Opinion of the Court 451 U.S. provisions already described is that when a defective winch is discovered, it should not be repaired by the stevedore but should be reported to and repaired by the shipowner. If this is the case, the situation comes down to this: If Scindia was aware that the winch was malfunctioning to some degree, and if there was a jury issue as to whether it was so unsafe that the stevedore should have ceased using it, could the jury also have found that the winch was so clearly unsafe that Scindia should have intervened and stopped the loading operation until the winch was serviceable? We raise these questions but do not answer them, since they are for the trial court in the first instance and since neither the trial nor appellate courts need deal with them unless there is sufficient evidence to submit to the jury either that the shipowner was aware of sufficient facts to conclude that the winch was not in proper order, or that the winch was defective when cargo operations began and that Scindia was chargeable with knowledge of its condition. The District Court concluded that there was no triable issue of fact as to whether the shipowner knew or should have known of the alleged condition of the winch. The Court of Appeals read the record quite differently, ruling that there was a disputed material fact, which the District Court should not itself have resolved, with respect to the shipowner's actual or constructive knowledge of the condition of the winch. To the extent that this conclusion was based on the Court of Appeals' erroneous view that the vessel should have known the facts because of its duty to inspect the stevedore's cargo handling operation, it was infirm. But as we understand the opinion below, the Court of Appeals held that there was a triable issue as to whether the shipowner had actual knowledge of the failure in the winch's braking mechanism or was chargeable with knowledge because the winch was defective from the outset. Based on our own examination of the record, we agree with the Court of Appeals in this respect and with its conclusion that the District Court erred in granting 156 BRENNAN, J., concurring summary judgment. The case should be returned to the District Court and, if necessary, tried to a jury under appropriate instructions.26 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. So ordered. THE CHIEF JUSTICE took no part in the decision of this case. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL and JUSTICE BLACKмUN join, concurring. My views are that under the 1972 Amendments: (1) a shipowner has a general duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances; (2) in exercising reasonable care, the shipowner must take reasonable steps to determine whether the ship's equipment is safe before turning that equipment over to the stevedore; (3) the shipowner has a duty to inspect the equipment turned over to the stevedore or to supervise the stevedore if a custom, contract provision, law or regulation creates either of those duties; and (4) if the shipowner has actual knowledge that equipment in the control of the stevedore is in an unsafe condition, and a reasonable belief that the stevedore will not remedy that condition, the shipowner has a duty either to halt the stevedoring operation, to make the stevedore eliminate the unsafe condition, or to eliminate the unsafe condition itself. 26 Of course, it has not been determined whether the winch was defective or if it was, when it became defective and whether the defect contributed to the accident. If the effective cause was a simple act of operational negligence by the crane operator or the hatch tender, the vessel would not be liable in any event. Cf. Usner v. Luckenbach Overseas Corp., 400 U. S. 494 (1971). The District Court apparently thought this conclusion was necessitated by the fact that the stevedore was in operational control and was necessarily the sole cause of the accident. Since I read the Court's opinion to be consistent with these views, I join the Court's opinion. JUSTICE POWELL, with whom JUSTICE REHNQUIST joins, concurring. I join the Court's opinion because I agree with its basic thrust-placing the primary burden on the stevedore for avoiding injuries caused by obvious hazards. I write only to emphasize the distinction between this approach and the general "reasonableness" standard adopted by the Ninth Circuit in this case. Under the Court's opinion, "the shipowner has no general duty by way of supervision or inspection to exercise reasonable care to discover dangerous conditions that develop within the confines of the cargo operations that are assigned to the stevedore." Ante, at 172. In addition, the opinion makes clear that the shipowner has only a limited duty with respect to obvious hazards of which it is aware. Although the shipowner cannot rely in all cases on the judgment and primary responsibility of the stevedore concerning what conditions allow safe work to continue, safety is a "matter of judgment committed to the stevedore in the first instance." Ante, at 175. Only where the judgment of the stevedore is "obviously improvident," ibid., and this poor judgment either is known to the shipowner or reasonably should be anticipated under the circumstances, does the shipowner have a duty to intervene. As the opinion points out, the customs and regulations allocating responsibility for particular repairs are highly relevant to this inquiry. In my