Court Opinion

ID: 8630798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:37:20.31793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:45.644049
License: Public Domain

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.