Court Opinion

ID: 9443371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:18:44.835276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:27.969869
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
This case seems to have bogged down in a welter of procedural technicalities. Latterly, at least, we have more and more reached the merits of admiralty and civil cases alike, through uniformly applying the* civil rules, in both form and spirit, by analogy or comity or common sense. If such a course is actually impossible here, then we have an effective demonstration of a crying need for reform in the admiralty practice. But I am not yet persuaded that the situation has become quite as acute as the opinion herewith tends to suggest.
Cutting through the procedure the case seems a relatively simple one with the equities fairly clear. A towing concern was hired to undock a vessel. Its representatives did so, so poorly that two bystanding barges were injured. So it (through some one of its appropriate entities) should pay the damage it has so clearly caused. The trial judge accurately sensed where justice pointed and took a short cut (which should have been unnecessary had the case been better presented) to the indicated goal. Perhaps his short cut was too short; I apprehend that for the fuller consideration of various matters, such as the claimed contract of indemnity,1 a remand and further trial would be desirable. But the abrupt reversal for a definitive decree against the owner of the vessel and essential exoneration of those actually causing the damage seems to me a miscarriage of justice to which we should never be, and here are not actually, forced by any procedural dilemma.
Behind a procedural ruling there usually lurks some problem of substantive law partially concealed by the underbrush. So here the opinion does rely upon a substantive principle which, restrained and canalized, has its proper field of operation, but, as announced without limitation, and without even reference to a persuasive line of authorities appropriately delimiting it, will, I am sure, plague us later as it commits us to inequity here. The principle is well stated in the quotation above from The Helen, 2 Cir., 5 F.2d 54, 55, here restated with my own emphasis added, to the effect that the Helen’s defense that the master of a tug was on the bridge in command “is insufficient because he was acting as a pilot hired *374voluntarily 'by the owners of the Helen, and. as to third parties the Helen is responsible for damages caused by fault in her navigation,” Just so. If a shipowner hires a tugboat captain to pilot his vessel up and down New York Harbor, it should be liable for the damage caused others; in The Helen, supra, the owners even paid the pilot directly. But that is quite unreal as applied to a situation where a towing concern is hired as an independent contractor to undock a ship, and the tugboat captain, for greater facility in directing the operation, steps over to the bridge of the vessel and makes his mistake there. Following the general theory of liability of a tug with tow to third parties for misnavigation settled by Sturgis v. Boyer, 24 How. 110, 65 U.S. 110, 16 L.Ed. 591, the Fourth Circuit in a series of notable decisions ruled that when the master of a tug under a contract to undock a ship boards the latter, the better to supervise the operation, and there commits his error, it is still the tug, and not the ship, which is liable. The Dorset, 4 Cir., 260 F. 32; The John D. Rockefeller, 4 Cir., 272 F. 67, certiorari denied 256 U.S. 693, 41 S.Ct. 535, 65 L.Ed. 1175; Calzavaro v. Planet S. S. Corp., 4 Cir., 31 F.2d 885.
This salutary doctrine seems most recently stated and applied by the Third Circuit in a carefully reasoned opinion in Publicker Industries v. Tugboat Neptune Co., 3 Cir., 171 F.2d 48. The decision is the more important since it overrode several counterarguments of the kind here put forth: a “pilotage clause” for indemnity under the contract, a Pennsylvania doctrine of “temporary agency,” and a possible or potential residuum of command in the ship’s captain (the latter .being less likely here, since the Alston’s master was not even on the ship at the time). As Judge Maris well says, 171 F.2d at page 50: “We do not question the rule of Pennsylvania law which the appellants invoke with respect to the non-liability of an employer for negligent acts of his employee committed while the latter has been loaned to another employer but we find the-rule not to be applicable here. For in this, case the court was justified by the evidence-in finding, as it did, that Captain Marvel of the Neptune directed the undocking operation, giving all the orders involved except for the original casting off of the Worth, and that he and not Captain Ryder of the Worth was in general charge of the undocking operation. It thus appears that Captain Marvel was not loaned by the Tugboat Neptune Company to the Worth and did not: come under authority of Captain Ryder of that vessel or become its employee for the-time. On the contrary it is settled that under the circumstances present here the relation of the two tugboat companies to the-Worth and its owner was that of independent contractors.” And significantly his supporting citations are Sturgis v. Boyer, The Dorset, and Calzavaro v. Planet S. S. Corp., all supra, as well as Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Navigazione Libera Triestina, 261 N.Y. 455, 185 N.E. 698.2
The very principle here so succinctly defined, that of the liability of the independent contractor, has, in fact, been accepted by this court in a decision on rehearing modifying an earlier ruling to hold the towing company solely liable without recovery over against a charterer. The West Eldara, 2 Cir., 104 F.2d 670, 671, certiorari denied. McAllister Towing & Transportation Co., v. American Diamond Lines, 308 U.S. 607, 60 S.Ct. 144, 84 L.Ed. 507, which notably cites and relies on, inter alia, Sturgis v. Boyer, and The Dorset, both supra. Indeed only the other day we cited and relied again on Sturgis v. Boyer, in Compania Maritima Samsoc Limitada, S.A., v. Moran Towing & Transportation Co., 2 Cir., 197 F.2d 607. The applicability of the principle is most clear here, since it is what the trial judge went upon, after making careful findings. *375that the master of the Alston was not on the vessel, and the towers were independent contractors. Inter alia, the opinion herewith must, it seems, be taken as a repudiation — by implication at least — of these clear findings of fact and resulting conclusions of law.
It seems to me clear, therefore, that the authorities do not permit a decree against the United States as the owner of the Alston. And if the procedural difficulties in reaching those properly liable are insurmountable, then the libel should be dismissed and the libellant left to seek his remedies elsewhere, if he wishes such remedies. (Libellant and claimant appear, however, to have reached some mutual agreement; this odd alliance was not the least of the curiosities of this case.) But for my part I do not think the admiralty is thus restricted in its power to do complete justice. The Fourth Circuit cases cited above have had no difficulty in finding the tug responsible where its master directing the operations is thus at fault. See, e. g., The Dorset, supra. That, I suggest, is sensible and reasonable. The reification of a ship into a personality, however unreal, is at least a useful device; but there is nothing inherent in it that requires us to say that a tug tied to its tow loses its identity when its misnavigating master steps from tug to tow for better observation and that the personification of the wrongdoer necessarily then moves to the ship, too. Here I think it would be only common sense to hold the Grace B. Dalzell for the fault of its master, Captain Finley, wherever he has for the moment stepped.
But I see nothing erroneous, only a direct and realistic judicial act, in the action of the trial judge in entering judgment against the claimant. True, there may be situations where the claimant has some appropriate defense or where his liability should be limited to the value of the ship. But where nothing of that kind intervenes or is even suggested, procedural realities applaud the course here taken. Such, as I understand it, is the direct holding of Mosher v. Tate, 9 Cir., 182 F.2d 475, approved in an informed and understanding note in 64 Harv.L. Rev. 164. Nor do I see anything in our own opinions which prevents this straightforward course. In fact, the opinion herewith seems to me to concede as much in its discussion of the amendments we have allowed in early cases. Here the one cause of action is the accident and the case should be tried to exhaust the rights therefrom flowing. If amendments be needed, the case may be returned therefor, if indeed it is not fully settled under F.R. 15(b), “Amendments to Conform to the Evidence,” which we have held applicable in admiralty. See Judge Chase’s opinion in The Roslyn, 2 Cir., 93 F. 2d 278; also Fyfe v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 2 Cir., 114 F.2d 72, 75, certiorari denied Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp. v. Fyfe, 311 U.S. 711, 61 S.Ct. 319, 85 L.Ed. 462; Menefee v. W. R. Chamberlin Co., 9 Cir., 183 F. 2d 720. The suggestion that the power of amendment is now to be in some way restricted seems indeed unfortunate, going against the civil rules of amendment, F.R. 15 generally, which I had thought settled for use in admiralty, as these cases show. And see also Hughes v. Roosevelt, 2 Cir., 107 F.2d 901. And if a remand were to be had, opportunity well might be accorded the Dalzell Towing Company to appear and thus clear up any possible difficulties as to separate or separable towing entities.
Had this been the case of an appellant who had failed to seek amendment in time, the doctrine of the opinion, though harsh, could be understood. But affording no such opportunity to an appellee, who had no occasion to seek amendment from a judge who thought its pleadings fully adequate— not even to sustain a just judgment' — seems to me most unusual. I am bound to add, however, that I find the position of my brethren confusing, if not conflicting. The earlier part of the opinion is devoted to a statement of the rule deduced from The Helen, supra, where the tug was exonerated. No room appeared to be left to hold the tug owner in any way; the pilot was simply not working for the latter at the time. And the contrast was pointed up by the line of cases cited above by me, but not referred to at all in the opinion, significantly expressed in, inter alia, our own case of The West El-dara, supra, distinctly holding only the tug as independent contractor, and not the vessel at all. Thus I should have assumed from *376this part of the opinion that no liability upon the part of the claimant here was ever to be recognized. Yet the implication from the latter part of the opinion is that respondent United States might recover from the claimant somewhere else, though for what and on what basis or whether primarily, secondarily, or otherwise is not shown. Holding the Alston at all seems to me a grave fault of substantive law; not holding the claimant is that, if exoneration is absolute; but if exoneration is only temporary, it is, even more, a rigidity of procedure not consistent with modern enlightened judicial custom.3
Thus the evil of our decision will, I fear, live beyond this situation and these parties to tie our admiralty practice up in undesirable knots.

