Court Opinion

ID: 9443805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:31:04.618643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:36.733190
License: Public Domain

HASTIE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
The court has concluded, correctly I think, that blameworthy conduct of three vessels, the Adriatic, the Acco arid the Yeager, combined to cause one of them, the Yeager, to collide with and damage libellant’s cable. But I think the court is mistaken in its view that the damage in question, though a consequence of faults including the Yeager’s failure to navigate properly, is not any injury for which the Yeager should share legal liability with the Adriatic and the Acco. ■
The court reaches its result by applying the familiar Palsgraf doctrine1 to maritime tort. I too would apply the Palsgraf doctrine to maritime causes. Indeed, The Eugene F. Moran, 1909, 212 U.S. 466, 29 S.Ct. 339, 53 L.Ed. 600, seems to require that this be done. But that doctrine leads-me to a different result in this case.
In the Palsgraf case itself Chief Judge Cardozo thus explained the conception-limiting actionable negligence:
“Negligent the act is * * * only because the eye of vigilance perceives the risk of damage. * * * The risk reasonably to be perceived [which] defines the duty to be obeyed * * * is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension.” 248 N.Y. at page 344, 162 N.E. at page 100.
After the doctrine is stated the problem remains in each case to define “the range of apprehension.” Applying this conception to our facts the court is saying that when the Yeager proceeded on course without diminishing speed or determining the situation ahead in disregard of the warning represented by four short blasts of the Adriatic’s whistle — which it admittedly heard — the reasonable range of apprehension was narrowly restricted to the possibility of damaging the signalling tug and tow to the exclusion of anything else technically distinct from the signalling vessel, however near to it physically and however intimately connected with its presence and activity. With this I disagree.
I would say there was negligence as to the signalling vessel, its gear, its tow, any launch it might have alongside, any member of its crew who might be taking a dip alongside, or any cable or other structure, whether technically a part of the vessel or not, alongside of or extending out from it, with the limitation that these things all have some significant connection with the signalling vessel and be phj^sically close enough to it so as to be within the area which would be avoided by correct and prudent navigation of a passing ship.
Here the Yeager followed up its disregard of a signal, which had put it on notice of possible danger ahead, with an actual *411passing within 20 feet of the Acco, the very kind of close shaving which most obviously constitutes a serious fault in navigation. Once it appears that the Yeager thus wrongfully ignored a signal and passed much too near to the Acco, I have no difficulty in holding it responsible for colliding with something closely connected with and extending out from the Acco, without regard to the undoubted distinctions in fact and in law between the ship itself and a submarine cable it has raised and placed across its deck for repair. Fundamentally, I think we are trying to define and apply a policy limitation on the legal concept of negligence. We are trying to avoid taxing even the person whose conduct has been blameworthy with liability for hurtful consequences beyond what seems fair and socially desirable. I think my solution of the present problem does that and at the same time gives deserved protection not only to a ship itself but also to things around it and related to it.
I would require the interests represented by the Yeager, the Adriatic and the Acco to share the burden of this mishap equally.

. So described in recognition of its dassic statement by Chief Judge (later Mr. Justice) Cardozo in Palsgraf v. Long Island Ry., 1928, 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99, 59 A.L.R. 1253.