Court Opinion

ID: 9461192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:08:17.720156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:56.416114
License: Public Domain

EUGENE A. WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in Judge Williams’ opinion with the following additional comments concerning the issue of abandonment.
As Judge Williams points out, if the distressed ship is ultimately saved, the general rule that an abandoning salvor forfeits a salvage award does not preclude an award simply because the salvor does not complete the task of saving the distressed ship. See The Fisher’s Hill, 1953 A.M.C. 2037 (S.D.N.Y.), rev’d sub nom. on other grounds Lago Oil and Transport Co. v. United States, 218 F.2d 631 (2nd Cir. 1955); Atlantic Transport Co. v. United States, 42 F.2d 583 (Ct.Cl.1930); The Strathnevis, 76 F. 855 (D.Wash.1896), and cases cited therein. Appellant argues that in these cases mechanical disability or weather conditions rendered further salvage efforts impossible, whereas no similar circumstances accompanied St. Paul’s departure from the disabled North America. St. Paul was simply unable to take North America safely in tow.
The purpose of salvage awards and the abandonment rule dictate that we reject the contention that an award for a partial salvage be predicated upon the physical impossibility of further effort. Salvage awards encourage mariners to aid ships in distress. See Atlantic Transport Co v. United States, supra, 42 F.2d at 589. Similarly, the abandonment rule encourages those who do aid distressed vessels to maximize their efforts and to discourage them from quitting the salvage before doing all that reasonably can be done. But where more cannot reasonably be accomplished and the distressed ship is ultimately saved, it serves no purpose to deny an award.
Indeed, a contrary rule would discourage potential salvors from giving assistance if they thought that they could not complete the salvage by towing the distressed ship to port. Significantly for this case, the disincentive to give partial assistance to the best of one’s ability does not depend on whether the obstacle to further aid is physical impossibility or, as here, impracticality due to the relative values of the vessels and the risks involved. We should not insert such dissuasion into the law.
The reasoning of the court in Atlantic Transport Co. v. United States, id., did not depend on the fact that further salvage efforts were physically impossible:
Where a vessel is in distress, in peril and danger, as here, or where the sea is rough and the weather unfavorable and the wind high, or where other facts which usually attend a vessel in distress exist, there is always a risk and danger in rendering assistance. It is easier for another vessel to stay out of the way or to pass by and not attempt to render assistance than it is to undertake the risk of doing so and incur a risk of injury to itself and a possible loss of life and cargo in connection with the effort. It has therefore been the policy of the courts, in order to encourage salvaging and the saving of life and property at sea, to be liberal in the matter of salvage where the vessel has made an honest effort to be of assistance or has joined with others in doing so, whether its efforts resulted in the final saving of the vessel or not, provided the failure of final success was not due to any lack of honest effort and willing purpose to assist. . . . “It is not necessary, in order to establish a claim to salvage, that the salvor should actually complete the work of saving the property at risk. It is sufficient if he endeavor to do so, and his efforts have a causal relation to the eventual preservation of it.”
*1123The court’s reasoning supports an award under the circumstances of this case.
Of course, the salvor must show that it did what it reasonably could do and that his effort had “a causal relation to the eventual preservation of” the ship. But this is a factual question to be resolved by the trier of fact. The district court apparently agreed with appellees that St. Paul “made an honest effort to be of assistance,” that she did all that she reasonably could do under the circumstances, and that she did not “abandon” North America. I cannot conclude that this finding is “clearly erroneous.”