Court Opinion

ID: 8822069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 15:36:14.072844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:04:39.835908
License: Public Domain

WARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part). I agree with the opinion of the court except as to the allocation of the Gans Tine’s damages between tlie owners, the Nova Scotia Company, charterers, and Barber & Co., Inc., subchartcrers. My opinion is that the owners only should be held liable.
*266Imprimis, I lay out of the case two considerations to which great weight is given both by the District Judge and by this court.
The first is the provision contained in the charters and in the sub-charter that; while the master shall sign bills of lading as presented, the charterers will indemnify the owners against “all consequences or liabilities that may arise from the captain so doing.” This very familiar clause applies only to claims of shippers under the bills of lading, and no such claim ever arose in this case.
The second consideration is the provision in Barber & Co.’s bills of lading as to transshipment. This was a privilege to the carrier, but both the District Judge and this court hold that it is a privilege which Barber & Co., Inc., were bound to avail of. On the contrary, I think they were not bound to do so if the transshipment would have prejudiced the shipper under the bills of lading, which manifestly was Barber & Co.’s view. The owners and the Nova Scotia Company, charterer, were likewise so bound, because the bills of lading, signed by the master, or by Barber & Co. for the master, were as much theirs as they were Barber & Co.’s.
It seems to me unreasonable to say that Barber & Co. should have discharged the cargo of 11,000 tons of general merchandise accepted by them as common carriers on a concededly proper voyage because the unexpected closure of the Canal made it impossible to redeliver thé steamer at the dates fixed in the charters if the voyage were performed, or to say that the failure of Barber & Co. to instruct the master to transship at the island of Santa Lucia in the West Indies or at Durban, South Africa, and not the closing of the Canal, made redelivery on the agreed dates impossible.
It is very significant that this suggestion as to transshipment was made for the first time at the trial. Neither at the time the events happened nor in the pleadings in the cause did these experienced merchants and eminent lawyers make any such claim. No one of the parties interested dreamed of abandoning the Australian voyage, and after it had been performed the libel filed by the Gans Line and the petitions of the owners and of the Nova Scotia Company under the fifty-ninth rule (29 Sup. Ct. xlvi) was not that the voyage around the Cape violated the charter, but that the voyage originally planned, beginning September 12, 1915, via the Canal, violated the charter, because it made redelivery of the steamer at the charter dates impossible. Upon this latter question, however, both the District Judge and this court hold that the original voyage was reasonable and could have been performed in time for redelivery of the steamer to the owners, as agreed.
The question is whether the exception of dangers and accidents in the Canal contained in the charters to Nova Scotia Company and to Barber & Co., Inc., protects them against liability for failure to redeliver the steamer at the agreed dates because of the unexpected closure of the Canal. Of course this exception would not protect either the owners, the Nova Scotia Company, or Barber & Co., Inc., against claims of shippers if the voyage to Australia had not been performed, because manifestly the closure of the Canal would not have prevented per*267formance, hut would only have made the time of performance longer. On the other hand, going around the Cape of Good Hope did make it impossible to redeliver the steamer at the agreed date, and, if it was the duty of the owners and of the Nova Scotia Company and of Barber & Co. to perform that voyage, a,s I think, and they apparently thought it was, then the owners have no claim against Nova Scotia Company or Barber '& Co., Inc., for doing so.