. Were tliat issue to be thoroughly explored, it would, I expect, raise questions beyond those already suggested as to the timeliness of the claim of indemnity and the binding force of the contract upon the present parties, to the point whether a “pilotage” clause was applicable to the situation at all. I add that respondent’s suggestion that this defense would have been barred by a statute of limitations has been more readily accepted by my brethren than I should have thought justified in the absence of a trial; does not indemnity usually obtain when payment is made?

. This last case is the one particularly relied on below; it states clearly and enforces the principle of the towing concern as the independent contractor. Its authority in that regard is not impugned by the fact that this court later allowed recovery over on a contract of indemnity. Moran Towing & Transportation Co. v. Navigazione Libera Triestina, S.A., 2 Cir., 92 F.2d 37, certiorari denied Navigazione Libera Triestina, S. A. v. Moran Towing & Transportation Co., 302 U.S. 744, 58 S.Ct. 145, 82 L.Ed. 575.

. While I make no argument that the findings below should be changed, I should like to make it clear that I think appellee quite entitled to sustain its decree by attacking the findings if so advised. Our Rule 13 clearly does not prevent it, since that applies only where the appellee desires other or different relief than he obtained. As to In re Lee Transit Corp., 2 Cir., 37 F.2d 67, that contains merely an offhand remark, the intended extent of which is not clear, without citation of authority; and it has never been cited since to the point. It should not be accepted as authority for appellants’ harsh contention.