Court Opinion

ID: 9639282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:10:56.70008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:15.143830
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
 The libellant petitions for a rehearing of so much of our original disposition of this appeal as dismissed her libel against the charterer, to which, she argues, any negligence of the consignee is to be imputed. So far the charterer agrees; and, indeed, we have just so decided in O’Donnell Transportation Co. Inc. v. M. & J. Tracy, Inc., 150 F.2d 735. But the charterer replies that the libellant did not prove the consignee negligent in offering the berth to the barge, and that, since it— the charterer — proved how the loss had happened, and offered evidence in exculpation of the consignee, the libellant lost any advantage arising from the original presumption against the charterer, as such; and did not carry the burden of proof on the issue. The judge made no finding as to the consignee’s negligence, and the question was probably not tried out as fully as it would have been, had it then been supposed to be crucial. Now that our reversal of the decree against the tug has made it so, it seems to us equitable not to dismiss the libel as against the charterer on this record; but to remand the cause for further trial, though between these two parties only.
Upon that trial, for the reasons just given, the charterer will be free of any presumption, and the libellant will have the burden of proof; furthermore we do not regard the issue as foreclosed upon the present record. We did indeed say that, if the consignee had been using the wharf for a month, we should hesitate to hold that it would not be charged with notice that part of the bottom alongside was exposed at low water, and with the duty of warning barges of that fact. However, it is to be remembered that only the bargee so testified, and, moreover, that, according to him, at the actual berth where the barge lay, her bows were thirty feet or more outside the exposed shoal. How far the existence of the shoal where he placed it would impose a duty upon the consignee to give any warning whatever to barges which moored where the libellant’s barge was made fast, is another matter, about which we do not express any opinion.
The libel against the charterer will not be dismissed, but the cause will be remanded for trial between the libellant and the charterer upon the issue of the consignees negligence.