In a libel of a vessel for damage to cargo due to
unseaworthiness, the owner and claimant, having answered denying
liability, by leave filed a petition to bring in another party as
indemnitor.
Held that a decree dismissing such petition
was not appealable by the claimant to this Court in advance of any
determination of the main issue of claimant's liability. A case
cannot be brought up piecemeal.
Collins v. Miller, ante,
252 U. S. 364.
Appeal dismissed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
James W. Smith and another libeled the schooner Percy R. Pyne
2d, in the district court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York claiming damages for injury to cargo resulting
from unseaworthiness due to the cutting away of timbers and frame
for the installation of an auxiliary engine. The Oneida Navigation
Company claimed the vessel as owner and answered denying liability.
Then it filed, by leave of court, a
Page 252 U. S. 522
petition to bring in, under Admiralty Rule 15 of that court in
analogy to Admiralty Rule 59 of this Court, W. & S. Job &
Co., Incorporated, as defendants, alleging them to be the party
through whose fault, if any, the damages complained of had
occurred, and that, if liability should be established it would be
entitled to be indemnified by them. W. & S. Job & Co.,
Inc., excepted to the petition and denied jurisdiction on the
ground that the petition did not set forth a cause of action in
admiralty. Their exception was sustained, and the petition was
dismissed on that ground. The case comes here by direct appeal, the
district judge having certified the question of jurisdiction.
The petition to make W. & S. Job & Co., Inc., party
defendants was merely an incident in the progress of the case in
the district court. The liability of indemnitors thereby sought to
be enforced would in no event arise unless the vessel should be
held liable. The petitioner had as claimant denied liability in its
answer to the libel, and the issue thus raised had not been tried.
While the decree dismissing the petition as to W. & S. Job
& Co., Inc., was final as to them, there was no decree
disposing of the case below. A case may not be brought here in
fragments. This Court has jurisdiction under ยง 238 of the Judicial
Code, as under other sections, only from judgments which are both
final and complete.
Collins v. Miller, ante, 252 U. S. 364;
Hohorst v. Hamburg-American Packet Co., 148 U.
S. 262. The case was not ripe for appeal. Although the
objection was not raised by the appellee, the appeal is
Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.