Court Opinion

ID: 9446098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:46:14.324116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:31.573480
License: Public Domain

HASTIE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
Joining in affirmance of the judgment below, I find it harder to decide this case than do my colleagues. In the view of my colleagues it is clear that the appellant’s maritime tort was “the proximate cause” of the drydock-ing of the Atlantic Trader, while the ship’s earlier accidental fouling of its propeller and tailshaft was not a responsible cause of this expensive operation.
The appellee here had already committed itself, before appellant’s negligence intervened, to incur the cost of drydocking the Atlantic Trader for several days in March. Appellant’s negligence merely made it necessary for appellee to incur such drydocking expense for the same number of days in early February. The actual cost of dry-docking, which is now in controversy, would have been the same at either time. In these circumstances, it is arguable that the subsequent wrong, which caused only a rescheduling of the drydocking without adding any extra days or costs of detention beyond what the earlier injury alone would have required, was not even a “but for cause” of the dry-docking expense.
In his thoughtful essay, Multiple Causation and Damage, 1934, 47 Harv.L.Rev. 1127, 1130, Chief Justice Peaslee made this rather persuasive rationalization of such situations:
“ * * * On the one hand is sufficient wrongful causation of a physical result, and on the other, inevitable loss not increased by the defendant’s wrong. Recovery would make the plaintiff better off than he would have been if the defendant had done no wrong. So long as the innocent cause is in actual, inescapable operation before the wrongful act becomes efficient, it is not apparent how the latter can be considered the cause of the loss. Causation is matter of fact, and that which is not in fact causal ought not to be deemed so in law. The defendant’s act may have furnished some cause for the * * * [loss], but causing -» -x- * [it] at that time and under those circumstances did not injure the plaintiff, and neither moral justification nor logic would charge the wrongdoer for damage which he had not caused.”
*780This line of thinking apparently has persuaded the British courts that a tort-feasor should not be charged with the damage in question in a case like this. Thus, Lord Phillimore, summing up his prevailing view in the House of Lords, said:
“If a vessel has got to go into drydock for' a periodical survey * * * or to repair previous damage, her detention for repairs due to some collision which occurs after the previous damage or after the determination to put her into dry-dock has been made, will not be a charge against the wrongdoer; otherwise it will.” Commissioners v. Owners of S. S. Chekiang, [1926] A.C. 637, 653. Cf. Carslogie S. S. Co. v. Royal Norwegian Government, [1952] A.C. 292 (H.L.)
These arguments give me concern, yet I doubt whether there is any clearly correct solution of these odd multiple cause cases. In dealing with them there seems to be merit to a different approach suggested by the Restatement of the Law of Torts. The Restatement first states in Section 431 that “the actor’s negligent conduct is a legal cause of harm to another if (a) his conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm * * Then Section 432 (2) sets out one exceptional situation in which negligent conduct which is not a necessary antecedent of the harm may still be a substantial factor in bringing it about. That is the peculiar case in which “two forces are actively operating, one because of the actor’s negligence, the other not because of any misconduct on his part, and each of itself is sufficient to bring about [the] harm [which is suffered] * * The Restatement rule may well have been designed to deal with problems somewhat different from the one we have here. Yet, it makes sense here and I would apply it. The appellant’s tort made drydocking essential as soon as possible and in fact caused a rescheduling of the drydoek-ing a month earlier than had originally been arranged. Therefore, it was permissible for the court below to find that the appellant should in fairness bear the drydocking cost, since its negligence would have been sufficient in itself to necessitate drydocking and, in fact, did operate simultaneously with another factor in bringing about that eventuality.