A respondent sued in admiralty for repairs to a vessel cannot
deny that he is sole owner if the vessel has been sold by the order
of another court and he has claimed and received the proceeds as
sole owner.
This was an admiralty suit
in personam commenced by the
libel of Andrew Flanigan, John S. Beacham, George P. Beacham, Lenox
Beacham, and Samuel Beacham, partners trading as A. Flanigan &
Co., against Robert Turner, owner of the steamboat
Susquehannah, in the District Court of the United States
for the District of Maryland. The libellants claimed $2,762 for
work done and materials furnished in repairs to the
Susquehannah at the request of Turner, who was either
owner or agent for the owner. Turner answered that Flanigan &
Co. were joint owners of the boat with him and others, and
therefore had no right to recover against him for the work. He also
alleged and showed that a bill was pending in a state court,
brought by himself against these libellants and others, to dissolve
the partnership, sell the vessel, and after paying expenses
&c., divide the proceeds ratably among the several owners. This
cause was then suspended until that in the state court should be
decided. The last mentioned proceeding went on, the vessel was sold
under it, and Turner claimed the proceeds as sole owner; the other
parties consented, and the court so ordered. The present cause was
then pressed in the district court and a decree made there in favor
of the libellants for the amount found to be due for their work and
materials -- $2,665.73, with interest from 1 July, 1857, and costs.
Turner, the respondent, appealed to the circuit court, where the
decree was changed to $2,827,88. Turner appealed to the Supreme
Court and attempted to reverse the decree of the circuit court upon
the grounds which will be found stated in the opinion of MR.
JUSTICE NELSON.
Page 66 U. S. 492
MR. JUSTICE NELSON.
The libel was filed by the appellees against Turner, the
appellant,
in personam, for materials and repairs on the
steamboat
Susquehannah, in the port of Baltimore. It was
filed 25 February, 1858.
The respondent set up by way of plea that he had previously
filed a bill in equity against the libellants and others in the
Circuit Court for Baltimore City as joint owners and partners with
him in the
Susquehannah for the purpose, among other
things, of charging them with their proportionate share of the
expenses of the repairs claimed; that the defendants in that bill
had put in their answers, and that the suit was still pending. This
plea was overruled, and the respondent answered the libel, setting
up substantially the same matters as stated in the bill of
complaint.
Further proceedings in the admiralty suit were suspended by an
order of the district judge to await the result of the suit in
equity in the Baltimore court, that suit having been first
commenced, and jurisdiction of that court over the subject matter
having first attached.
A receiver was appointed in the equity suit and, under an
interlocutory order of the court, the vessel was sold and proceeds
brought into the court to abide the result of the litigation.
Subsequently Turner, the complainant, appeared in court and
dismissed his bill in equity, and then claimed the fund in court,
the proceeds on the sale of the
Susquehannah, as belonging
to him, he being the only person interested or entitled to it.
There being no opposition to the application, as indeed there could
not be, the defendants, in the bill in equity, in their answers,
having not only denied any joint interest in the vessel, but
insisted that the complainant was the owner, the application was
granted and the proceeds paid over.
After the bill in the Baltimore City Court was dismissed,
the
Page 66 U. S. 493
suit in the admiralty proceeded, and on the 4th January, 1859, a
decree was rendered by the district court in favor of the
libellants for $2,665.73 and interest which, on appeal to the
circuit court, was affirmed with some modifications as to the
amount.
The principal ground of the defense to the libel was that the
libellants were joint owners of the vessel with Turner, and hence
the court had no jurisdiction of the case either to settle the
partnership accounts, or to adjust in any way the equities of the
joint owners.
But the answer to this defense is that the proofs in the case
are full to show that the libellants were not joint owners of the
Susquehannah, but, on the contrary, that she was owned
solely by the respondent. She was purchased by him from the
Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad company 7
November, 1856, and the conveyance taken in his own name. He
afterwards attempted to sell the vessel to an association in
Baltimore, of which the libellants, or a part of them, were
members, but failed to complete the sale. The dismissal of the bill
in equity, in which he attempted to charge these libellants, among
others, for the expenses of the purchase and repairs of the
Susquehannah, and receiving the proceeds of her sale,
which were in court, upon the allegation that he was solely
interested in the fund, go far to confirm the other proofs in the
case, that the libellants had no interest in the vessel as owners
at the time of the repairs, and as is admitted, they were made at
his request, that they were made on his credit.
The expenses of the repairs and of the materials furnished the
vessel were satisfactorily proved, and, unembarrassed with the
attempt to prove the joint ownership, the case is a very simple and
plain one. That attempt having failed, the decree below was right,
and should be affirmed.
Decree of the circuit court affirmed.