view, the Restatement standard adopted by the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Circuits, see ante, at 162, n. 9, and discussed most recently in Evans v. S.S. "Campeche," 639 F. 2d 848 (CA2 1981), is consistent with the plain intent of Congress to impose the primary responsibility on the stevedore. Although it is unnecessary in this case for the Court to adopt this standard fully, I do not understand our opinion to be inconsistent with it. 156 POWELL, J., concurring The difficulty with a more general reasonableness standard like that adopted by the court below is that it fails to deal with the problems of allocating responsibility between the stevedore and the shipowner. It may be that it is "reasonable" for a shipowner to rely on the stevedore to discover and avoid most obvious hazards. But when, in a suit by a longshoreman, a jury is presented with the single question whether it was "reasonable" for the shipowner to fail to take action concerning a particular obvious hazard, the jury will be quite likely to find liability. If such an outcome were to become the norm, negligent stevedores would be receiving windfall recoveries in the form of reimbursement for the statutory benefit payments made to the injured longshoremen." This would decrease significantly the incentives toward safety of the party in the best position to prevent injuries, and undercut the primary responsibility of that party for ensuring safety. Under 33 U. S. C. § 905 (b), the shipowner is liable in damages to the longshoreman if it was negligent, and it may not seek to recover any part of this liability from the stevedore. The longshoreman's recovery is not reduced to reflect the negligence of the stevedore. Edmonds v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 443 U. S. 256 (1979). Under 33 U. S. C. § 933, the stevedore even if concurrently negligent-receives reimbursement for its statutory benefit payments to the longshoreman, up to the full amount of those payments. See also Bloomer v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 445 U. S. 74 (1980) (stevedore's lien is not reduced by its proportional share of the costs of litigating the negligence suit). As a result of this automatic reimbursement, there is a danger that "concurrently negligent stevedores will be insulated from the obligation to pay statutory workmen's compensation benefits, and thus will have inadequate incentives to provide a safe working environment for their employees." Edmonds, supra, at 274 (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). In cases involving obvious and avoidable hazards, this danger will be realized unless the shipowner's liability is limited to the unusual case in which it should be anticipated that the stevedore will fail to act reasonably. Any more stringent, or less defined, rule of shipowner liability will skew the statutory scheme in a way Congress could not have intended. Cf. Canizzo v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 579 F. 2d 682, 687-688 (CA2 1978) (Friendly, J., dissenting). Syllabus 451 U.S. ROSALES-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT No. 79-6624. Argued January 12, 1981-Decided April 21, 1981 Petitioner, who is of Mexican descent, was tried in Federal District Court for his participation in a plan by which Mexican aliens were smuggled into the country. Another participant in the plan, one Bowling, was apparently a Caucasian with whose daughter petitioner had been living. Prior to his trial, petitioner requested that the judge, in his voir dire examination of prospective jurors, ask a question as to possible prejudice toward Mexicans. The judge refused to ask such question, but did ask questions concerning possible prejudice against aliens. Petitioner was subsequently convicted, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioner's challenge of the trial judge's refusal to question the jurors about possible racial or ethnic bias. Held: The judgment is affirmed. Pp. 188-194; 194-195. 617 F. 2d 1349, affirmed. JUSTICE WHITE, joined by JUSTICE STEWART, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE POWELL, concluded that there was no reversible error in the voir dire afforded petitioner. Pp. 188-194. (a) Because the obligation to impanel an impartial jury lies in the first instance with the trial judge, and because he must rely largely on his immediate perceptions, federal judges have been accorded ample discretion in determining how best to conduct the voir dire. "Special circumstances" under which the Constitution requires questioning prospective jurors about racial or ethnic bias exist only when racial issues are inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial and there are substantial indications of the likelihood of racial or ethnic prejudice affecting the jurors in the particular case. See Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589; Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524. Under this Court's supervisory power over the federal courts, failure to honor a defendant's request to inquire into racial or ethnic prejudice, where such an inquiry is not constitutionally mandated, is reversible error only where the circumstances of the case indicate a "reasonable possibility" that such prejudice might influence the jury. Federal trial courts must make such an inquiry when requested by a defendant accused of a violent crime and where the defendant and the victim are members of different |