Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted.
The respondent, a shipowner, sought indemnity from the petitioner, a stevedoring company, for damages the shipowner had paid to an employee of the stevedore who was injured while working aboard the respondent’s ship. See Albanese v. N. V. Nederl. Amerik Stoomv. Maats., 382 U. S. 283 (1965). A jury found that the stevedoring company had fulfilled its duty of workmanlike service and, accordingly, that no indemnity was due. See Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956). The Court of Appeals reversed this verdict and held, as a matter of law, that the stevedore had not taken reasonable action to avert the injury. 392 P. 2d 763 (1968).
The cause of the longshoreman’s injury was carbon monoxide inhalation that occurred as he and other longshoremen were using gasoline-powered vehicles to move cargo in the ship’s lower hold. The shipowner contends that the stevedore’s hatch boss acted unreasonably. When longshoremen complained about the lack of ventilation in the hold, the hatch boss informed one of , the ship’s officers that his men would walk off the job unless the officer turned on the ship’s ventilating system. The officer told the men to continue working and promised to activate the ventilating system, which was within the shipowner’s exclusive control and which was concededly adequate to ventilate the hold. When, less than 10 minutes later, the hatch boss realized that the ventilating system had not been turned on, he ordered the men from the hold. The injured longshoreman collapsed as he was ascending a ladder to leave.
The Court of Appeals said that the hatch boss should have ceased work when he first learned that the ship’s ventilating system was not operating, despite the officer’s promise to turn on the system. Alternatively, he should have used the stevedore’s blowers, which had been left on the pier, to ventilate the hold. The jury, however, in response to a special interrogatory, found that the stevedore had acted reasonably in continuing to work for a brief period in reliance on the officer’s promise. We cannot agree with the Court of Appeals that the stevedore acted unreasonably as a matter of law. Under the Seventh Amendment, that issue should have been left to the jury’s determination. Any other ruling would be inconsistent with this Court’s decision in Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355 (1962).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations