The extent of the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the
courts of the United States, as explained in the preceding case,
again affirmed.
In admiralty, the party entitled to relief should always be made
libellant, and the practice of instituting a suit in the name of
one person for the benefit of another to whom the right has been
transferred only obtains in particular cases. But all persons
entitled, on the same state of facts, to participate in the same
relief, may join as libellants, whether the suit be
in
personam or
in rem.
Hence, where the cargo of a boat was partly insured, but not the
boat itself, and the insurance company paid for that part of the
cargo which was insured, it was competent for the owners of the
boat to file a libel for the use of the insurance company.
In this case, where a collision took place between a steamboat
and a flatboat, both descending the Mississippi River, the
steamboat was in fault.
The flatboat was in an eddy of the river, and impelled by it
towards the steamboat, and the latter should have kept further
away.
The facts in the case are stated in the opinion of the
court.
The cargo of
Flatboat No. 2 consisted of 3,136 sacks of
corn, 31 barrels and one keg of lard, 315 sacks of oats, of which
there were insured.
1,643 sacks of corn 4,125 bush. at 75c. . . . . $3,093.00
158 sacks oats 353 bush. at 40c. . . . . . . 141.20
17 barrels of lard . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.63
---------
$3,567.83
which was paid by the insurance company, with a small deduction.
When paid, there was an argument between the insurance company and
John C. Bull & Co. that the latter would include the insurance
company in the libel.
The libel was filed by John C. Bull, William J. McClure, and
Thomas S. Foreman, trading under the firm of John C. Bull &
Co., in the district court of the United States. They were the
owners of the boat and of the corn, and filed the libel for the use
of the insurance company. A variety of testimony was taken, the
important parts of which are stated in the opinion of the
Court.
The district court gave judgment in favor of the libellants in
the sum of $3,753.45.
The defendants appealed to the circuit court.
The circuit court affirmed the judgment of the district court,
and the defendants appealed to this Court.
Page 53 U. S. 468
MR. JUSTICE WAYNE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two objections were urged in the argument of this cause by the
appellants' counsel against this Court's giving a decision upon its
merits.
The one, that the court had not jurisdiction on account of the
locality of the collision, it being beyond tidewater, and the other
that the libellants could not prosecute this suit for the benefit
of others, as the libellants have no interest in it.
The first may be disposed of because the Court at this term has
decided, in the case of
The Genesee Chief v.
Hitzhugh, that the constitutional jurisdiction of
the United States in admiralty was not limited by tidewater, but
was extended to the lakes and navigable rivers of the United
States.
The other objection is not sustained by the proofs in the cause.
Mr. Atwood, p. 39 of the record, states what was the amount of
insurance which was paid upon the cargo, by the Firemen's Insurance
Company of Louisville, and that nothing was paid to the libellants,
Bull & Co., for the loss of the boat.
In admiralty, the party entitled to relief should always be made
libellant; and the practice of instituting a suit in the name of
one person for the benefit of another, to whom the right has been
transferred, only obtains in particular cases. But all persons
entitled on the same state of facts to participate in the same
relief, may join as libellants, whether the suit be
in
personam or
in rem. Benedict 211, ยง 380.
Mr. Atwood, in his testimony, says how Bull & Co. became
united with the insurance company in this suit, though it is not
stated in the libel with the precise formality it should have been,
yet it appears sufficiently plain in other parts of the libel and
from the proofs in the cause that the parties named in the libel
have respectively an interest, which is covered by the principle
just stated, that the same state of facts which will give relief to
one will permit others to be joined as libellants. It is no
substantial objection, then, that the suit has been brought
Page 53 U. S. 469
in the name of Bull & Co. for the use of the Firemen's
Insurance Company. The insurance in this instance was upon the
cargo of boat No. 2, and not upon the boat. The cargo, however, was
not fully insured. The insurance company, upon being informed of
the loss of it from a collision with the
Memphis, paid
their policy upon it, and that placed them in a condition to bring
this suit for its recovery if it could be ascertained that the
collision was produced by the fault of those who were in charge of
the steamer belonging to the appellants.
