Where a vessel was lying at anchor in the port of New York, and
a steamboat came down the Hudson River with wind and tide in her
favor and also having several heavily loaded barges fastened on
each side of her, and came into collision with the vessel which was
lying at anchor, it was a gross fault in the steamboat to proceed,
at night, on her way with a speed of from eight to ten miles per
hour.
Moreover, the steamboat had not a sufficient lookout.
The statutes of the State of New York regulating the light which
the vessel lying at anchor was to show have no binding force in the
present case. The rule for the decision of the federal courts is
derived from the general admiralty law.
Police regulations for the accommodation and safety of vessels
in a harbor may be enacted by the local authorities.
The district court decreed that the libellant should recover
against the steamboat the sum of $3,875 and costs.
The circuit court affirmed this decree, and gave judgment for
$4,174 and costs.
Page 59 U. S. 224
MR. JUSTICE NELSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
The libel was filed by the owner of the brig
Sarah
Johanna against the steamboat, for a collision in the harbor
of the City of New York. The brig was lying at anchor in the North
River, off pier No. 6, nearer to the Jersey than the New York
shore, her bow heading up the river, there being at the time a
strong ebb tide and wind heavy from the northwest. The collision
occurred between four and five o'clock in the morning of the 4th of
November, 1850 -- the river at this place being filled with vessels
at anchor in the vicinity of the brig. The morning considerably
dark.
The steamboat was passing down the North River to get round to
her berth in the East River. She had in tow eleven heavily loaded
barges and canal boats, the first tier being three abreast on each
side of her, the other boats astern, towed by lines attached to
this first tier. The steamer, with the tows, occupied a breadth of
some three hundred feet, and from three hundred and fifty of four
hundred feet in length, her bows projecting some sixty feet ahead
of the tows. She entered this thicket of vessels at anchor in the
river at a rate of speed from eight to ten miles an hour, and, as
we have seen, with a strong ebb tide and heavy northwest wind, and
while passing through them, the center towboat of the tier on the
starboard side struck the bow of the brig, smashing her timbers,
cutwater, and bowsprit and otherwise doing great damage to the
vessel.
The captain of the steamboat admits that he saw the brig from
three to five hundred feet off before the collision, but, as he
could not stop his boat in less than within ten or fifteen of her
lengths, the collision was inevitable. He admits also that it would
have required all her power to have stopped within that distance,
as it would have depended upon the way the towboats were managed.
The rear tows were not so fastened, he observes, as to prevent
their swinging, and could not have been. He gave orders instantly,
on discerning the brig, to starboard the helm, and passed the same
order to the towboats. This was undoubtedly the proper order at the
time under the circumstances, but with the rate of speed of the
steamer, and encumbered as she was with her tows, it was
unavailing.
Page 59 U. S. 225
Upon this statement of the facts in the case, it is manifest the
steamer was grossly in fault in entering this crowd of vessels at
anchor in the harbor at the rate of speed with which she was
moving, especially in the night time. A collision with some of them
thus lying in her trail was the natural, if not inevitable, result.
Lying at anchor, they were disabled from adopting any measure to
get out of her way, and encumbered as she was with tows, she was
not in a condition to adopt any prompt and effective maneuver to
avoid the danger. The continuance of the speed, therefore, under
the circumstances of wind and tide and encumbrance and
embarrassment of the tows, was the grossest carelessness and
neglect of duty, without the semblance of excuse. Indeed, the term
carelessness hardly expresses the degree of fault; under the
circumstances, it seems almost to have been willful, or what, in
degree, should be regarded as equally criminal.
The steamboat was also in fault in not having a lookout at the
time, properly stationed. The captain admits that no person was
stationed on the deck as a lookout. He claims to have been on that
duty himself, although he stood upon the upper deck, some fifteen
feet above the water and sixty feet from the bow of the steamer,
and was at the time engaged in giving directions for the management
of her and her tows.
