Court Opinion

ID: 9641529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:33:53.784906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:38.139148
License: Public Domain

CHASE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Perhaps I have failed to understand what my brothers have decided, but it seems to be such an extension of Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099, by, implication that I cannot agree. Apparently, avoidance of circuity of action is the prime motive which has induced them to go where I cannot follow.
Their path seems to rest on these assumptions: (1) the owner is liable over to the charterer because of an implied warranty of seaworthiness; (2) 'the longshoreman has a maritime lien on the ship in any case as a result of unseaworthiness; and (3) the owner’s position is no worse, and perhaps better, if he is directly liable because he may be able to limit his liability.
However desirable it may be 'to simplify litigation, this decision seems to extend the owner’s warranty of seaworthiness under a bare boat charter not only directly to longshoremen and, of course, to seamen, *798'but to make it a warranty to them of initial seaworthiness during the period when .the owner has no control over the vessel even though the charterer might have eliminated or mitigated the effect of an apparent defect existing at the time, of delivery. See Williston, Contracts § 1078 at n. 9 and § 988; Sanford & Brooks Co. v. Columbia Dredging Co., 4 Cir., 177 F. 878. Apparently, this is hereafter to be so in this circuit even though any implied contractual warranty o.f seaworthiness has been negatived in express terms in the charter. Cullen Fuel Co. v. W. E. Hedger, Inc., 290 U.S. 82, 54 S.Ct. 10, 78 L.Ed. 189. But nothing to be gained by so doing away with circuity appears to justify such a rer suit contrary to Vitozi v. Balboa Shipping Co., 1 Cir., 163 F.2d 286 and Muscelli v. Frederick Starr Contracting Co., 296 N.Y. 330, 73 N.E.2d 536.
. Though the charterer may be liable to the appellant, the fact that the appellee was the charterer’s agent does not make the appellee liable. McGowan v. J. H. Winchester & Co., 2 Cir., 168 F.2d 924. Nor is the appellee liable on the theory of Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, supra. See Vitozi v. Balboa Shipping Co., supra. Even on the assumption that the owner would be liable over to the charterer for unseaworthiness existing at the beginning of the charter, I cannot believe that avoidance of circuity justifies the creation of this direct right against the owner. The availability of impleader should not be forgotten. See Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rule 14(a), 28 U.S.C.A. Cf. Riddle & Co. v. Mandeville and Jamesson, 5 Cranch 322, 3 L.Ed. 114.
I dissent.
On Petition for Rehearing.
L. HAND, Chief Judge.
On petition for rehearing the defendant asks that at the new trial it may be allowed to put in evidence the demise of the ship by the defendant to the United States, which was not put in evidence before; and that we delete that part of our opinion in which we said that the plaintiff might, if so advised, proceed in the admiralty against the ship. The second point is well-taken; when we wrote our opinion, we overlooked the decision of the Supreme Court in The Western Maid,1 which forbids the creation of a lien against a vessel while on demise to the United States. The petition in this aspect is granted.
The first request we deny. It is true that in deciding that the owner of a demised ship was directly liable to a longshoreman for injuries caused by her unseaworthiness at the time of the demise, we used, as part of our reasoning, the fact that the loss would eventually fall upon the owner by a circuity of action. The longshoreman could recover of the demisee under Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki,2 and the demisee could recover of the owner under the warranty. That is the ordinary situation and we adduced it to support our conclusion that the owner’s direct liability involved very little practical change in the end result. Cumulatively, we invoked the privilege of the longshoreman to proceed against the ship in rem. We did not mean, however, that the direct liability was confined to cases in which the longshoreman could in fact avail himself of both or of either of these procedures. It would be particularly inappropriate in a given case' to take as a test, whether the owner had excused himself from the warranty of seaworthiness ordinarily implied. By hypothesis the longshoreman is not a party to that contract, or to any contract, with the owner; and the question is of a liability imposed in invitum because of the ship’s uhseaworthiness.3 It would therefore be irrelevant if the defendant at bar were to prove that the demise had excused it from implied warranty. The petition in this aspect is denied.

 257 U.S. 419, 42 S.Ct. 159, 66 L.Ed. 299.

 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099.

 Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099. States.