Opinion ID: 266032
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City's failure to raise the bridge.

Text: 25 If this were a run of the mine negligence case, the City's argument against liability for not promptly raising the Michigan Avenue Bridge would be impressive: All the vessels moored in the harbor were known to be without power and incapable of controlled movement save with the aid of tugs. The tugs had quit at 4 P.M.; they were not docked in the river, and would not undertake after quitting time to tow a vessel into or out of the inner harbor. Since the breaking loose of a ship was not to be anticipated, it would have been consistent with prudence for the City to relieve the bridge crews of their duties. 4 Neglect by the crews ought not subject the City to liability merely because, out of abundance of caution, it had ordered them to be present when prudence did not so require. The case is unlike those in which a railway or a city, having undertaken to give warning signals at a crossing although under no duty to do so, is held liable to a plaintiff who relied on the absence of warning when it failed to continue its practice. See Prosser, Torts, 187, and fn. 87 (1955). It would be nonsense to suppose that Continental and the Shiras did what they did, and didn't what they didn't, in reliance on the bridge operators being sufficiently alert to avert disaster if the Shiras should break loose. 26 Buffalo's adversaries answer with 4 of the Bridge Act of 1906, 33 U.S.C. 494, which requires, inter alia, that if a bridge over a navigable stream 'shall be constructed with a draw, then the draw shall be opened promptly by the persons owning or operating such bridge upon reasonable signal for the passage of boats and other water craft.' Buffalo replies that this general language cannot reasonably be construed to require that all drawbridges over all navigable streams in all fifty states shall be tended at all times of day or night, summer or winter, despite the near certainty that no traffic will approach. Alternatively it is arguable that a signal given when no traffic was to be expected would not be a 'reasonable signal' unless this gave the bridge owner reasonable time to get someone down to the bridge to open it. However, an older statute, 28 Stat. 362 (1894), as amended, 33 U.S.C. 499, makes it 'the duty of all persons owning, operating, and tending the drawbridges    across the navigable rivers and other waters of the United States, to open, or cause to be opened, the draws of such bridges under such rules and regulations as in the opinion of the Secretary of the Army the public interests require to govern the opening of drawbridges for the passage of vessels and other watercrafts, and such rules and regulations, when so made and published, shall have the force of law.   ' The section goes on to authorize the promulgation of such regulations by the Secretary of the Army and to make it a misdemeanor to delay unreasonably the opening of a draw after reasonable signal. Pursuant to this authority, the Corps of Engineers promulgated 33 C.F.R. 203.707, as follows: 27 '(a) The Michigan Avenue bridges across Buffalo River and Buffalo Ship Canal will not be required to open for the passage of vessels from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m., 8:00 to 8:30 a.m., 3:45 to 4:30 p.m., and 5:15 to 6:00 p.m. ' (d) The closed periods prescribed in this section shall not be effective on Sundays and on New Year's day    (and other holidays). '(e) The draws of these bridges shall be opened promptly on signal for the passage of any vessel at all times during the day or night except as otherwise provided in this section.' (None of the unquoted subsections provide otherwise.) 28 It is possible to read this statute and the regulations thereunder as creating by implication a cause of action, irrespective of negligence, for any person, or at least for any ship, injured by their breach. The power of Congress with respect to navigable streams is plenary; nothing prevents Congress from 'abating any erections that may have been made, and preventing any others from being made, except in conformity with such regulations as it may impose.' Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U.S. 1, 12-13, 8 S.Ct. 811, 817, 31 L.Ed. 629 (1888). Responsive to that decision Congress has enacted that 'The creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States is prohibited;   ,' 33 U.S.C. 403; the Michigan Avenue Bridge was allowed to exist only subject to the conditions as to its raising previously stated. However, we are not here required to decide whether the statute and regulations create such an implied cause of action and, if so, in whose favor. See United States v. Perma Paving Co., 332 F.2d 754 (2 Cir. 1964). It is enough for this case that they lay down a standard of care with which bridge owners must comply in the absence of circumstances, not here present, excusing such compliance. 