Court Opinion

ID: 8635142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:43:58.710456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:54.207964
License: Public Domain

WAITE, Circuit Justice.
It was conceded, upon the argument in this court, that the arsenic was badly stowed, and that the ship was liable to the extent it could be shown the salt had been actually impregnated with the poison. The whole controversy here has been in respect to the amount of damages. On the part of the ship, it is claimed that the sacks which had come in contact with the arsenic should have been separated from those that had not, and that the good should have been sold as sound, the others only being condemned. Undoubtedly, a very large part of the cargo was free from taint when it arrived. If a careful inspection had then been made, and pains taken to keep such of the sacks as had been exposed to contamination from such as had not, it is clear that a separation might have been made of the good from the bad, which would have ensured safety. But, unfortunately, this was not done. Whether designedly or not, the consignees were kept in ignorance of what had occurred on the voyage, and an inspection of the ship delayed by her officers and agents, until bulk had been broken, and a large number of the impregnated sacks mixed with others, that were probably sound, in such a way that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other. Confessedly, all the sacks of the Marshall brand which came out of the main hatch on the 17th, and all the sacks of the Ashton brand which came out on the 19th, were taken from around the main-most and from the other places that had been most exposed to the poison. No attempt whatever was made on the 17th to confine the arsenic .to the places in which it then was. In fact, no attention at all was paid to it until complaint came from the lighterman. Even then notice could not have been given that the powder which was the cause of the complaint was arsenic, for. the delivery clerk, who was sent by the consignees of the ship to check
out the cargo, was not made acquainted with the facts until Monday, when the consignees of the salt came to stop further deliveries. It was then clearly too late to make an absolutely reliable separation. The evidence shows, beyond all question, that the poison had become mixed with the salt in some of the sacks, in quantities sufficient to endanger life, and that, after the dust had been knocked or brushed off the outside of the sack, as it easily could be, there was no way of telling what had become impregnated and what had not, except by an expensive chemical analysis. When, therefore, the consignees of the salt became aware of the dangers to which it had been exposed and stopped further deliveries, the commercial character of their property, as a superior article of fine salt for the table and other domestic uses, was necessarily gone. The consignees of the arsenic had told the consignees of the salt that there was arsenic enough scattered about the ship, during the voyage, “to poison a nation,” and from two to three hundred sacks, that were known to have been exposed to contact with the poison, had been mingled indiscriminately with fifteen hundred, or thereabouts, which might have been sound, without any way of distinguishing the good from the bad. The tiers, as they had been piled in the ship, were broken up, and the poisonous dust, which, in some places, stood half an inch thick upon the outside of the sacks, had been suffered to fall where it would, without any attempt whatever at confinement. Clearly, under such circumstances, there was no way of ensuring absolute safety, except to condemn the whole. It matters not that persons might have been found, who, tempted by the hope of gain, would pay for the property more than it was worth for fertilizing purposes, and run the risk of selling it for domestic uses. To have exposed a single sack to sale for such uses would be a gross wrong, unless it was known to be entirely free from danger. The public safety required that no risks should be taken. A mistake could not be tolerated, and, as the ship alone was at fault for putting the property in such a condition that absolute certainty in this particular was not attainable, it is but just that she should be charged with the difference between its value, according to the commercial character to which it had been reduced by her gross and palpable neglect, and that which it originally had. Human life is not to be needlessly exposed to danger.
But, it is useless to proceed further. This whole subject was carefully considered by the learned district judge, and I agree fully with the views expressed in his elaborate opinion filed below. Let a decree be prepared in favor of the libellant, for the amount of the decree below, with interest on the actual amount of the loss, from the date of that decree until the present time, and also for the costs in both courts.