Source: https://openjurist.org/215/us/130
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:45:10+00:00

Document:
THE STEAMSHIP JEFFERSON, the Old Dominion Steamship Company, Claimant and Owner.
Messrs. D. Lawrence Groner, R. T. Thorp, and Henry Bowden for appellants.
Messrs. Harrington Putnam and Walter H. Taylor for appellee.
From a decree dismissing this suit for want of jurisdiction, the present direct appeal is prosecuted. Dismissal of the appeal is moved on the ground that the jurisdiction of the court below was not involved in the sense of the 5th section of the act of 1891, and, in any event, because the question of jurisdiction was not certified as required by that act. 26 Stat. at L. 826, chap. 517, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 488.
'1. That, in the afternoon of the 25th day of December, 1906, the tug Helen, where-of said E. W. Simmons was master, and having a crew of six men besides said master, was, together with the tug Alice, towing a certain barge from Norfolk, in said district, to the piers of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company at Newport News, in said district; that about 4 or 4:30 o'clock on said day, when said tugs had arrived almost at their destination at Newport News, it was discovered that a fire was raging in the shipyard of the Newport News shipyard & Dry Dock Company, and there-upon the libellant, with the said tug Helen, docked his tow at one of the said piers of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, and proceeded with all possible speed to the said fire.
'2. That when libellant arrived at the said shipyard it was found that a large and fierce fire was raging therein, and that said steamship Jefferson, which had been undergoing repairs at the said shipyard, was locked in one of the dry docks, out of which the water had been emptied, and was afire, her upper works being then in full blaze and her hull smoking throughout nearly its whole length; that there was no one on board at the time, and no one could have stayed aboard under the circumstances; that the water pipes intended for the use of the fire department were frozen up and there was no water available for their use, and that this, together with the fact that the Jefferson was in a peculiar and inaccessible situation, being in a dry dock, rendered the fire engines and fire department totally unable to render any assistance whatsoever; under which circumstances said steamer would have been completely destroyed but for the assistance rendered by libellant and other salvors hereinafter mentioned.
'3. That thereupon libellant, with his said tug Helen and crew, lay at a bulkhead of one of the piers, as close to the said dry dock as possible, and together with the tugs Alice and James Smith, Jr., played streams of water from their fire house upon said steamship Jefferson, and continued so to do until the fire was completely extinguished; that libellant and other salvors were thus engaged from about 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon of said day until about 8:30 o'clock at night, during all of which time libellant and said salvors rendered every possible assistance to said steamship, and during all of which time libellant and others entitled as salvors as aforesaid underwent great suffering from smoke, flame, and sparks, and endured great hardship from exposure to the wind and water in the bitter coldness of the weather, and libellant and other salvors incurred great danger from said smoke, flames, and sparks, and from electric wires, falling poles, adjacent burning buildings, ets.
'First. That the property proceeded against was not at sea or on the coast of the sea, or within public navigable waters, or on the shores thereof.
'Second. That the property proceeded against was not a vessel engaged in maritime commerce.
'Third. That the libellants did not render any service at sea or in saving property from any peril of the sea.
'Fourth. That there is not shown any sea peril or such peril as may be the basis of a claim for salvage.
'Fifth. That the Jefferson, while in a dry dock, from which all the water had been emptied, when threatened with fire from land, was not a subject of salvage services.
In the following July the present appeal was prayed on the ground that, as the court had dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, its action was susceptible of review by direct appeal to this court. In its order allowing the appeal the court stated that 'the claim of appeal is allowed as prayed for from the final order and decree dismissing said cause for want of jurisdiction. . . .' As upon the face of the record, irrespective of the recitals in the order made on the allowance of the appeal, it is apparent that the only question which was decided below was one of jurisdiction, and as the decree which was appealed from on its face shows that the cause was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, the question of jurisdiction, if it is of such a character as to sustain the appeal, was sufficiently certified. United States v. Larkin, 208 U. S. 333, 338, 52 L. ed. 517, 519, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 417. We therefore put the contentions as to the absence of a certificate out of view.
As the foregoing considerations demonstrate that the case was dismissed below because of the conclusion that there was no jurisdiction as a Federal court over the subject-matter of the controversy, it results that the motion to dismiss is without merit. Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co. 119 U. S. 625, 30 L. ed. 501, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 336; The Resolute, 168 U. S. 437, 42 L. ed. 533, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 112; Cleveland Terminal Valley R. Co. v. Cleveland, S. S. Co. 208 U. S. 316, 52 L. ed. 508, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 414, 13 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 1215; The Troy, 208 U. S. 321, 52 L. ed. 512, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 416; Scully v. Bird, 209 U. S. 481, 52 L. ed. 899, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 597; Globe Newspaper Co. v. Walker, 210 U. S. 356, 52 L. ed. 1096, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 726.