29 There can be no question as to this being so with respect to vessels in the ordinary course of navigation. City of Chicago v. Chicago Transp. Co., 222 F. 238, L.R.A.1915F, 1062 (7 Cir.), cert. denied, 238 U.S. 626, 35 S.Ct. 664, 59 L.Ed. 1495 (1915); City of Cleveland v. McIver,109 F.2d 69 (6 Cir.1940). Cf. Nassau County Bridge Auth. v. Tug Dorothy McAllister, 207 F.Supp. 167 (E.D.N.Y.1962), aff'd 315 F.2d 631 (2 Cir. 1963). The same rule has been held applicable as to drifting vessels, Dorrington v. City of Detroit, 223 F. 232 (6 Cir.1915). Although these were doubtless not in the forefront of Congress' mind, they too were within the general purpose of insuring freedom of navigation at which the statute was aimed. Compare De Haen v. Rockwood Sprinkler Co., 258 N.Y. 350, 179 N.E. 764 (1932); Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 191, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949); contrast Gorris v. Scott, L.R. 9 Ex. 125 (1874), and see A.L.I. Restatement 2d, Torts 286 (Tent.Draft No. 4, April, 1959), and Prosser, Torts, 157-58 (1955). The effect of the Corps of Engineers' regulation was to withdraw decision as to when the bridge might be left untended from what would otherwise have been a permissible area for exercise of the City's prudent judgment. See The Pennsylvania, 19 Wall. (86 U.S.) 125, 22 L.Ed. 148 (1874). Indeed, Buffalo exercised no judgment contrary to the regulation; the fault lay in its employees' failure to carry out the United States' commands and those of their employer. 30 II. The time relation of the City's failure to the prior faults of the Shiras and Continental. 31 All three parties held liable complain of the effect which the judge gave to the failure of the City to raise the bridge. Kinsman and Continental contend that the City's failure insulates them from liability for damages to others resulting from the collision at the bridge; the City objects to the imposition of sole liability for damage to the Shiras and to Continental and to the exoneration of these parties from liability for destruction of the bridge. 32 We speedily overrule the objections of Kinsman and Continental. Save for exceptions which are not here pertinent, an actor whose negligence has set a dangerous force in motion is not saved from liability for harm it has caused to innocent persons solely because another has negligently failed to take action that would have avoided this. See A.L.I. Restatement, Torts 439, 447 and 452; Restatement 2d Torts 442A, 442B, and 452(1), comments b and c (Tent.Draft No. 9, April, 1963); Harper & James, The Law of Torts, 1146 (1956); James, Last Clear Chance: A Transitional Doctrine, 47 Yale L.J. 704, 708 (1938). As against third persons, one negligent actor cannot defend on the basis that the other had 'the last clear chance.' See Prosser, Torts, 291 and fn. 72 (1955); Bohlen, Contributory Negligence, 21 Harv.L.Rev. 233, 237-41 (1908); MacIntyre The Rationale of Last Clear Chance, 53 Harv.L.Rev. 1225, 1234-35 (1940). The contrary argument grows out of the discredited notion that only the last wrongful act can be a cause-- a notion as faulty in logic as it is wanting in fairness. The established principle is especially appealing in admiralty which will divide the damages among the negligent actors or nonactors. 33 On the other hand, we disagree with the judge's holding that because the City had 'the last clear chance,' Kinsman and Continental as plaintiffs against it are absolved of their negligence and the City as plaintiff is left without recourse against them. Here, as in the case of the injuries to persons not at fault, the damages should be divided. Explanation of our reasons requires some analysis of the origin of the last clear chance rule and of its application in admiralty. 34 As has been pointed out, the earliest common law decisions upholding the defense of contributory negligence were cases where the plaintiff's negligence came later than the defendant's and rested on the now discarded belief that only the last negligent act could be a legal cause. See Bohlen, Contributory Negligence, supra, 21 Harv.L.Rev. at 238; 8 Holdsworth, A History of English Law 459 (2d ed. 1925); Harper & James, supra, 1241-45. This same notion that had thus given rise to contributory negligence as a complete defense then became the basis for avoiding it; the first and still the most current explanation of the last clear chance rule is that under such circumstances the plaintiff's negligence is not a proximate cause of his injury. Dowell v. General Steam Nav. Co., 5 El. & Bl. 195 (1855); Tuff v. Warman, 5 C.B. (N.S.) 573, 585, 141 Eng.Rep. 231, 236 (1858). The error in this has been often demonstrated, see Prosser, Torts, 291; Harper & James, The Law of Torts, 1244, and fn. 18; the theory is, of course, entirely inconsistent with the acknowledged right of third persons to recover against the first as well as the second actor in the temporal chain. But, despite its demonstrable fallacy, the last clear chance doctrine has remained popular at common law as ameliorating the harshness of the rule whereby a negligent act of the plaintiff, often very slight in comparison to the dangerous conduct of the defendant, would otherwise bar recovery. 