Case Name: The ELLA WARLEY
Court: United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1862-09
Citations: 8 F. Cas. 506
Docket Number: Case No. 4,372
Parties: The ELLA WARLEY.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Cases
Volume: 8
Pages: 506–506

Head Matter:
Case No. 4,372.
The ELLA WARLEY.
[Blatcnf. Pr. Cas. 213.]
District Court, S. D. New York.
Sept., 1862.
[Reported by Samuel Blatchford, Esq.]

Opinion:
BETTS, District Judge.
The motion by the. United States district attorney to sell the vessel, because she is in a.perishing condition, must, on the evidence before the court, be granted, for that shows her condition to be one eminently exposing her to great injury, if not to immediate total loss. The claimant's proofs and objections only lead to a belief that she may be protected, if not wholly saved, by a more vigilant care bestowed upon her by her keepers, and particularly by pumping her watchfully, and perhaps by other acts of precaution. These must necessarily require expenditures, and the marshal or the prize commissioners, as legal custodians of the prize, pending her keeping in court, are supplied with no means or authority to cause such expenditures to-be made. Justice to both parties claiming the vessel demands that a sale of her be ordered. If the claimants were to intervene and offer bail for her value, the objection to her sale would rest upon sounder grounds, but all proffers of such extraneous aid to her preservation by either party leaves the case open for an application, by one claiming a legal right in her, to require a sale of the perishable thing, and have its proceeds put in safety. This is consonant to the ordinary practice in admiralty in suits in rem. Sale ordered accordingly.