Court Opinion

ID: 9442243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:41:03.960923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:01.537730
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I agree as to The Card and The Port Henry, but I would hold The Dauntless. Rule III of Article 18 of the Inland Rules1 provides that “if, when steam vessels are approaching each other, either vessel fails, to understand the course or intention of the other, from any cause, the vessel so in doubt shall immediately signify the same” by giving the “alarm.” It is a common habit, at least in the harbor of New York, for a vessel, which has had no answer to her first signal, to repeat it instead of sounding an “alarm”; and that does at least serve one purpose of the rule, which is to arouse the other vessel. However, since it requires “not less than four” short blasts, we have held it to be a fault to repeat an earlier signal,2 as have other courts ; and it is a graver fault for a vessel to sound no signal at all. In Henry Du Bois Sons Co. v. A/S Ivarans Rederi 3 we held a vessel for failing to do so. Each case will obviously depend upon how pressing is the need for an early response; and the facts here satisfy me that the Dauntless let herself get into too close quarters by waiting *76for two minutes and until she was only 500 feet away from the flotilla.
Rule III, is not limited to situations in which the vessels are on “steady courses”; it is a cautionary command, necessary whenever vessels “are approaching each other”; to carry over to it a limitation to “■steady courses,” which is proper in meeting or crossing situations, would be to disregard its comprehensive purpose. Moreover, it must also not be limited to situations in which a master, who has received no answer, does not in fact have doubts of the other vessel’s “intention,” if a “reasonable” master in his place would have had them; he cannot excuse his inaction by his ineptitude. Thus it makes no difference how little The Dauntless actually was in doubt; doubts ought to have arisen before two minutes had passed. Nor may she excuse herself on the ground that her fault did not contribute to the collision. Had she sounded an “alarm,” The Port Henry would presumably have blown either once or twice. If she had blown once, The Dauntless could have carried out the navigation which she was planning. If The Port Henry had blown twice, as in fact she did, there is every reason to suppose that the navigation, which in fact missed success only by a hair, would have succeeded, for it would have begun earlier.

. § 203, Title 83 U.S.C.A.

. James McWilliams Blue Line, Inc. v. Card Towing Line, 2 Cir., 168 F.2d 720; Socony Vacuum Transportation Co. v. Gypsum Packet Co., 2 Cir., 153 P.2d 773.

. 2 Cir., 116 F.2d 492.