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Timestamp: 2020-01-28 00:59:08
Document Index: 440716900

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 9', '§ 3', '§ 1', '§ 4282', '§ 2', '§ 194']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 272 > EASTERN TRANSPORTATION CO. V. UNITED STATES, 272 U. S. 675 (1927)
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1. Abandonment within the thirty-day period set by the Act of March 3, 1899, will not be presumed of a wreck left in a navigable chanrobles.com-red
Appeal from a decree of the District Court which dismissed, for lack of jurisdiction, an admiralty suit in personam brought by the appellant against the United States to recover for a ship and cargo lost by collision with the sunken and unmarked wreck of what had been a vessel owned and used by the United States solely as a merchant vessel. The Seaboard Transportation Company, originally a co-defendant, was dismissed by consent of the other parties. chanrobles.com-red
The Eastern Transportation Company filed a libel in admiralty in personam against the United States in the chanrobles.com-red
The United States district attorney appeared specially for the government for the purpose of suggesting to the court that it was without jurisdiction so far as the United States was concerned; that the cause of action stated chanrobles.com-red
This issue on jurisdiction was presented by a motion to dismiss, which was denied by the district judge on the ground that the question should be determined after the facts were elicited in the trial of the case. 283 F.1d 15. Subsequently, the judge reheard the suggestion of want of chanrobles.com-red
By § 2, in cases where, if such vessel were privately owned or operated, or if such cargo were privately owned and possessed, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained at the time of the commencement of the Action, a libel in personam may be brought against the United States if the vessel is employed as a merchant vessel. The suit is to be in a district court of the United States for the district in which the parties suing reside, or at their principal place of business or in which the vessel or cargo charged with liability is found. The libelant is forthwith to serve a copy of his libel on the United States attorney for such district and mail a copy thereof to the Attorney General, and make a sworn return of such service and chanrobles.com-red
Section 7 provides that, if any vessel or cargo of the United States is seized by process of a court of any country other than the United States, the Secretary of chanrobles.com-red
In the case at bar, the liability charged in this libel arose from occurrences under the Act of March 3, 1899, chanrobles.com-red
Section 19 provides for a period of 30 days before abandonment is complete unless legally established in less time. Under the averments of the libel, there is no presumption of abandonment, certainly not within the 30 days, merely to relieve the owner of the wreck of his affirmative duty during that time to protect commerce against its danger. People's Coal Co. v. Second Pool Coal Co., 181 F.6d 9, aff'd, 188 F.8d 2. We do not think that abandonment is a factor in this case.
It is first objected to the recovery here that it was not intended by the Suits in Admiralty Act to subject the United States itself to prosecution for a crime which it chanrobles.com-red
denounces in its legislation. We need not be troubled by this objection, because there is no attempt here to prosecute the United States or any of its agents criminally. The declaration that the leaving of a wreck in a navigable channel in a place dangerous to passing steamers without notice of the danger and without immediate removal is unlawful makes such omission a maritime tort which, if merchant vessels of the United States are to respond in tort, may be recovered for in its admiralty courts against the United States without anomaly. The Fahy, 153 F.8d 6; The Macy, 170 F.9d 0; People's Coal Co., 181 F.6d 9; 188 F.8d 3. Under the Tucker Act and the general jurisdiction of the Court of Claims, of course, the United States is made liable only upon a contract express or implied, and not for a tort; but its liability provided for in the Suits in Admiralty Act cannot be limited to contracts any more than the liability of its merchant vessels under the Shipping Act of 1916 could be so limited. The Lake Monroe, 250 U. S. 246.
