Court Opinion

ID: 9456159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:43:38.183642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:52.029132
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
Incorrectly, in my view, the majority penalizes the praiseworthy effort of the United States to effect the simultaneous arrival of ammunition, rations and combat military goods needed by military personnel who were being transported to Vietnam by separate troop ship. My opinion is that the charter party was totally breached; the United States acted reasonably under the circumstances; there was no factual or legal defense to the breach; and the district judge correctly assessed the damages of the United States against the ship and her owner.
The facts need not be repeated. The majority sets forth most of the salient *172ones; others, as found by the district judge, whose findings are amply supported, will be referred to where pertinent.
The undertaking of the ship’s owner was to provide, not later than September 3, 1965, the MARILENA P to carry the cargo to Vietnam. The ship was tendered on September 1, but, by September 2, what has been euphemistically termed a strike, but what was in fact a revolt or mutiny, occurred. See, e. g., United States v. Borden, Fed.Cas. No. 14,625 (D. Mass. 1857). See generally, 1 Norris, The Law of Seamen §§ 253, et seq. (1962). The crew walked off the vessel, during the process of loading, and steadfastly refused to sail to Vietnam, although the ship’s destination was known to her owner before the charter party was agreed to, and there was no illegality in a Greek ship’s calling at Vietnam. Although the United States extended the owner additional time— until September 8 — to provide the carriage contracted for, the owner was unable to perform and, indeed, through the broker which had represented it in negotiating the charter party, informed the United States on the latter date “ * * * there is no denial on the part of the owner that he cannot perform the contract but at the same time he wishes to do everything practical to assist MSTS in view of the unexpected refusal of the crew to go to South Vietnam.” That the United States in the interim period unloaded the 400 tons aboard the MARILENA P in an obvious effort to meet a crucial time schedule and to minimize damages is of no significance, because nothing in the evidence suggests that the owner’s unsuccessful efforts to perform: were discouraged, hindered or hampered thereby. The cost of unloading may have become an added expense for the United States had the owner suppressed the mutiny within the extended time, but such was not this case.
Fx’om the scope of the undertaking, i. e., to provide a ship to carry the cargo to Vietnam, it follows that the failure to do so, whether blameworthy or not, was a breach of the charter party. Work v. Leathers, 97 U.S. 379, 380, 24 L.Ed. 1012 (1878); Davison v. Von Lingen, 113 U.S. 40, 5 S.Ct. 346, 28 L.Ed. 885 (1885); Pendleton v. Benner Line, 246 U.S. 353, 357, 38 S.Ct. 330, 62 L.Ed. 770 (1918). See also, Norrington v. Wright, 115 U.S. 188, 203, 6 S.Ct. 12, 29 L.Ed. 366 (1885); The March, 25 F. 106 (D.Md. 1885); Pedersen v. Pagenstecher, 32 F. 841 (S.D.N.Y.1887); Dexter & Carpenter Co. v. United States, 13 F.2d 498 (S.D.N.Y.1926). The majority view notwithstanding, it is difficult to imagine a more substantial, basic default in a time charter than the failure to provide a crew, unless it be the failure to supply a ship and a crew. The entire purpose of the charter party was totally frustrated.
Neither the terms and provisions of the chax'ter party nor the provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act incorporated therein provided an escape from the breach. True, Article 17 of the charter party contemplated the possibility of loss of time without breach from deficiency of men, including, but not limited to, strikes or lockouts; but, unlike its counterpart in the hire of the substitute vessel MORMACRIGEL, Article 17 is silent as to the right of cancellation when a strike continues for a designated period. It is to be doubted that Article 17 has application to mutiny; but, even if applicable, I cannot contemplate that the charterer must be required to wait an indefinite period without remedy. Rather, in my opinion, the charterer need wait only a reasonable period, and the five days that elapsed here seem completely reasonable under the circumstances of the case, particularly in the light of the owner’s admission at the end of the extension that it was unable to perfoxm, without any suggestion that a further period would permit the breach to be cured.
In Article 20 of the charter party the parties incorporated by reference § 4 of COGSA, which, inter alia, excuses the ship “for loss or damage arising or re-*173suiting from * * * strikes or lockouts or stoppage or restraint of labor from whatever cause, whether partial or general * * * ” 46 U.S.C.A. § 1304 (2) (j). The majority treats this as a further and overriding reason why the owner cannot be held financially answerable. I am not so persuaded.
Beside the underlying problem of whether a mutiny is a strike — and I am inclined to think that it is not, because there was no claim here of entitlement to better wages or better working conditions, or any similar negotiable controversy found in a usual labor dispute1 —there are two answers to the argument constructed by the majority. By incorporating § 4 of COGSA, it seems to me that the parties incorporated the context in which that section is applicable, even without specific reference to other sections of COGSA. Thus, the limitation in § 1 of COGSA that carriage of goods “covers the period from the time when the goods are loaded on to the time when they are discharged from the ship” is, to me, fully applicable. 46 U.S.C.A. § 1301(e). It supplies a statutory gloss on what type of strike is excusable under § 4. Since the goods contemplated to be shipped aboard the MARILENA P were never fully loaded before the mutiny occurred, and because I think it not unreasonable for the United States to have discontinued the loading operation, § 4 of COGSA never became operative. This construction renders the majority’s reliance on Adamastos Shipping Co., Ltd. v. Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Co., Ltd. [1959] A.C. 133 (House of Lords), and Aspen Pictures v. Oceanic S. S. Co., 148 Cal.App.2d 238, 306 P.2d 933 cert. den., 354 U.S. 926, 77 S.Ct. 1381, 1 L.Ed.2d 1436 (1957), relied on by the owner, not in point. But, even if operative, § 4 insulates the carrier for physical damage to the goods, not losses arising merely from delays in delivery which would have been sustained here. Commercio Transito Internazionale, Ltd. v. Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., 243 F.2d 683 (2 Cir. 1957), and States Steamship Co. v. American Smelting & Refining Co., 339 F.2d 66 (9 Cir. 1964), cert. den., 380 U.S. 964, 85 S.Ct. 1109, 14 L.Ed.2d 155 (1965), can only be read as concluding that the Act should be limited to losses involving the goods themselves, whether the losses are physical or merely concern the future sale value of the goods.
Because unnecessary to its decision, the majority discusses neither the adequacy of damages awarded nor a motion to require the United States to pay a portion of the cost of printing the appendix, because that portion was unnecessary and duplicitous. The damages assessed by the district judge included the cost of loading and unloading the MARILENA P, the cost of bringing the MORMACRIGEL, the substitute ship, from San Francisco to Seattle, and 66% of the cost of loading, sailing, fueling and discharging the MORMACRIGEL, the factor of 66% apparently being used because the MORMACRIGEL, a ship of greater capacity, was used only in part to carry the cargo originally contemplated to be carried by the MARILENA P. To me, the assessment is unexceptional, and I would affirm. The portion of the appendix required to be printed by the United States seems totally unnecessary to a decision in the case, and, if the judgment of the district court were affirmed, I would require the United States to bear that cost.
From the adverse determination of the majority, I respectfully dissent.

. In this connection, it is significant that the crew rejected an offer of double wages to sail the ship as per the obligation of the charter party.