We will now inquire from what cause the collision happened, or
who was in the fault.
In the second article, we have a description of its locality. It
was at a point in the Mississippi River opposite Prophet's Island,
in the State of Louisiana, and took place on 11 April, 1847, on a
clear day, between the hours of nine and ten o'clock in the
forenoon, whilst the flatboat, No. 2, was going downstream in the
usual and proper channel. It seems that she was drawn in towards
the shore by an eddy, and that whilst there, the steamer
Memphis, also descending the river, and the flatboat came
in contact with each other, from which the flatboat was capsized
and sunk in less than four minutes, losing her whole cargo
excepting sixteen barrels and one keg of lard. The allegation is
that the steamer, with proper care and skill, might with great ease
have been kept clear of said flatboat, and that the flatboat could
not possibly get out of the way of the steamboat, but was run
against by the steamer with great force and violence, striking her
on the starboard quarter and causing her to fill rapidly. The
answer of the respondents to this allegation is that the steamer
was carefully going down the Mississippi, being at the time in the
proper place for a descending boat, and that the officers on board
of said steamboat observed two flatboats in the eddies, on both
sides of the river, one in the eddy on the right side of the river,
the other in that on the left, the latter being the flatboat No. 2.
It is further stated that when the flatboats were discovered, there
was ample space for the steamboat to pass safely between them. The
flatboat on the right had side of the river was nearest the
steamboat, and was first passed. It is also stated that in order to
leave ample room for passing in safety flatboat No. 2, which was on
the left side, that the
Memphis was steered as closely to
the first flatboat as it was prudent or safe to go; that after that
boat had been safely passed, the flatboat, No 2, appeared to be
some two hundred yards in the eddy from the course of the steamer,
the captain of her requesting that a Louisville paper might be
thrown into the river for him, stating that he would send his skiff
out for it. Up to this time there was not the slightest
apprehension of a
Page 53 U. S. 470
collision. The captain of the
Memphis not liking the
position of the flatboat, she being at the time off to the left of
his boat, with her bow nearly at right angles to his boat,
requested the persons on the boat to throw down her stern. The
captain of the flatboat seized the helm and endeavored to do so,
but could not succeed. A moment before this, no one could have
supposed a collision possible, but just about the time the bow of
the
Memphis passed the flatboat, she being then a
considerable distance to the left of the course of the
Memphis, a sudden change in the current of the eddy, or
some other cause unknown to these respondents, threw the said
flatboat against the larboard wheelhouse of the Memphis, nearly bow
foremost, which started one of the planks of her bow, causing her
soon to fill with water and sink. That previous to and at the time
of the collision, the
Memphis was running in the current
of the river between the two eddies.
From these allegations of the appellants and respondents,
substantially agreeing with each other, as to the eddies, the
locality of the collision, and the relative positions of the boats
to each other at that moment, it would be difficult to determine by
the fault of which of them the disaster was occasioned. But from
the antecedent navigation of the
Memphis from the point
where the flatboats were first observed, whether it shall be taken
from the narrative of the respondent just recited or from the
evidence in the case, it cannot be doubted that the collision was
produced by the carelessness or ignorance or disregard of her pilot
of the consequences which those eddies might produce in the
positions in which the
Memphis and flatboats then were. It
is not denied by the respondents, and it is asserted by the
libellants, that the flatboat was, from the time the
Memphis first saw her until she was sunk, in the proper
channel of downward navigation, floated onward only by the current.
