Court Opinion

ID: 87694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:01:21+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:42.264406
License: Public Domain

70 U.S. 164 (1865)
3 Wall. 164
THE LOUISIANA.
Supreme Court of United States.

*169 Mr. Schley, for the owners of the Louisiana, appellants in the suit.
After an excellent argument by Mr. Bernard Carter, of Baltimore (his first before this bench), and Mr. J.M. Campbell, contra.
*173 Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.
The steamer Flushing being aground on Hampton Bar, out of the channel or course of vessels navigating the bay or harbor, and incapable of motion, cannot be justly charged with any participation in causing the collision.
The collision being caused by the Louisiana drifting from her moorings, she must be liable for the damages consequent thereon, unless she can show affirmatively that the drifting was the result of inevitable accident, or a vis major, which human skill and precaution, and a proper display of nautical skill could not have prevented.
Now the facts show that the Louisiana has entirely failed to establish her defence.
1. The drifting of this vessel was not caused by any sudden hurricane which nautical experience could not anticipate. None of the other numerous vessels, at that time in the harbor, were driven from their moorings. The wind which arose was only of such a character that its effects might have been anticipated, and, by proper precaution, prevented;  "a half gale," "a stiff breeze," "a little more than ordinary."
The fact that the steamer was ordered by the government officers to take in coal at the old wharf, which had a narrow front when compared with the great length of the vessel, could not relieve the officers of the boat from the duty of securing her in such a manner as to prevent her drifting *174 when the change of the tide and winds changed the direction of the forces acting upon the vessel. And the fact that under these circumstances she did drift, is conclusive evidence that she was not sufficiently and properly secured.
It requires no assumption or affectation of any very great nautical skill in this court to point out the defects of the management of this vessel by the mate, who was left in charge of her. If the tide and wind could have been reasonably expected to remain as it was when, according to the mate's idea, the vessel was lying so "very nice to the wharf," we should probably not have heard of this case.
So long as things were in the condition in which they were when the vessel was first moored, she was sufficiently secured to meet any stress or force likely to be opposed to her in that direction. But when the tide changed so as to strike the stern with a momentum increased by a high wind, and multiplied by the leverage resulting from the length of the vessel exposed below the wharf, the "necessity" for a change of position ought to have suggested itself to a person of nautical skill, as a proper precaution against a danger which might justly have been anticipated. The fact that the captain and mate "did not anticipate the breaking away of the vessel, and thought the lines sufficient to hold her," may prove their want of judgment, but not that "the accident was unavoidable;" and this more especially, as other persons of nautical skill  disinterested witnesses in this case  found no difficulty in securing their vessels at the same place, and under similar circumstances.
2. It is not necessary to a decision of the cause to show that this collision might have been averted by a proper use of the anchors of the Louisiana, after she had broken away from her mooring at the wharf, or by a proper use of her steam power, further than to say, that the testimony in the case would well justify that conclusion.
We are of opinion, therefore, that the appellant has failed to show that the collision is the result of inevitable accident, and that the decree of the Circuit Court should be
AFFIRMED WITH COSTS.