Court Opinion

ID: 9453998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:31:54.896771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:55.219219
License: Public Domain

BOREMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
The decision of the majority is that the negligence of the defendant was the sole proximate cause of the damage to the plaintiff’s yacht and that the plaintiff was.free of contributory negligence. Having had the distinct advantage of hearing the witnesses and observing their demeanor as they testified, the district court found the facts and reached the conclusion that, although the defendant was negligent, the plaintiff’s conduct was so contributorily negligent under the circumstances as to require a division of damages in admiralty.
There was testimony before the court that the overhead “line,” consisting of three cables, was located approximately 1500 feet from the entrance to the new channel being dredged. There was evidence that from 600 to 900 feet beyond the electric wires the dredging operations ended and at that point the dredging equipment was located. (The district judge fixed this distance at 600 feet.) The dredge, at the end of the cut or new excavation, was painted yellow and white; it was located on a barge and the hull of the barge extended about two feet above the water; the house on the dredge extended upward another eight feet and the lever room extended above that approximately another eight feet. There was evidence that the dredge itself was visible from the west end of the new excavation as was also “the end of the new excavation, that part where it was going to go but had not yet been excavated,” and that there was nothing, such as a curve, from the entrance of the new channel looking eastward, to obstruct the view of the offending wires, the dredging equipment or the “dead end” of the dredging operations.
The “warning” sign, 400 feet from the dividing channels and to the port side, read: “Slow to Stop — Dredging Operations Ahead.” As the majority opinion points out, this sign may have been insufficient to charge the plaintiff with notice that the proper channel was to the left and that the channel to the right was hazardous and should be avoided. However, the plaintiff admitted that he saw no such sign which fact, in itself, is persuasive evidence that he was not keeping a proper lookout since, according to his own testimony, he failed to see the wires, the dredging equipment, the end of the dredging operations, the boats used in connection with such operations, — anything which should have put a reasonably prudent navigator on notice that he was entering the wrong channel in disregard of the safety of his craft.
Plaintiff had traveled this portion of the inland waterway on several prior occasions in recent years and, therefore, had acquired some familiarity therewith. He had again traveled southwardly through this same waterway only a few months prior to the accident. He was no stranger to the area. On the morning of the accident, according to his own testimony, he had been following a chart of the waterway until the “Y” created by the new excavation came into view. Instead of following the charted course which distinctly bore to the left and did not disclose the new excavation abruptly to the right he discarded the chart and undertook to rely for guidance upon his vision. With the sun in his eyes which admittedly impaired his vision he en*425tered the right channel and continued straight ahead.1 According to the plaintiff’s own testimony, he and his wife had arisen early to get through the lock as they wanted to “get through the harbor and start up the bay early.” They were proceeding at a speed of approximately six knots, which was the maximum speed of the craft then being propelled by its inboard motor. As the yacht approached the “Y,” although the district court stated in its written opinion filed in the case that the plaintiff slowed down, the plaintiff himself was uncertain as to his change of speed.2
The district judge, in finding the plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence, explained as follows:
“The plaintiff, Dr. Dalldorf, was guilty of contributory negligence. Here the doctor was an experienced navigator who had been through this inland waterway on numerous occasions. He was fully cognizant with the use of charts and their relevancy to this particular type of navigation. On the morning in question, he had such a chart with him on which was accurately outlined the area from the Deep Creek Locks to the Elizabeth River. It showed distinctly the bend in the waterway which the doctor was approaching at the time he took his eventful wrong-way trip to the right. It did not show any newly constructed, straight, canal to the right. Not only would reasonable precautions have indicated to the doctor, on the basis of time traveled and speed, exactly where he was located, but even a casual observation of the chart would indicate the bend of the channel to the left as it follows the ‘U’ as has been described elsewhere in this memorandum. The doctor realized that he was in a point of danger, he actually slowed down and pondered as he approached his point of departure. Nevertheless, he proceeded though conning his vessel from the small cabin, a point of relatively limited visibility and was, in his own words, not looking for overhead wires, but trying to find ‘good water’. He did not see the dredge itself which was painted in bright colors and was only 600 feet ahead of him as he approached the overhead wires. His failure to be more observant when in a position where he had some inclination of *426danger; his failure to assume a position on the outside of the craft where the dangers, if present, would be more visible to him; his putting the chart aside when it would have been of greater importance to him than in any other point in his travels along that waterway and his failure in his own words, to look in the air constituted negligence and contributed proximately and in considerable degree to the difficulties encountered in this matter.”
Under the circumstances as clearly disclosed by the evidence I cannot join in the conclusion of my brothers that the lower court’s finding with respect to the plaintiff’s contributory negligence was clearly erroneous, either in fact or in law. I would affirm.

. Q. You were heading in a generally easterly direction at that time were you not?
A. Yes, I was a little — I have to refresh myself here. Yeah. Well, I remember it teas early because aftertrards we wondered if we had seen those lines. It was early in the morning. The sun was loto in the horizon, you knoto, and maybe toe would have seen them if the sun hadn’t been ahead of me in my eyes.
Q. That was really my question. Where was the sun with relation to the channel and the wires and so forth?
A. Well, I think it must have been fairly — I know that the low sun, much of that run down there had been a problem, you know. There had been sun glare on the water and I think it must have been — I don’t remember just what the position of the sun in May was there but I know that toe had that problem of the sun in my eyes when we were going down the creek. (Emphasis supplied.)

. Q. Doctor, having made the choice, did you have any other questions about the fact that this was the proper channel? Was there anything to alert you to the fact that you may have been in the cut?
A. Well, no. As I said, though, toe hadn’t any assurance of just where we were in Deep Creek, you know. There were certain — what I was doing was trying to follow the deep water and we had hesitated there and then — •
Q. When you say hesitated what do you mean? Had you actually cut your engine off?
A. Well, I don’t knoto whether we had slowed down or not but we had considered both of these possibilities and then we proceeded in there because that seemed to be the channel, because it was being dredged. But there was — we were already looking for markers on the Elizabeth River as far as I was concerned. We were getting into the area where we might hope to pick up some of those buoys. You see them there quite a distance before you reach them, because it is all so shallow there. (Emphasis supplied.)