We have had occasion frequently to lay down the rule that it is
the duty of steamboats traversing waters where sailing vessels are
often met with to have a trustworthy and constant lookout stationed
at a part of the vessel best adapted for that purpose, and whose
whole business was to discern vessels ahead or approaching so as to
give the earliest notice to those in charge of the navigation of
the vessel, and that the omission, in case of a collision, would be
prima facie evidence of fault on the part of the steamer.
53 U. S. 12
How. 459;
51 U. S. 10
How. 585.
It is insisted, however, on the part of the steamboat that the
brig was also in fault in not showing a light while lying at
anchor. We have looked carefully into the evidence on this branch
of the case, and are satisfied that the clear weight of it is in
favor of the libellants and that a proper light was kept constantly
in the fore-rigging, some seventeen feet above the deck.
Again, it is claimed that, admitting the brig had a light
sufficient, within the requirements of the admiralty rule, still,
she was in fault in not showing a light in conformity with the
statutes of New York, which required it should be suspended in the
rigging at least twenty feet above deck. 1 Rev.Stats. 685, ยง 12;
also Sess.Laws 1839, 322.
This is a rule of navigation prescribed by the laws of New York,
and is doubtless binding upon her own courts, but cannot
Page 59 U. S. 226
regulate the decisions of the federal courts administering the
general admiralty law. They can be governed only by the principles
peculiar to that system, as generally recognized in maritime
countries, modified by acts of Congress independently of local
legislation.
The Johanna was a foreign ship engaged in the
general commerce of the country, not in the purely internal trade
of a state.
The Bark Chusan, 2 Story 456.
We agree an exception to this general principle is the
regulation of steamboats and other watercraft in the ports and
harbors of the states, which is required for the accommodation and
safety of vessels resorting thither in the pursuits of business and
commerce. These are police regulations in aid and furtherance of
commerce, enacted by the local authorities, who have a knowledge of
the wants of the locality and a deep interest in properly providing
for them.
We are satisfied, the decree of the court below is right, and
should be
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL dissenting.
I dissent from the decision just pronounced. This record brings
before us what the testimony shows to be a case of simple tort or
trespass, alleged to have been committed in the harbor of New York,
which might have been disposed of upon principles and under
proceedings familiar to the habits of the people of the country and
at a greater economy of time and expense than is necessarily
incident to proceedings like those just sanctioned. I should always
be reluctant, were there no considerations other than those of mere
convenience, or even of habit or prejudice involved, to interfere
with the local institutions or customs of states or communities. It
is proper to leave to these, wherever no paramount obligation
forbids it, the adoption and practice of such local institutions or
local prejudices, if they may be so denominated. Much higher and
stronger is the motive for forbearing such interference where the
latter cannot be clearly traced to an undoubted legitimate
authority. I hold it as an axiom or postulate that by the admiralty
jurisdiction vested by the Constitution of the United States, a
power has not been, nor was ever intended to be, delegated to those
courts to supersede or control the internal polity of the states in
providing for the preservation of property, or for the regulation
of order or the security of personal rights. These subjects
constitute a class the control of which is inseparable from
political or social existence in the states, every encroachment
upon which is an instance of unwarrantable assumption in the
federal government and of progressive decline in the health and
vigor in those of the states. Especially does it seem strange to me
that there should
Page 59 U. S. 227
anywhere exist a tendency to extend a system which, however
attended with advantage when limited to the necessities in which it
originated, must, almost in every instance, be attended with
inconvenience, and not unfrequently with ruin to one side of the
litigant parties, by operating the seizure and transmutation of
property, and, of course, the suspension if not the destruction of
all business in which that property formed a necessary instrument
-- and this too before an adjudication upon the rights of litigants
can possibly be had, and although such adjudication may be in favor
of the person subjected to the consequences just mentioned. The
guards which the wisdom and beneficence of the common law and
equity jurisprudence of the country have thrown around the rights
of property will tolerate no consequences like these; they require
judgment before execution; and this single consideration, were
there no other, should cause them to be cherished and maintained,
rather than impugned or evaded.
