Court Opinion

ID: 9455634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:28:14.106697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:40.313068
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
It is not clear to me that, in light of Article 27 of the Inland Rules, 33 U.S.C. § 212, requiring “due regard * * * to any special circumstances which may render a departure from the above rules necessary in order to avoid immediate danger,” the Chemical Transporter was at fault in proposing a starboard to starboard passing with the Shamokin rather than pass between her and the Latin America. See Gilmore & Black, Admiralty, 420 (1956). However, she surely was at fault for turning to port without having received the Shamokin’s assent, and the important question is thus whether the Shamokin was also to blame, as the district judge concluded. I find it rather incredible that the Shamokin should have understood the two blast signal to have been directed to the Latin America, which was at the extreme edge of the channel if not entirely out of it, rather than to the vessel that lay directly on the Transporter’s course and a half-mile ahead. At best the Shamokin should have been in grave doubt as to the *439Transporter’s intentions, as the trial judge found, and accordingly should have blown a danger signal rather than turn to starboard and steam ahead down the channel without having reached a passing agreement. I fear this is another case like M. P. Howlett, Inc. v. Tug Michael Moran, 2 Cir., 425 F.2d 619, decided April 16, 1970, where appellate judges are whetting their appetite for dealing with facts rather than leaving these to the district judge who saw and heard the witnesses.
I would affirm the judgment dividing damages and return the case to the district court for a better assessment of their amount.