The captain of the
Memphis, in his downward course, was
the first to discover the danger resulting from the position in
which his vessel had been placed relatively to the flatboat. He
says he did not like it, and requested those on board the flatboat
to throw down her stern. He admits, that the captain of the
flatboat endeavored to do so, but could not succeed. He had
approached the flatboat without any change in the position of the
flatboat up to that moment. Now if according to his own declaration
the collision occurred but a moment after, before he can be excused
for his near approach to the flatboat, he must show that there was
not water room, and of sufficient depth, to have run the
Memphis further off than he did, and that there was not,
on either side of the flatboat, a sufficient width of water for him
to have passed the flatboat at a distance greater than the length
of the
Page 53 U. S. 471
Memphis, for it is plain, if that had been done,
whether the eddy turned the flatboat or not, that the two boats
could not have come into collision. The evidence on the part of the
respondents confirms this view of the case, for Galusha says that
at the time of the collision, there was room enough for the
Memphis to pass without interfering with the flatboat at
all, and Thomas testifies that the flatboat was floating with the
current and the steamboat running with the stream, and though that
at the place of accident there was an eddy on both sides of the
river, that the river was very high and broad, and the
Memphis might have passed on either side and thereby
prevented the accident. It is further stated by this witness that
the
Memphis was coming towards the flatboat, and
"if we had pulled from her, we should have got into the eddy
towards her, and she would have run over us; we did everything we
could to prevent said accident, and it was not caused by the
carelessness or want of skill of the crew of the flatboat."
Yourd, another witness, confirms this statement, and that the
Memphis had "a plenty of room to avoid her." Henry Moore,
another witness, says that the accident was caused by the fault of
the pilot or crew of the steamboat
Memphis, that it
occurred in daylight, when there was no fog on the river and no
wind, that on the left side of the steamboat there were three
hundred yards of water and on the right side one hundred yards,
that the steamboat might have passed on either side with perfect
safety to herself and the flatboat, as there were neither bars nor
snags in that part of the river, but that
"instead of passing around, she undertook to run between the
flatboat and a hay boat that was floating between us and the
right-hand shore, and struck our boat as he has stated."
The respondents' witness, Bentley, confirms the statement of the
last witness that the steamer ran between the two boats, running as
near to the boat on the right in order to leave as much room for
the one on the left as possible, and that he did not, after he had
passed the boat on the right, apprehend there was any danger of
collision with the boat on the left; that the
Memphis kept
a straight course down the current of the river, and did not
suppose, when the
Memphis passed that first flatboat, that
he would run within a hundred yards of the boat No. 2. He further
states that the flatboat No. 2 did not change her relative position
to the course the
Memphis was running, but it was caused
by the eddy forcing out the flatboat into the current of the river;
that he, as the pilot, ran the
Memphis in such a manner as
he thought would prevent a collision. He thinks the
Memphis was fifty yards from the flatboat when the bow of
the
Memphis passed her; at that time, witness was running,
quartering into the bend on
Page 53 U. S. 472
the left. About that time, he was apprehensive of a collision,
and that it was caused by the approach of the flatboat. But this
witness says that the river at the place of collision was from
three quarters to a mile wide. Now with this fact, stated by
himself, why was it necessary to run the
Memphis on such a
course as that such a collision should have happened? Or why was
she not run at such a distance as that it could not have occurred?
Added to this, this witness knew the force of the eddies, and
should have guarded cautiously against their effect.
This is a cause of collision happening in broad daylight after
the steamer had observed the flatboat for more than the distance of
half a mile. The evidence shows, that the steamer could have been
differently navigated from the manner in which she was, and that
the course she was run, though in the judgment of the pilot was the
best under the circumstances, yet that it was a course which caused
the collision, and that another might have been taken by which
there would have been no possibility of a collision.
The judgment of the circuit court is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL dissented from the decision in this case on
the ground of the want of jurisdiction in the admiralty courts of
the United States, in cases like the present.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record,
from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Louisiana and was argued by counsel. On consideration
whereof it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this Court
that the decree of the said circuit court in this cause be and the
same is hereby affirmed with costs and damages at the rate of six
percentum per annum.