Court Opinion

ID: 9637310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:03:04.074684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:57.924251
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I take it as agreed that but for the payment by the United States to the libelant of a portion of the charter hire, pursuant to the charter, libelant would recover complete compensation for the loss of use of its vessel due to claimant’s act — computed here at the charter rate, since that was the only evidence of value offered. That being so, we have the rather startling result that claimant receives the bonanza of a substantial reduction in damages through the mere chance that its victim has a favorable contract with another. The case viewed as requiring this result, Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Flint, 275 U.S. 303, 48 S.Ct. 134, 135, 72 L.Ed. 290, has no such effect; there •the action was by the charterers, and the Court quite scrupulously avoided a decision beyond the issue before it or casting doubt upon our premise below (2 Cir., 13 F.2d 3) that the owner could sue. It merely disagreed with our further deduction that hence the charterers also could sue; indeed, it seems to assume that the owner— who had already settled with the tort-feasor — could have sued for his full damages, for it says that the charterers “have no claim either in contract or in tort, and they cannot get a standing by the suggestion that if some one else had recovered it he would have been bound to pay over a part by reason of his personal relations with the respondents.” 275 U.S. 303 at page 309, 48 S.Ct. 134, 72 L.Ed. 290 (italics supplied). But the point was not of immediate importance, since the owner had already collected for loss of use, and the charterers — excused, by their charter from paying charter hire, see The Bjornefjord, 2 Cir., 271 F. 682— were suing only for the loss of their good bargain, vessel hire having become very expensive in the summer of 1917.2
Whether or not one may like the policy of the Robins case, there are some very good arguments for it on its own terms. The idea that a defendant may be subjected to many lawsuits, even after he has taken a release from the injured owner, by persons lacking anything approaching what is commonly viewed as property or more than various contract rights with the owner, is novel. Moreover, liability to such harassment is ordinarily unnecessary for just re-*873suits in modern law at least, in view oí our recognition of the rights of an assignee or a subrogee. Nevertheless, the problem of excessive suits is still present in the case of the partial assignee or subrogee; and it is met in various ways, such as the required joinder of all persons in interest, Restatement, Contracts, 1932, § 156, or, in some jurisdictions, suit only by the original party. See cases collected in my text on Code Pleading, 1928, 103, 110. Under modern principles of free joinder, there is much to be said for the first alternative of required joinder, with the added proviso that the defect may be waived by a defendant who does not assert it. The objection to any other course is that it puts difficulties in the way of funneling the money to the parties ultimately entitled thereto, all for the mere procedural advantage of a defendant who should be interested only in his own protection, not in the destination of the money. Fox v. McGrath, 2 Cir., 152 F.2d 616. But these principles are not important where there is neither assignment nor subrogation ;3 then it becomes a question how far the proximate consequences of a tort will be traced to others than the main actors. These considerations are adverted to merely to point out that in the Robins case there was an interesting and important problem which, however, is not ours, and that the decision cannot properly be wrested from its facts to justify a new and unusual rule of damages.
For in admiralty, as well as at law, there is no more solidly established principle than that payments or reparations of whatever nature which the injured party receives from a collateral source are, in the words of the courts, res inter alios acta, of no concern to the wrongdoer. Restatement, Torts, 1939, § 920, comment e; Sutherland on Damages, 4th Ed., Berryman, 1916, § 158, p. 487, and cases cited p. 488, n. 42, id. § 1295, p. 5014; Hale, Law of Damages, 1912, §§ 43-45, p. 18(1. This has been held true of compensation from an insurance company, The Steamboat Potomac v. Cannon, 105 U.S. 630, 26 L.Ed. 1194; The Propeller Monticello v. Mollison, 17 How. 152, 58 U.S. 152, 15 L.Ed. 68; Phoenix Ins. Co. v. The Steamboat Atlas, 93 U.S. 302, 23 L.Ed. 863; Mobile & Montgomery R. Co. v. Jurey, 111 U.S. 584, 4 S.Ct. 566, 28 L.Ed. 527, of payments under the Railroad Retirement Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 228a et seq.; McCarthy v. Palmer, D. C. E. D. N. Y., 29 F.Supp. 585, affirmed 2 Cir., 113 F.2d 721, certiorari denied Palmer v. McCarthy, 311 U.S. 680, 61 S.Ct. 50, 85 L.Ed. 438, or a state compensation act, N. L. R. B. v. Marshall Field & Co., 7 Cir., 129 F.2d 169, 144 A.L.R. 394, affirmed Marshall Field & Co. v. N. L. R. B., 318 U.S. 253, 63 S. Ct. 585, 87 L.Ed. 744; Sprinkle v. Davis, 4 Cir., 111 F.2d 925, 128 A.L.R. 1101, and of hospital and medical expenses received from a state industrial commission, Overland Const. Co. v. Sydnor, 6 Cir., 70 F.2d 338.
Nor is the rule confined to reparations which may be classified as insurance or indemnity where the injured party or some one acting in his behalf has contributed to the fund from which payment is made. Thus an owner may recover damages for injury to his buildings, although the terms of his lease require the tenant to continue payments. S. H. Kress Co. v. Bullock Shoe Co., 5 Cir., 56 F.2d 713. In nearly all jurisdictions, an employee may recover full damages for personal injuries, although he has received wages from his employer during the period of illness, Shea v. Rettie, 287 Mass. 454, 192 N.E. 44, 95 A.L.R. 571; Campbell v. Sutliff, 193 Wis. 370, 214 N. W. 374, 53 A.L.R. 771; Hayes v. Morris & Co., 98 Conn. 603, 119 A. 901 — a view which I understand my brethren to accept in citing this line of cases favorably. And an injured party may include as part of his damages medical services, although they have been gratuitously performed or paid for by relatives. Chicago, Duluth & Georgian Bay Transit Co. v. Moore, 6 Cir., 259 F. 490, certiorari denied 251 U.S. 553, 40 S.Ct. 118, 64 L.Ed. 411. See annotation 128 A.L.R. 687.
These decisions are so identical with the facts here that the attempt to distinguish this case as one where the libelant suffered no “loss,” I can regard only as question begging — so much so in fact that I confess to surprise that so purely verbal an argument is urged. It is most starkly stated by claimant when it says the cases are “clearly distinguishable” because “in all of *874them plaintiff sustained the primary loss and thereafter received reimbursement by way of insurance or gratuity.” Here, just as surely, plaintiff sustained the primary loss (whatever significance that adjective may be thought to bring to the issue) and was definitely in the red until the loss was made good by the payments from the United States. And here the wrongdoer receives the windfall advantage which those cases deny him. Indeed, the cases which most emphatically announce the rule of “actual loss” apply it at the same time and with entire consistency with the principle here contended for. See especially The Steamboat Potomac v. Cannon and Phoenix Ins. Co. v. The Steamboat Atlas, both cited supra. And see further the line of cases permitting recovery by a shipowner for loss of earnings, notwithstanding the availability of spare boats. The Cayuga, C. C. E. D. N. Y., Fed.Cas.No.2,537, affirmed 14 Wall. 270, 81 U.S. 270, 20 L.Ed. 828; The Favorita, C. C. E. D. N. Y., Fed.CasNo.4,695, affirmed 18 Wall. 598, 85 U.S. 598, 21 L.Ed. 856; The Emma Kate Ross, 3 Cir., 50 F. 845. Indeed, we followed this principle in Pool Shipping Co. v. United States, 2 Cir., 33 F.2d 275, a .case of persuasive authority here. For there we rejected the tort-feasor’s argument that the libelant hull-owner’s damages should be reduced by the amount of the general average contribution he had collected from cargo.
I do not think these persuasive precedents of the law of damages should be repudiated for an unorthodox doctrine which can serve only to penalize the prudent and provident shipowner. I would reverse for •the grant of damages for the loss of use, as claimed.

