Court Opinion

ID: 8794188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 14:03:21.36904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:03:31.831043
License: Public Domain

Í^UTNAM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). The contract in this case is a very simple one, though the relations of parties are very peculiar and marked. The Fore River Shipbuilding Company was evidently interested in promoting the Curtis marine turbines and water tube boilers, which were apparently in an experimental state at the time the contract in this .case was made. The contract shows on its face that the Fore River Shipbuilding Company was sufficiently desirous of *395securing the practical success of those turbines and boilers to take a considerable hazard in reference thereto. It was therefore agreed that the ship in controversy should be constructed with those turbines and water tube boilers, in accordance with the detailed terms of the contract in suit. The contract, consequently, provided that if the turbines and boilers referred to in the plans and specifications attached to the contract did “not prove entirely satisfactory to the Pacific Company; and if the Pacific Company decided to install in the steamship reciprocating engines in place of steam turbines, and Scotch boilers in place of water tube boilers, then and in that event the Shipbuilding Company, at its own expense, will, if requested within six months after delivery of the ship, stiffen up her hull as required by the Pacific Company.” Then follows the guaranty set out in the opinions, which we need not repéat. Then comes the stipulation for payments for the steamship, which concludes as follows:
“One hundred thousand dollars when the steamship Is delivered to the Pacific Company.
“One hundred thousand dollars when the steamship is finally accepted by the Pacific Company.
“The final payment of $100,000 shall be made when the performance of the vessel shall have equaled, in the opinion of the Pacific Company, in a satisfactory and substantial manner, the guaranty requirements herein set forth as to speed and coal consumption.”
It is apparent that the Fore River Company was to have advantage of a fair test, whatever it might be worth, to be made by the Pacific Company before the parties undertook to determine whether or not the guaranty was complied with. But it is also clearly a part of the contract that the Southern Pacific Company should not be required to make the final payment for the ship of the $100,000 now in controversy, unless, in the judgment of the Southern Pacific Company, she complied with the guarantee. It was not enough that she did in fact comply with the guaranty; but the Southern Pacific Company was to be relieved from all hazard in reference to this experiment, according to its own judgment, and it was not to be required to take any chances as to compliance with the guarantee, so far as its own judgment was concerned. Clearly, in this respect, the contract was a personal matter, and the judgment of the Southern Pacific Company was not to be forestalled or superseded by the judgment of any other persons or of any tribunal, whether it was court or jury, judges or arbitrators. The Southern Pacific Company was to be guarded from exactly the kind of controversy which has appeared in the cases before us. The arrangement was a very peculiar one. The Southern Pacific Company was to make the trial of the ship, and to take possession of her before she was actually completed, and before final payment of the last $100,000 was due, and whatever else might have happened, the Southern Pacific Company was left with this $100,000 in its own hands as a fund to cover the installation of reciprocating engines and Scotch boilers, or their equivalents.
Under this contract we are not called on to say what the rights of the parties might have been if the conditions had been such as suggested by the opinion of the court, because the Southern Pacific Com*396pany sought to protect itself at all events from being drawn into litigation of the kind which has occurred. So far as the $100,000 are concerned, this is a suit on the contract itself for the recovery of part payment provided for by it, and we are not called upon to say what the rights of the parties might have been if the Fore River Company had brought suit for a breach of duty or obligation as thus suggested.
In the suit of the Southern Pacific Company against the Fore River Company the present condition did not arise in its present precise form, with the burden resting on the Fore River Company at the outset of its litigation to show that it had fulfilled the contract in accordance with its terms. Therefore we were not led into the consideration of any proposition such as that now submitted, but only of the proposition whether or not, in a suit on the contract itself, the Fore River Company could maintain with propriety that the Southern Pacific Company was liable for this final payment of $100,000, except on precise proof by the Fore River Company that the ship had actually proved herself to have conformed to the terms of the contract in the judgment of the Southern Pacific Company. As no such issue was presented, or could have been presented, the judgment of the court should have been, on that part of the case, for the Southern Pacific Company.
The other issues in this case failed to show any contract, expressed or implied, raising any obligation for the payment of the moneys demanded. Consequently judgment on those parts of the case should have been for the Southern Pacific Company, and all the interlocutory rulings in relation thereto necessarily proved ultimately immaterial. The judgment of the District Court in this suit for the Southern Pacific Company was right, and it is inconsequential whether the reasons given therefor were right or not.
The law of the case has, however, been settled by the court on this writ of error, and also on the cross-writ of error, to be otherwise than as viewed by us. We must accept the law, of course, as stated by the court, notwithstanding our views expressed in dissent. The result is that on this writ of error it is ordered that there shall be a new trial; that on that new trial the Fore River Company will be entitled to show, to use the language of the court, that there was, or may be, “evidence from which it might have been found that the ship, on three occasions when she was turned over to the Southern Pacific Company, was capable of complying with the guaranty, and that her structure was thereafter so damaged by the negligent conduct of the officers and men who were under the Southern Pacific Company’s control as to prevent her from complying therewith.” On the other hand, on the cross-writ of error there will be a new trial, as to which the court has decided that the verdict and judgment for the Southern Pacific Company in the case of $3,183.43 and costs were correct, so far as they went, and that the verdict therefor should be allowed to stand, and that any other sums found due the Southern Pacific Company may be added thereto; that the ship having failed on the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth' trips to comply with the guaranty, the Southern Pacific Company may prove, among other things, that the failure of the ship to comply with the guáranty was due to her inability to fulfill the con*397tract, and not to actual mismanagement on those trips; and that additional damages may be recovered, as stated in the opinion.
Beyond this, the opinion of the court on this writ of error holds that the amounts claimed on the second, third, and fourth counts in this suit cannot be recovered, as to which we have already expressed our concurrence with the court. We express no opinion whether the judgments ordered by the conclusions of the court on its opinions, on this writ of error and the cross-writ, can be worked out harmoniously.