By the Shipping Act of 1916, approved September 7, 1916, c. 145, 39 Stat. 729, the United States Shipping Board was established for the purpose of encouraging, developing, and creating a naval auxiliary and naval reserve and a merchant marine to meet the requirements of the commerce of the United States, and authority was given to that board to purchase, lease, or charter vessels suitable, as far as the commercial requirements of trade of the United States might permit. By § 9, any such vessel, while employed solely as a merchant vessel, was made subject to all laws, regulations, and liabilities governing merchant vessels when the United States was interested therein as owner in whole or in part, or otherwise. It was under this provision that vessels belonging to the United States engaged as merchant vessels were arrested and held in an action in rem. In The Lake Monroe, 250 U. S. 246, we decided that such a merchant vessel was subject chanrobles.com-red
As we have already intimated, the main purpose of the Act of relieving United States merchant vessels from seizure and arrest would lead us to limit the operation of the Act to such a remedy as would be commensurate only with the immunity from seizure extended by the Act to United States merchant vessels and to a proceeding which while in form in personam would be attended only with the incidents of a proceeding in rem as if against a vessel libeled, arrested, and released under a stipulation or bond by the United States to pay all damages. In spite of the purpose of the Act to create a substitute for a suit in rem, however, we are forced to the view, by the language used in §§ 3 and 6, that it must be construed to have a wider effect than that which its § 1 would lead us to expect. The second section declares that, in cases of immunity from arrest provided for in the first section, where, if the vessel or cargo had been privately owned or possessed, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained at the commencement of the Action, a libel in personam may be brought against the United chanrobles.com-red
This view is further borne out by the sixth section, which provides that the United States shall be entitled to the benefit of all exemptions and of all limitations of liability accorded by law to the owners, charterers, operators, or agents of vessels. The necessary implication is that if, under the Harter Act (c. 105, 27 Stat. 445), or the Limitation of Liability Act (§§ 4282-4287, R.S.), the United States as owner of a merchant vessel should not be able to show performance of the conditions upon chanrobles.com-red
This construction of §§ 2, 3, and 6 is sustained by the weight of authority in the lower courts. Agros Corp. v. United States, 8 F.2d 84; The Anna E. Morse, 287 F.3d 4; Bashinsky Cotton Co. v. United States, 8 F.2d 79; Markle v. United States, 8 F.2d 87; Cross v. United States, 8 F.2d 86; Benedict on Admiralty (5th ed.) vol. 1, § 194.
Do Blamberg v. United States, 260 U. S. 452, Shewan & Sons v. United States, 266 U. S. 108, and Nahmeh v. United States, 267 U. S. 122, militate against this view? In those cases, the Court emphasized the main purpose in the Act to be to rid the United States of the inconvenience to which it and its subordinate Shipping Corporations were subjected by having their vessels in the merchant trade arrested and seized under the Shipping Act of 1916, by substituting therefor a suit in personam against the United States with consequent appropriations to meet the liability thus imposed. We did not then have before us the question whether the statute substituted a remedy limited to what an action in rem would be with a statutory stipulation and bond of the United States to take the place of the vessel, or whether it created a broader personal obligation of the United States, both personal and in rem, like that of the private owner of a vessel. The question in the Blamberg case was whether the Act applied at all in cases in which there could be no immunity granted by Congress to vessels of the United States. The Shewan case only involved the question whether that which had been a merchant vessel of the United States continued to be such and satisfied the Act, if it were laid up and had not been changed to be a public vessel of the United States. The Nahmeh case was one of venue as to the district courts in which chanrobles.com-red
It is finally insisted for the government that recovery against the government under the Suits in Admiralty Act, whether in personam or in rem, must be on a cause of action related to or growing out of the operation of government vessels employed as merchant vessels, and that, as the collision with the wreck was not with a vessel employed as a merchant vessel, the Act does not apply. We think this reasoning to be too fine. What the statute means by saying "employed as a merchant vessel" is that the vessel shall belong to that class, as distinguished from one employed in the governmental service, not necessarily that it shall be actively thus employed at the time of the collision. Shewan & Sons v. United States, supra. The cause of action grows out of the responsibility of the government for a merchant vessel which in the course of its employment had become a danger to navigation and which imposed a duty to avoid that danger. A wreck which is a total loss will not furnish basis for an action in rem, as we have assumed, but if a proceeding in admiralty permitted by the Act embraces the principles both of suits in personam and suits in rem, it is a most natural construction of the Act dealing with merchant vessels employed by the United States, to include as a suit in personam it permits, one for a tort caused by the negligence of the United chanrobles.com-red