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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY PADUCAH DIVISION CASE NO. 5:10-CV-00005-R WILLIAM H. WALDSACHS v. INLAND MARINE SERVICE, INC. and C/C TRANSPORT, INC. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER This matter is before the Court on Defendant Inland Marine Service, Inc.'s motion for summary judgment (DN 31). Plaintiff has responded (DN 39) and Defendant has replied (DN 42). This matter is now ripe for adjudication. For the following reasons, Defendant's motion is DENIED. BACKGROUND Plaintiff William H. Waldsachs was an employee of Defendant Inland Marine Service Inc. ("Inland Marine"), a shipping company operating barges on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. On March 23, 2009, after a thirty-day term of service on the M/V Clyde Butcher, one of Inland Marine's barges, Waldsachs disembarked in Owensboro, Kentucky. This was several hundred miles upriver from his home in Paducah, Kentucky. From there, Waldsachs boarded a van, owned by Defendant C/C Transport, Inc. ("C/C") and operated by George Bobo, which was to drive him to Paducah. The trip over land was to take roughly two hours and fifteen minutes. Waldsachs and Bobo were the only people in the van. Bobo took the most direct route from Owensboro to Paducah, along the Western Kentucky Parkway ("Parkway"). The Parkway is a four-lane, limited access highway. At some PLAINTIFF

DEFENDANTS

point into the drive, Waldsachs requested that Bobo pull over so that he could urinate.1 Somewhere around Princeton, Kentucky, and exit thirteen (13) on the Parkway, Bobo acceded to Waldsachs's requests and stopped the van.2 Waldsachs exited the van, stepped over a guard rail running along the shoulder and proceeded to walk into an open field that abutted the Parkway. He claims his destination was a tree line that stood roughly eighty yards from the Parkway, where he would be afforded some privacy to relieve himself. While crossing the field, Waldsachs stepped into a hole that had been obstructed by debris and fractured his left tibia and fibula.3 Unable to stand, Waldsachs crawled back to the van and Bobo drove him for treatment at a nearby hospital. The injury later required surgery at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. On January 6, 2010, Waldsachs filed this action under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.

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