Court Opinion

ID: 9643199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:21:46.038082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.174441
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The first question is whether the charterer did in fact accept the charterparties: its answer depends upon the proper construction of the charterer’s letter which accompanied the return of the signed documents. That was subject to two possible interpretations: (1) that the signing and delivering of the charterparties were not to be understood as an acceptance of the owner’s offer, but that the parties’ rights were to be judged by the oral contract alone; or (2) that while the charterer did indeed accept the offer because it was forced to, it claimed that the oral contract would continue to give it those rights of which the owner had despoiled it. It seems to me that the second interpretation must be the right one. The situation is the not uncommon one in which a party to a contract actually, but unwillingly, consents; the charterer knew it could not get even one voyage without consenting and consent it did. Reserving its rights under the oral contract did not withdraw that consent; it merely expressed the belief that the law would not sanction the supposed wrong. Its position was like that of a man who signs a contract with the reservation of a right to repudiate it because he had been forced to do so through his poverty; his defense can rest only upon the validity of the excuse and is not aided by the reservation.
I will assume that there was no consideration for the charter-parties; I read the oral charter — as the appellee itself appears to — as having been for two months with an option to the charterer of three months more; and since apparently one voyage took about two months, the effect of the change was merely to cut off the option. It so happens, however, that this is immaterial, if the amendment to subdivision two of § 33 of the Personal Property Law of New York applies to maritime contracts like these. That provides that an agreement which modifies a pre-existing contract shall not be invalid because it lacks consideration, provided it is in writing and is signed by the party against whom the change is to be enforced; and these charter-parties were signed in New York and certainly “modified a pre-existing contract.” The question has not been argued whether the statute should not apply to maritime contracts on the ground that, if so, it would unduly impinge upon one of “the essential features of an exclusive federal jurisdiction” (Just v. Chambers, 312 U.S. 383, 392, 61 S.Ct. 687, 693, 85 L.Ed. 903) but, although that question has usually arisen over torts, it can also come up over maritime contracts. Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Company, 264 U.S. 109, 44 S.Ct. 274, 68 L.Ed. 582. It is a peculiarly baffling one for the test of what is “essen*512tial” to “uniformity” and what is not, has been left altogether at large; and the latest declaration of the Supreme Court (Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. —, 62 S.Ct. 221, 86 L.Ed. -) seems to betoken a change. Be that as it may, I find it difficult to believe that this local variant of the doctrine of consideration will disturb the “essentials” of admiralty jurisdiction any more than for instance a state statute imposing maritime liens. The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 581, 22 L.Ed. 654. A dissenting opinion is not the place for an exhaustive examination of such a question— especially when it has not been argued— and I shall content myself merely with saying tentatively that, so far as I can now see, the statute should be held to cover charter-parties. For that reason, I think that the district court was right, though it is a rather curious irony that a statute, designed generally to avoid injustice, should in this instance operate so harshly.