The contention on the part of the appellee that a negative answer should be given to this question is based upon the propositions which controlled the action of the court below. They are: a, that at the time the services sued for were rendered, the Jefferson was in a dry dock undergoing repairs, was not on the sea, but was virtually on the shore, and was consequently at such time not an instrumentality of navigation, subject to the dangers and hazards of the sea; b, the services were not rendered in saving the Jefferson from a maritime peril, as the danger relied on arose outside of the admiralty jurisdiction, and not in connection with the sea or the navigation thereof. We shall consider the contentions together.
'Service, undoubtedly, was performed by the members of the fire department; but it is a mistake to suppose that service was not also performed by the steam tug, as it is clear that, without the aid of the steam tug and the services of her master and crew, the members of the fire company would never have been able to reach the ship with their engines and necessary apparatus, or to have subdued the flames and extinguished the fire. Useful services of any kind rendered to a vessel or her cargo, exposed to any impending danger and imminent peril of loss or damage, may entitle those who render such services to salvage reward.
The case of The Rosalie was one of salvage of a vessel in danger from a fire at sea, and among other things treated as constituting the salving services was the unloading of the cargo upon land. In The Tees, salvage was awarded for towing to a place of safety a vessel lying in a dock and in danger of catching fire from the surrounding warehouses which were in flames. To the English cases cited in the opinion in The Blackwall may be added that of The City of Newcastle, 7 Asp. Mar. L. Cas. N. S. 546. That case was heard before Justice Bruce, assisted by the Trinity masters, and the facts in brief were as follows: A fire broke out on board a vessel which was lying alongside a jetty at the entrance to a dock. The vessel was under repairs, with no steam up, and had no one but the master and watchman on board. At the request of the master, a steamship, which had just arrived, hove alongside, and, getting her hose on board the burning vessel, extinguished the fire, which, if it had remained unchecked, would have caused a very serious damage. The services were such as might have been rendered by a fire engine on shore. The value of the salved vessel was £9,500. The defendants tendered £200. The court upheld the tender, being of opinion that the services were not of such character as to require that the award should be assessed upon the same liberal principles as obtained in the ordinary cases of sea salvage rendered by one ship to another.
And the doctrine of The Blackwall and the other cases just reviewed was in substance reiterated in The Clarita and The Clara, 23 Wall. 1, 23 L. ed. 146. In that case remuneration was claimed by the libellants as owners of the steam tug Clarita for salvage services rendered by the tug and the officers and crew, in subduing a fire on board the schooner Clara. While at anchor in the middle of the Hudson river, the Clara caught fire from contact with a burning ferryboat, which, after being towed from a ferry slip, had gotten adrift. It was not questioned that the services, intrinsically considered, were salvage services, but, because the injury to the schooner was occasioned by the fault of the tug whose owner, master, and crew asserted the salvage claim, the right to salvage was denied. And the principles just announced, when duly appreciated, also establish that the Jefferson, while in dry dock, undergoing repairs, was subject to the jurisdiction of a court of admiralty and liable for a salvage service. By necessary implication it appears from the averments of the libel that the steamship, before being docked, had been engaged in navigation, was dedicated to the purposes of transportation and commerce, and had been placed in the dry dock to undergo repairs to fit her to continue in such navigation and commerce. As said in Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co. 119 U. S. 625, 30 L. ed. 501, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 336: 'A ship or vessel used for navigation and commerce, though lying at a wharf and temporarily made fast thereto, as well as her furniture and cargo, are maritime subjects, and are capable of receiving salvage services.' In reason, we think it cannot be held that a ship or vessel employed in navigation and commerce is any the less a maritime subject within the admiralty jurisdiction when, for the purpose of making necessary repairs to fit her for continuance in navigation, she is placed in a dry dock and the water removed from about her, than would be such a vessel if fastened to a wharf in a dry harbor, where, by the natural recession of the water by the ebbing of the tide, she for a time might be upon dry land. Clearly, in the case last supposed, the vessel would not cease to be a subject within the admiralty jurisdiction merely because, for a short period, by the operation of nature's laws, water did not flow about her. Nor is there any difference in principle between a vessel floated into a wet dock, which is so extensively utilized in England for commercial purposes in the loading and unloading of vessels at abutting quays, and the dry dock into which a vessel must be floated for the purpose of being repaired, and from which, after being repaired, she is again floated into an adjacent stream. The status of a vessel is not altered merely because, in the one case, the water is confined within the dock by means of gates closed when the tide begins to ebb, while, in the other, the water is removed and the gates are closed to prevent the inflow of the water during the work of repair.
It was long recognized by this court that a service rendered in making repairs to a ship or vessel, whether in or out of the water, was a maritime service. Peyroux v. Howard, 7 Pet. 324, 8 L. ed. 700.
There is in reason no distinction between the continued control of admiralty over a vessel when she is in & dry dock for the purpose of being repaired, and the subjection of the vessel when in a dry dock for repairs to the jurisdiction of a court of admiralty for the purpose of passing upon claims for salvage services, by which it is asserted the vessel, while in the dock, was saved from destruction.

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