Court Opinion

ID: 86103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:00:09+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:51.165071
License: Public Domain

38 U.S. 387 (1839)
13 Pet. 387
THE NEW ENGLAND INSURANCE COMPANY,
vs.
THE BRIG SARAH ANN, WOODBURY AND OTHERS, CLAIMANTS.
Supreme Court of United States.

*389 The case was submitted to the Court, on printed arguments, by Mr. Pickering for the appellants; and by Mr. Saltonstall, for the appellees.
*400 Mr. Justice WAYNE delivered the opinion of the Court. 
This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts, and has been submitted to this Court on the printed arguments of the counsel for the libellants and respondents. Those arguments so entirely occupy the grounds relied upon in support of the respective rights of the parties, and the case has been so fully considered in the Court below, as it is reported in 2 Sumner, 206, that this Court has little left for it to do, than to announce its opinion upon the points it deems material for its decision. This will be done briefly. The particular case will be better understood and settled, by inquiring what is the right of the master to sell a ship in the event of an admitted stranding? This involves the necessity for a sale, in the circumstances under which it is done, to make it justifiable in the master, or otherwise. All will agree that the master must act in good faith, exercise his best discretion for the benefit of all concerned, and that it can only be done upon the compulsion of a necessity, to be determined in each case by the actual and impending peril to which the vessel is exposed; from which it is probable, in the opinion of persons competent to judge, that the vessel cannot be saved. This is, as it is decided in some of the English Courts, an extreme necessity. The master must have the best information which can be got, and must act with the most pure good faith. So says Lord Ellenborough in Hayman vs. Molton, 5 Esp. 65. It is also properly termed a moral necessity, because when the peril and information concur, as we have just stated, it then becomes an "urgent duty upon the master to sell, for the preservation of the interest of all concerned." It should not be termed a legal necessity, as it is in the argument of the counsel for the libellants; for though the necessity, information, and good faith *401 of the master will make the sale legal, the term legal is not descriptive of the prerequisite upon which the master's right to sell depends. Nor can the necessity for a sale be denied, when the peril, in the opinions of those capable of forming a judgment, make a loss probable; though the vessel may in a short time afterwards be got off and put afloat. It is true the opinion or judgment of competent persons may be falsified by the event, and that their judgment may be shown to have been erroneous by the better knowledge of other persons, showing it was probable the vessel could have been extricated from her peril, without great injury or incurring great expense; and the master's incompetency to form a judgment or to act with a proper discretion in the case, may be shown. But from the mere fact of the vessel having been extricated from her peril, no presumption can be raised of the master's incompetency, or of that of his advisers. It is right also to test the peril in which the vessel may be, by information of the locality where she is stranded, by the season of the year, and by a comparison of the number of vessels lost or saved, which have been driven on the same beach or shoal. But in doing so, though it shall be found that a larger number of vessels stranded have been got off than were lost on the same beach; it is very difficult in a case of stranding upon a shifting beach of sand, with the wind blowing hard on shore, and in a month when the winds are usually strong and stormy, to disprove the necessity for the master to sell, by what may have happened in other cases. The evidence taken in this case establishes, that five to one of the vessels stranded where the Sarah Ann was driven on the beach, have been altogether lost. The evidence in such a case, and under such proof of the loss of vessels there, must be very strong before it can prevail to show that there was no necessity for the master to sell. It must also be proved, in a particular case given, that the means in the master's power, or which he may command from those to get his vessel off, had not been applied, and that there would have been what we shall call, and what ought to be so esteemed, a controlling difference between the value of the vessel, as her condition may be when she is old, and the expense to be incurred in getting her off. Nor will any ascertainment of the cost of repairs subsequent to the extrication of the vessel, raise a presumption against the necessity to sell, whatever may be her condition as to strength, and though she may not be injured in the hull, if the actual and immediate prospective danger menaces a probable total loss. We think such was the Sarah Ann's danger.
The Court then, having stated its opinion as to what makes an extreme necessity, it follows that it cannot be laid down as a universal rule, that the master's power to sell is limited to cases of extreme necessity in a foreign port, or in a port of the United States of a different state than that to which the vessel belongs, or in which her owners may be or reside when the necessity occurs. The true criterion for determining the occurrence of the master's authority to sell is the inquiry, whether the owners or insurers; when they are not distant *402 from the scene of stranding, can, by the earliest use of the ordinary means to convey intelligence, be informed of the situation of the vessel in time to direct the master before she will probably be lost. If there is a probability of loss, and it is made more hazardous by every day's delay, the master may then act promptly, to save something for the benefit of all concerned  though but little may be saved. There is no way of doing so more effectual than by exposing the vessel to sale; by which the enterprise of such men is brought into competition as are accustomed to encounter such risks, and who know from experience how to estimate the probable profits and losses of such adventures. And we here say that the power of the master to sell the hull of his stranded vessel exists also as to her rigging and sails, which he may have stripped from her, after unsuccessful efforts to get her afloat; or when his vessel, in his own judgment, and that of others competent to form an opinion and to advise, cannot be delivered from her peril. The presumption is that they are injured; they can never again be applied to the use of the vessel, and they must, ordinarily, become from day to day of less value. In fact they are a part of the vessel when stripped from her, and the mere act of separation by the vigilance and effort of the master, by which they are saved from the ocean, does not take them out of his implied power to sell in a case of necessity. The necessity does not, as has been supposed, mean that no part of her tackle, apparel, or furniture saved shall be sold, because they are no longer liable to loss; but when they are saved, whether a sound discretion does not require them to be sold for the benefit of all concerned. If, however, the master sells without good faith, or without a sound discretion, the owners may, against the purchaser, assert their right of property in the sails and rigging; as they may in any case of a stranded vessel, which has been sold without good faith in the master, with her sails and rigging standing. We do not think the case of Scull vs. Briddle, 2 Wash. C.C. Rep. 150, notwithstanding our respect for the memory of the eminent judge who made it, sound law. It is expressed in terms too broad. The mischievous consequences apprehended may be controlled in each case by such proof as we are obliged to depend upon to maintain and secure from abuse other interests, equally important to society in general as to individuals engaged in some particular pursuit. We think the interest of owners of vessels in cases of a sale by the master, when pressed to make it by necessity arising from the perils of the sea, is amply protected; and that the power of the master to sell is secured from abuse by the limitations placed upon the exercise of it, and by the obligation of the purchaser at the sale to maintain his ownership against the claim of the original owner, by showing that the necessity for a sale had arisen; that it was made in the good faith and sound discretion of the master. This certainly in the case of such sales, at home, gives to the owners of a stranded vessel a stronger guard against imposition and fraud, than they can have in sales made in a foreign port; and serves to support the correctness *403 of the opinion that the master's power to sell is not confined to a foreign port, or to a stranding in another state. This doctrine holds out no encouragement to the master to sell: it gives him no facility to sell, when it is not authorized by necessity, clearly made out, and exercised with good faith and sound discretion.
We have decided the two points in the case necessary to a right decision of it. It is unnecessary for the Court to examine other points argued by counsel, though they are in the record; and which it would have been necessary for the Court to consider, if the respondent's rights under the sale had not been established by the points decided.
We think the facts in the case, which will appear in the report of the case made by the reporter, show that the master of the Sarah Ann was in that necessity, from her stranding and daily probable loss, to make it proper for him to sell her hull, sails, and rigging, for the benefit of all concerned; that the sale was made upon the information and advice of competent judges, aiding his own judgment; and that it was made in good faith and in the exercise of a sound discretion.
The decree of the Circuit Court is therefore affirmed.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed, by this Court, that the decree of the said Circuit Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, affirmed with costs.