Case ID: johns-cas_1/html/0184-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lansing, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Slocum & Burling against The United Insurance Company.
    The insured may abandon, on receiving information of the capture of the vessel .insured, and may recover for a total loss, though the vessel be after-wards liberated and arrives in safety at her port of destination.
    An abandonment when once properly made is definitive, and fixes the rights of the partiés.(«)
    
      (a) See Mumford v. Church, supra, 147. Murray v. United States Ins. Co. infra, vol. 2, p. 263. Livingston v. Hastie $ Patrick, infra, vol. 3, p. 293.
    This was an action on a policy of insurance, dated the 26th January, 1799, on a cargo of the schooner Goliah, from New York to New Orleans. ■
    
      The cause was tried before Mr. Justice Kent, at the last circuit in the city of New York, when it appeared in evidence, that the vessel, on the 14th February, 1779, while proceeding on her voyage, was taken by a British privateer and carried into New Providence. As soon as the intelligence of her capture was received by the plaintiffs, to wit, on the 16th March .following, he abandoned his interest to the defendants, offering the usual proofs of interest and of loss. The vessel was liberated on the 12th day of March, which could not have been known to either party at the time of the abandonment, and she afterwards *proceeded on her [*152] voyage with her cargo, and arrived in safety at New Orleans.
    
      Boyd, for the plaintiffs.
    
      Troup, for the defendants.
    The question submitted to the court was, whether the plaintiffs were entitled to recover for a total, or a partial loss only.
   Lansing, Ch. J.

delivered the opinion of the court. We have already decided this point in the case of Mumford v. Church, in the present term. The plaintiffs could only be governed by the information they possessed. On receiving the intelligence of the capture, they were entitled to abandon, and an abandonment once properly made is definitive, and fixes the rights of the parties. It may be revoked by mutual consent, or waived; but otherwise it is conclusive.

The plaintiffs are, therefore, entitled to recover as for a total loss.

Judgment for the plaintiff.