The case before us furnishes a precedent, a pregnant precedent,
for interference with the harbor regulations of every town in the
Union, and this too under the ambitious and undefinable pretensions
of a great system of maritime jurisprudence. Truly it may be said
that this pretension entirely reverses the maxim of that venerable,
though neglected common law
de minimis non curat lex; a
trespass in the harbor of New York would else be a quarry upon
which it would disdain to stoop.
But independently of the objection to the decision in this case,
which, in my view of it, results from the absence of power under
the Constitution, upon the principles of justice and fairness, were
there no restriction upon the powers of the court, its decision is
altogether unwarranted.
The evidence, correctly compared, so far from fixing upon the
steamboat the fault of the collision, shows that collision to have
been very probably, if not certainly, the result of delinquency on
the part of the brig. It seems to have become a favored doctrine
that in all cases of collision between steamboats and sailing
vessels, the burden of proof either for excuse or exculpation is to
be placed on the steamboat, because it is said that she is in a
great degree independent of the winds and the tide and possesses
entire control of her movements. This rule, when applied within the
limits of reason and the bounds of unquestioned or obvious right as
to all parties, is just and should be enforced; but if strained or
perverted to the justification or toleration of willful neglect, or
caprice, or perverseness on the one side, and to the extension of
penal infliction on those who have been involved, by the indulgence
of such neglect or perverseness, the rule becomes the source of
greater mischiefs than it professes to
Page 59 U. S. 228
prevent or cure. It imposes upon an important class of interests
in society conditions and burdens incompatible with the prosperity
or even with the existence of those interests. By the rule thus
expounded -- or if a steamer, merely because she is not propelled
by the winds or the tides, is, under all circumstances, bound to
avoid a vessel navigated by sails -- it would follow that should a
vessel of the latter description wantonly or designedly place
herself in the track of a steamer, or even put chase to her with
that object, the steamer would nevertheless be responsible for the
effects of a collision thus brought about.
Such an application of the rule cannot be correct. Steamers have
their rights upon the waters as certain and entire as can be those
of sailing vessels, and the exercise of those rights, under the
injunctions of integrity and discretion, is all that can justly be
demanded of them. There can be no sound reason why they should be
placed upon a ground of comparative disadvantage with reference to
others. Why should there be placed under a species of judicial ban
a mean of navigation and intercourse which, in regard to commerce,
science, literature, art, wealth, comfort, and civilization, has in
a few years advanced the world by more than a thousand years,
perhaps, beyond the point at which the previous and ordinary modes
of navigation would possibly have attained? I am most unwilling to
cripple or needlessly or unjustly to burden the means of such
benefits to mankind by harsh and oppressive exactions.
The danger and injustice of such a course are, in my judgment,
exemplified by the testimony in this case and by the conclusions
deduced by the Court from that testimony.
The witnesses examined in this case are of three classes or
descriptions: 1. those who belonged to the crew of the brig; 2.
those who were engaged in the management of the steamer; 3. the
owners or crews of the several barges then in tow by the
steamer.
It is admitted on all sides that the night on which the
collision occurred was dark and that the brig was anchored in the
much frequented and even greatly thronged track of vessels of every
description -- in fact, in the very port of New York. And it is
equally shown that by the laws of the State of New York and by
rules of the harbor, vessels thus situated are required to hoist a
light at the elevation of twenty feet above the deck. There are no
laws of the state nor regulations of the port inhibiting ingress
and egress into and from the harbor during the night nor
prescribing the degree of speed at which these movements shall be
accomplished, and any such regulation would be inconvenient and, to
say the least of it, useless where the precaution of a light, such
as that prescribed by the law and the regulation of
Page 59 U. S. 229
the port, was used. And it would seem to be as absurd and as
vain to prescribe a given speed to a steam vessel entering or
leaving the harbor as it would be to attempt the same thing as to
sailing vessels, whose speed, at least, must depend upon the state
of the wind at the time of her progress. Every necessity, every
reasonable precaution, every guide is supplied by a sufficient
light exhibited at the proper time and place.
