PLAINTIFFS STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT REQUEST FOR CONTINUANCE

JEFFREY S. WHITE, District Judge.

NOW COMES plaintiff and requests a continuance of the status conference for three-six months.

Plaintiff was driving a tractor and container while working as a longshore person, when she turned the corner in the container yard (after the container had been offloaded from a purportedly Horizon line vessel) at an appropriate rate of speed and turn radius. The tractor, chassis and container turned over and plaintiff sustained multiple injuries. Plaintiff was disabled and collected longshore and harbor workers benefits. 33 U.S.C. § 901 et. seq.

The marine survey of the accident indicated that the container was aboard a Horizon Lines vessel, that the load had shifted and it was overweight. Under maritime law, the vessel has to care for its cargo while in transit. After informal discovery after the complaint was filed, Horizon showed that the vessel was not their vessel and it belonged to REEDEREI HAMBURGER LLOYD, a German company. The complaint was amended naming the latter. The amended complaint is currently being translated into German and is required to be served in conjunction with the requirements of the Hague convention.

After obtaining the shipping documents, the company that provided the product was ASERRADEROS ARAUCO, SA in San Pedro De la Paz, Concepcion, Chile. Plaintiff made contact with its U.S. counterpart as well as the Chilean company. Defendant Arauco claims that the container was loaded properly and was not overweight and further claims that it only provided the product (lumber) and it hired a third party company to load the container. However, it is suspect that this is true and there appears to be some issue with this representation.

Plaintiff has researched the service of process laws for Chile. Chile is a member of the Hague Convention but not for service of process. The complaint must be served by permission of the Chilean courts, more or less in the form of letters rogatory. The complaint and amended complaint has been translated into Spanish, of course. Plaintiff is in contact with two companies for service of process (with lawyers) to complete this process. Unfortunately Plaintiff is advised this is a slow process, expensive and can take up to a year in the Chilean courts.

Plaintiff has previously had translated the Complaint into Spanish and is waiting for the return of the German translation. Plaintiff requests a continuance of three to six months to complete service under the Hague convention for the German defendant and under the laws of Chile for the Latin America defendant.