Legal Definitions - turnover duty

Turnover duty is a principle in maritime law that outlines a shipowner's specific responsibility to ensure safety when parts of their vessel are handed over to independent contractors, such as stevedores or longshoremen, for the purpose of loading or unloading cargo.

This duty requires the shipowner to:

• Provide a reasonably safe environment in the areas and with the equipment they "turn over" to the contractors.
• Warn the contractors of any hidden dangers or non-obvious hazards that they might encounter in those areas or with that equipment.

Essentially, the shipowner must ensure that the initial conditions of the workspace and tools provided are safe and free from concealed risks that the contractors would not reasonably discover on their own. The shipowner is not expected to supervise the contractors' ongoing work, but rather to ensure the safety of the environment and equipment at the point of turnover.

Examples:

• Example 1: Unsafe Cargo Hold Ladder

  A cargo ship arrives at port, and its crew prepares a hold for unloading. The shipowner directs a team of stevedores to enter this hold to begin removing cargo. Unbeknownst to the stevedores, a critical rung on a fixed ladder within the hold is severely rusted and loose, a defect that is not immediately visible in the dim lighting and which the ship's crew was aware of but did not repair or disclose. When a stevedore uses the ladder, the rung gives way, causing them to fall and sustain an injury.

  This illustrates turnover duty because the shipowner "turned over" the cargo hold, including the ladder, to the stevedores. Their duty required them to either repair the non-obvious hazard (the loose rung) or clearly warn the stevedores about it before they began work. Failing to do so would be a breach of their turnover duty.

• Example 2: Faulty Onboard Crane

  A shipowner provides one of the vessel's onboard cranes for longshoremen to use in lifting heavy containers from the deck to the dock. The ship's maintenance log, known to the crew, indicates a recurring issue with the crane's emergency braking system, but this information is not shared with the longshoremen. During an operation, the brake fails, causing a container to swing dangerously and injure a worker.

  Here, the shipowner "turned over" the crane (an instrument) for the longshoremen's use. Their turnover duty obligated them to ensure the equipment was safe for its intended purpose or to warn of any known, non-obvious defects, such as the faulty brake. The failure to disclose this critical safety information constitutes a breach of this duty.

• Example 3: Hidden Slippery Deck Surface

  Prior to docking, a small spill of a clear, highly slippery chemical occurred on a section of the ship's main deck where longshoremen would need to walk to access certain cargo hatches. The ship's crew attempted to clean it, but a thin, invisible, and extremely slick residue remained. The longshoremen are directed to this area to begin their work, unaware of the hazard. One longshoreman slips on the residue and is injured.

  This demonstrates turnover duty because the shipowner "turned over" this deck area as a workspace. Their duty included warning the longshoremen about the non-obvious hazard of the invisible slippery residue, which posed a significant risk of injury, even if the crew believed they had cleaned it adequately.