The statements of the crew of the brig are vague and by no means
consistent with respect to the precautions used on that vessel.
They cannot state the precise time at which a light was displayed
nor that at which it was taken down to be used for other than the
purposes of a signal, nor do they concur as to the hour at which
the collision occurred, nor as to the lapse of time between the
lowering of the signal light for the purpose of paying out chain,
and the fact of collision. They do agree in stating the lowering,
and in the use of the light for another purpose than that of a
signal, shortly before the collision, and in the further important
fact that the light, when up, was suspended several feet below the
elevation required by the law and the harbor regulations.
It is an opinion frequently expressed, and which seems to have
become trite with many persons with reference to cases of
collision, that the crews of the different vessels are almost
certain to swear to such facts as will justify the conduct of their
own vessel -- or in other words will excuse or justify themselves
and cast the imputation of blame on the opposing vessel or party
even at the cost of perjury, and that therefore little or no faith
can be given the oaths of the officers and crews of the respective
vessels. With every proper allowance for the influence of
selfishness or alarm or falsehood, it may be remarked that extreme
opinions like the one just stated are themselves calculated to lead
to error, and would often defeat the purpose which the diffidence
or mistrust on which they rest would seek to attain. Collisions
between vessels engaged in the navigation, either on the ocean or
on rivers, rarely occur in the presence of spectators wholly
detached from and indifferent to the events which really take
place. The scene of such events is usually on the track of the
ocean, the course of rivers, midst the darkness of night, where and
when there are none to testify save those who participate in the
catastrophe, and if such persons, under the influence of a foregone
opinion, are to be set aside as unworthy of faith, decisions upon
cases of collision will, and indeed must, become so entirely the
result of conjecture or of an arbitrary rule as to challenge but a
small share of public confidence, and what is of more importance,
may be the instruments of injustice and oppression. The error and
inconsistency of this rule
Page 59 U. S. 230
is strikingly exemplified in the present instance, in which it
is seen that the testimony on which the decision professes mainly
to be founded is said to be that of the captain of the steamer, the
party said to be in default -- a source of evidence denounced by
the rule as unworthy of belief. It so happens, however, by a
conjuncture quite unusual, that the case before us is placed beyond
the operation of the rule of evidence above adverted to. Of the
fourteen witnesses who testify on behalf of the defendant in the
libel, seven of them did not belong to the steamer. They were
composed of the masters and crews of the barges then in tow of the
former, and whose lives and property were imperiled by any
misconduct of her conductors, with regard to whom there is no
conceivable ground for bias or partiality on the part of these
witnesses. Yet it is explicitly declared by them all -- and they
all appear to have been awake and in a situation to observe what
was passing -- that not one of them saw a light of any description
or in any position displayed from the brig; that the latter was
perceived as a dark spot upon the water, only when approached so
closely as to be at the immediate point of collision. It is
incomprehensible to my mind how this could have been the case had
there been lights from the brig, and especially at the proper
elevation prescribed by law. Such lights must have been in some
decree perceptible, instead of the vessel's being perceived, only
at the very point of contact, as a dark spot upon the water. But if
in truth the brig had lights at all, provided they were placed in a
situation to render them invisible or on a place below that
prescribed by law, she is as obnoxious to censure as if she
displayed no lights. The steamer is proved to have been abundantly
lighted. To excuse a departure from the law either in failing to
exhibit any light or displaying such as were insufficient or placed
in an improper position, and still more to make such delinquency
the ground of reclamation for injuries resulting therefrom appears
to me to be the award of a premium for a breach of duty and an
invitation to similar offenses by others.
Without a further detail of the testimony in this case, I must
say that the preponderance of that testimony is, in my judgment,
against the libellant upon the merits. Independently, therefore, of
the objection to the jurisdiction of the court, were I at liberty
to disregard that objection, I think that the libel should not have
been sustained. Upon the question of jurisdiction, it is my opinion
that the libel should have been dismissed apart from the merits,
and that the case should by this Court be remanded to the circuit
court with directions to dismiss the libel, with costs.