35 Although it might have been thought that the less severe consequences attributed to contributory negligence by the admiralty would have prevented the last clear chance doctrine from entering maritime law, see The Norman B. Ream, 252 F. 409, 414 (7 Cir.1918), a number of factors dictated otherwise. One was the influence of English cases in the common law courts involving collisions in territorial waters; another was the manning of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords and of both trial and appellate admiralty tribunals in this country with lawyers whose principal training was in the common law; a third-- no longer applicable in England since the Brussels Rules for apportioning damages in proportion to fault were adopted by the Maritime Conventions Act, 1 & 2 Geo. V, c. 57, 1(1) (1911), but highly influential here-- is that the doctrine, selectively applied, has helped to overcome results of the equal division principle which are sometimes quite as shocking as those of the common law bar for contributory negligence-- especially in cases where reliance by a relatively innocent plaintiff on the 'major-minor fault' exception has been thought to be barred by the rule of The Pennsylvania, 19 Wall. (86 U.S.) 125, 22 L.Ed. 148 (1874), that a party to a collision who has violated a statutory rule of navigation may not escape liability except on proof that the violation could not have contributed to the accident. See MacIntyre, supra, 53 Harv.L.Rev. at 1236-41; Gilmore & Black, Admiralty, 403-407, 438-442. 36 None of the cases in which this Court has applied the last clear chance rule to impose sole liability in admiralty is at all analogous to this one; indeed we doubt whether this case would come within the principle as generally applied at common law. One line of authority that is plainly distinguishable is where the vessel committing the later fault was contractually bound to care for the one guilty of an earlier fault of which the vessel held solely liable had become aware-- typified by the tug that neglects a leaky tow, as in Henry Du Bois Sons Co. v. Pennsylvania RR., 47 F.2d 172 (2 Cir.1931), or in what was fated to be Judge Learned Hand's last opinion, Chemical Transporter, Inc. v. M. Turecamo, Inc., 290 F.2d 496 (2 Cir.1961). See also Sternberg Dredging Co. v. Moran Towing and Transp. Co., 196 F.2d 1002 (2 Cir.1952). In the other cases relied on by Continental and the Shiras, as in those just cited, the vessel solely charged had engaged in dangerous conduct in full knowledge of the peril created by the other's fault, often small although statutory. The Perseverance, 63 F.2d 788 (2 Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Cornell Steamboat Co. v. Lavender, 289 U.S. 744, 53 S.Ct. 692, 77 L.Ed. 1490 (1933); The Sanday, 122 F.2d 325 (2 Cir. 1941); The Socony No. 19, 29 F.2d 20 (2 Cir. 1928); The Syosset, 71 F.2d 666 (2 Cir. 1934); The Cornelius Vanderbilt, 120 F.2d 766 (2 Cir. 1941). Indeed, in the three cases last cited it is not altogether clear that the fault of the exonerated vessel was a 'cause' in the sense that the accident was within the risk that made her action negligent. Furthermore, if, as we believe, what really happened here was that neither of the bridge operators was on hand to raise the bridge when the first warning came, and the second operator had just arrived at the time of the second warning, the situation may well have been one in which 'defendant did not in fact have a chance of avoiding injury to a negligent plaintiff but would have had such chance had it not been for some prior negligence,' Harper & James, supra, 1251-55. Many states do not apply the last clear chance rule in such cases. See also Prosser, supra, 290, 295; A.L.I. Restatement of Torts 479, although there is famous authority for doing so. British Columbia Elec. Ry. v. Loach, (1916) 1 A.C. 719 (P.C.1915). 37 However the case would stand at common law, the last clear chance doctrine, not very satisfactory at best, has been utilized in admiralty quite selectively, to free a claimant from the consequences of a rather low degree of negligence in creating a dangerous situation of which the party whose activity led to the damage was well aware and which he could easily have overcome. See Gilmore & Black, supra, 404 & fn. 47. It would be a far cry from that to impose on the City sole liability to the ship and the wharfinger whose negligence resulted in the crash with the bridge and to exempt the ship and the wharfinger from all liability for demolishing the City's property. In a ship-bridge collision somewhat the converse of this, where the ship, if provided with a lookout, would have had the last clear chance, we directed division of damages, Circle Line Sightseeing Yachts, Inc. v. City of New York, 283 F.2d 811 (2 Cir. 1960), cert. denied, 365 U.S. 879, 81 S.Ct. 1030, 6 L.Ed.2d 191 (1961); the same course should be followed here. 38