expert’s conclusions or assumptions commonly affect the weight of testimony for the jury rather than its admissibility when the methodology is sufficiently reliable.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit left intact a multimillion-dollar LHWCA verdict, approving a turnover-duty instruction that includes reasonable inspection before turnover and affirming the admission of electrical-injury and medical causation expert testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert.


Murray v. S. Route Mar. SA, 870 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2017)