Court Opinion

ID: 9445100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:19:30.536085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:07.291608
License: Public Domain

HINCKS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My brothers say: “We must regard this case just as if it comprised two separate limitation proceedings. On that basis, we affirm.” 232 F.2d 577. Even if I agreed that this treatment of the situation is correct, I should still be constrained to dissent. For on that basis, in the tug proceeding the claimant’s claim is for damages caused by the tug in the amount as reduced by stipulation, of $100,000, and the owner’s liability depends on the fault of the tug; in the barge proceeding the claim is for damages caused by the barge in the reduced amount of $150,000, and the owner’s liability depends on the fault of the barge.
Such being the situation, suppose the state court on a general verdict enters judgment in favor of the claimant in excess of $100,000. What possible effect can such a judgment have? It appears to me that it would be wholly uncollectible in either limitation proceeding. Under the amendment of the order below required by the court’s opinion, the claimant will be enjoined “from collecting such excess.” Under an original provision of the order, the claimant is *580enjoined from all collection “of the judgment elsewhere than in this [the limitation] proceeding.” The general judgment will not be res judicata on the issue of liability in the tug proceedings; it does not import a finding of fault by the tug. Likewise, in the barge proceedings; it does not import a finding of fault in the barge. Thus, notwithstanding the judgment, the issue of liability will be open in both proceedings.
Or suppose that in the state court the claimant obtains a judgment on a general verdict in an amount say of $5000 and being disappointed in the amount thereof decides to press her claims in the limitation proceedings. On no theory of res judicata or collateral estoppel can the owner use the state court judgment as decisive on the issues. It will not bar prosecution of the claim in the tug proceedings, because it did not adjudicate that the tug was not at fault. And so in the barge proceedings. The limitation court, perhaps after all the other claims have been heard and adjudicated, will have to hold a full-fledged trial for its determination of the claimant’s claim, with a result which may or may not be more satisfactory to the claimant.
Thus considered, the disposition of the court, in my view, subjects the parties to the labor and expense of litigation which well may prove to be wholly fruitless and nugatory.
That such may prove to be the result, I think more than a remote possibility. For that result will follow unless in the state court trial the judge shall require the jury to find specially whether the plaintiff’s injury (if caused by the owner’s negligence) was caused by negligence in its conduct of the tug or by negligence in the barge. Without special findings, it would be necessary for the jury to determine only whether a proved act of negligence caused the plaintiff’s injury. The requirement of special findings will require the jury to determine also whether a proved act of negligence was part of the conduct of a particular vessel, — a determination which under the evidence may involve confusion and difficulty. The plaintiff might prove an act of negligence and yet fail to prove that the act was a part of the owner’s conduct of a particular vessel. In my opinion, it is by no means unlikely that the judge would refuse a request to require special findings on the ground that the request if granted would inject into the case an additional issue the solution of which is not essential to the decision of the case under the law of the state. It may also be observed that if a special verdict were required and claims of error should be predicated on the disposition of that additional issue, the parties would be without the usual remedy by motion or appeal. For it is hardly to be supposed that the trial court or an appellate court would give relief for an error pertaining to an issue which under the law of the state did not affect the validity of the judgment.
My brothers cite our former decisions in Texas, Trinidad and other cases for the proposition that a claimant’s choice of forum should be protected and that the Limitation Act does not entitle an owner to a determination in the limitation proceedings of its liability to a multiplicity of claimants growing out of a multiple tort except in cases in which by reason of an inadequate fund a eoncursus is required. But these cases went no further than to permit litigation at law which would be dispositive,- — not litigation which may prove to be nugatory. I think it an unwarranted and undesirable extension of the Texas doctrine to sanction procedure whereby two trials, one at law and the other in the limitation proceedings, may be required for a final determination of the issues of a single claim.
I would hold that we have here one proceeding for the limitation of the owner’s personal, indivisible, liability to the appellee, among other claimants, on her single indivisible claim. I deprecate sanction for a procedure whereby indivisible causes of actions and indivisible liabilities may be split and their respective fragments may be litigated in sepa*581rate proceedings. If, as I think, this is a single limitation proceeding, even though two vessels are involved the claims concededly exceed the fund which may be fixed, and the Texas doctrine is inapplicable.