The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-18
NEW HAVEN MORNING JOURNAL TUESDAY DECEMBER soe

and yet the owner while he gets nis
 limitation may be held liable ID 10 the
 value of his vessel and pending frcig,ht
 for the voyage.
 It will be noticed also that in aase of
 fire both of the statutes may b used.
 Whether an accident is within the | privity or knowledge of the owner un-
 der the statute covers a very interesting 1 class of cases in the Federal Repocter.
 which would be out of place to go into
 at length in this article. An illustra- 1 tion or two will, I believe, show low Il the statute has been interpreted. The employing of a Chinese crew whose talk could not be understood by
 the officers was sufficient in a case tn 1 the Pacific coast to deny the owner of
 the steamer a limitation of liability | because the vessel was not saaWorthy, having a crew which could not be un- | derstood and therefore was not proper
 ly manned and equipped, which i1 Is | the owners duty to see is done Al corporation in transporting pas | sengers from the shore by means of a yawl-boat to it's steamer, put more peo- pie into the yawl-boat than she was qualified to carry, which resulted h the boats upsetting and several passengers losing their lives. The overlooking of | the yawl-boat was done in the presence of one of the officers of the corporation
 owning the steamer, and the overload ing was therefore held to be with the privity or knowledge of the owner and
 a limitation of l liability was denied.
 A barge not having any tongs with which to discharge her cargo of rails,
 her captain borrowed some from anoth-
 CT barge. The tongs borrowed were
 worn and inefficient and one of the em- ployes in using them was injured. The
 owner was denied limitation of llabil-
 ity for not supplying the barge with
 proper equipment suitable for the work
 in which she was engaged.
 The employing of a captain who was shown to be inefficient, which fact the owner of the boat ought to have
 known, was enough in a case where an accident occurred because of the cap taln's incompetency to deny the own CT the protection of the limited liability act.
 These statutes at first did not apply to barges and canal boats, neither did they apply where an accident hap pened on vessels in bays, rivers and in land waters, but now they have been extended by different acts so that they apply to all waters navigable from the sea by vessels of ten tons or more and to the great lakes and to every kind of craft.
 An act has also been passed which gives an owner In a vessel the right to limit his liability for any debts which may have been contracted for supplies for the vessel, to his interest in the vessel, so, if managing owner of a vessel should run vessel in debt be- yond her value, an owner cannot be re- quired to pay any more of the debt than his interest in the vessel is worth. |
 I have frequently had motions made | to dismiss petitions for limitation of liability that I have filed, upon the ground that they were in violation of | the Constitution in denying people a | trial by jury It is needless to say that | such motions have never been success full
 Under the Constitution the judicial power of the United States is extended | to all cases of admiralty and maritime Congress has given the District courts jurisdiction over all ad- miralty and maritime cases. and has excepted all civil cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction from trial by jury. Hence, an accident hap pening on vessel is within the limited liability act and under the Constitu- ton is of admiralty and maritime ju- and the District courts have Jurisdiction of such cases, and the case being a civil case of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, 1t is excepted under the judiciary act from a trial by Jury; therefore it must be obvious that the limited liability act which merely grants relief in cases that are within the admiralty and maritime turisdic- ton, does not deny people a right of trial by jury, for they never had any right to trial by jury of an admiralty case and no state statute can give them such a right. If Congress had not passed the limited liability act a person Injured on a boat could have lad his case tried in a common law court to jury if he wished; for under he Judiciary act such rights are saved 70 suitors. But as it has been said if was the right to trial in the common law court that is so saved and not common law case that was created.
 There Is one other form of limitation ,f liability which applies to damage of ,argo and Is matter of defense in the answer. But this is not part of what S commonly known as Limitation of 
 This is but one of the many interest ng branches of admiralty with It's tales if the seas. [
 It Is to be regretted that just because he law of admiralty does not seem to . open field for money-making to the : average student, the universities should leny the students the benefit of the . culture derived from the { itudy of this branch of the law It is trange, too that when the universities 10 add this branch of the law to their they generally select some me to teach 1t who has never practiced ! t. There Is no part of jurisprudence. properly presented to a class, that would create 80 much interest and en- I husiasm and would consequently have uch tendency to help students in all ther branches of the law, as the study Z f admiralty. It would take the stu E ents to every shore get them inter- !