 Hence it is not logical .to find a definite repudiation of suit by the owner, for either his own or the charterers’ benefit, ¿J in the Court’s repudiation of “the supposed analogy of bailees” allowed to recover the whole because they were “chargeable over.” Here we are not interested in a suit by bailees; moreover, the Court said only that there was no basis there for holding the charterers chargeable over, and hence the decision is not even authority against suit by the charterer (as the United States here) for actual hire paid under its charter during the period of loss of use. Perhaps more support is to be found in some language in Chargeurs Reunis, etc. v. English & American Shipping Co., 9 Ll.L.L.Rep. 464, though the absence of real discussion of the issues perhaps explains the relegation of the case to the unofficial reports where it is found. There likewise the claim for loss of use was made on behalf of the' charterer; the owners, also parties, were allowed, and had apparently already received, all that they claimed. See the decision below, 9 Ll.L.L.Rep. 90, 91, also id. 464, 466. When, however, recovery was refused the charterer, counsel went on to claim — “for a reason I do not quite foEow,” as Bankes, L. J., rather revealingly says — that the owners stood in a better position. To this the court’s only answer was the formal statement that “it does not Ee in the mouth of the owners to say they ai’e in a better position.” I suggest that this is too weak a basis to support a major change in the American law of damages.

 So in the Robins ease, under the facts set forth, and in the English ease, supra note 1, where the court excluded subrogation, since the charter party was neither an insurance policy nor a contract of indemnity — a conclusion which should have removed the last bar to recovery by the owners.