Court Opinion

ID: 9454945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:04:46.42621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:23.532539
License: Public Domain

JOHN W. PECK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
I must respectfully dissent, since I cannot conclude that the circumstances warrant a finding of an abuse of discretion on the part of Chief Judge Girard E. Kalbfleisch. The thrust of the authorities cited in the majority opinion affirms the conceded right of the trial court in admiralty proceedings to exercise wide discretion in permitting the filing of late claims. I not only subscribe completely to that principle, but record the fact that in the present circumstances I would have preferred the opportunity to affirm the trial court’s discretionary allowance of the late filing rather than to ratify the disallowance of such filing. However, no such choice is offered and in my view this Court is bound by the direction taken by the trial judge on the two-way street of discretion.
It is true that Judge Kalbfleisch relied on Dowdell v. United States District Court, 139 F. 444 (9th Cir. 1905), and that therein the attempted filing was tendered after the proceedings had been terminated by final and unappealed decree. However, that that circumstance was not the basis of the conclusion in Dowdell is apparent from the following quotation, which appears in Judge Kalbfleisch’s opinion:
“Where a monition and publication is made according to the rules and practice in admiralty proceedings, it becomes notice to ‘all persons’ having any claims, whether they receive actual notice thereof or not, and, if they fail to appear within the time designated, they are liable to lose the opportunity of presenting their claims in that proceeding or in any other; for, as was said by the court in the case of Brod-erick’s Will, 21 Wall. 503, 21 U.S. 503, 579, 22 L.Ed. 599: ‘Parties cannot * * * claim exemption from the laws that control human affairs, and set up a right to open up all the transactions of the past. The world must move on, and those who claim an interest in persons or things must be charged with knowledge of their status and condition and of the viscissitudes to which they are subject.’ ” 139 F. 446.
A conclusion that Judge Kalbfleisch had not abused his discretion in denying the late filing would necessitate a consideration of petitioner-appellant’s second point, which did not require treatment in the majority opinion. That point is concerned with whether the denial of petitioner-appellant’s motion, in effect, to permit the filing of a state court action at law constituted an abuse of discretion. For present purposes, suffice it to say that I think no such abuse of discretion occurred in this multiple claim-inadequate fund case in which a forum concursus is required, 46 U.S.C. § 181, et seq., see Maryland Casualty Company v. Cushing, 347 U.S. 409, 74 S.Ct. 608, 98 L.Ed. 806 (1954); Pershing Auto Rentals, Inc. v. Gaffney, 279 F.2d 546 (5th Cir. 1960); Petition of Lake Tankers Corporation, 232 F.2d 573 (2d Cir. 1956), aff’d sub nom Lake Tankers Corporation v. Henn, 354 U.S. 147, 77 S.Ct. 1269, 1 L.Ed.2d 1246 (1957), and in which petitioner-appellant is not entitled to share in an increase in the limitation fund to the extent of $60.00 per gross ton of the vessel under the provi*192sions of 46 U.S.C. § 183(b), Oliver J. Olson & Company v. American Steamship Marine Leopard, 356 F.2d 728, 737-738 n. 5 (9th Cir. 1966).
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.