Court Opinion

ID: 9638425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:43:41.33185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:05.989766
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting)-
I think the judgment appealed from should be reversed. These are my reasons :
(1) I think that only by a strained and unnatural construction can the word “discharge”, the statute uses, be extended to cover and' prohibit small and involuntary escapes of oil forced, as here, through rivets by an abnormal or unusual pressure or strain while loading.
(2) If such a meaning can or ought to be given to the word, in a proceeding against a “person” responsible for the condition which permitted such escape, it cannot be reasonably said that the master of the vessel was “the person” who “dis*71charged, suffered or permitted the discharge of oil” by the leakage occurring here. The person responsible for that escape, if it was under the statute a prohibited discharge, was the operator of the vessel, the Sun Oil Company, or perhaps the superintendent, or person in charge of keeping the ship in condition.
In short, I believe we have fallen into the error first, of treating, as a discharge of oil prohibited by the statute, what was in fact, no discharge at all, but a small, negligible leakage; and further, if the leakage occurring here was a discharge under the statute, we have erred in holding that the Master was “a person who discharged it, or suffered or permitted its discharge.”
A reading of the analogous sections, 407, 441 and 444, of Title 33, and the authorities construing them, strengthens me in the view that what Congress was prohibiting was downright, positive acts of omission or commission, which themselves directly caused, or created conditions which caused, the discharge in substantial quantities, of oil or other refuse, when such acts were under the control of the persons charged with the offense.
The more carefully Sec. 433, the Section in question, is read, the clearer in meaning, I think it becomes that it penalizes positive, overt acts of commission or omission within the power of the person proceeded against. The structure of the statute as much as the words it uses, I think, forces this conclusion. It begins: “Except in case of emergency imperiling life ,or property or unavoidable accident, collision or stranding, and except as otherwise permitted by regulations prescribed by the Secretary * * * it shall be unlawful for any person to discharge, or suffer, or permit the discharge of oil.”
The first exceptions • certainly have to do with dynamic, active situations, as the result of which it may be necessary or expedient to, or impossible to prevent, the discharge of oil. These four active situations are (1) emergency, imperiling life or property; (2) unavoidable accident; (3) collision; (4) stranding.
In the opinion as first written by me and now withdrawn, I rejected, as without any reasonable basis, the view that “unavoidable accident” is us.ed in the statute in the sense of occurring, though due care is exercised. I still rej ect that view. “Unavoidable accident,” as the statute uses it, is something happening akin to, but not exactly the same as, the other three exceptions, emergency, collision or stranding. It describes a situation brought about without fault, in or as the result of which, it becomes necessary to intentionally discharge or permit the discharge of oil.
When you come to the second exception, “and except as otherwise permitted by regulations prescribed by the Secretar/’ it is perfectly plain that this refers to intentional positive acts. The thing done, being expressly prescribed by the Secretary, must be something positive or intentional.
I think, therefore, that we should 'say that rivet leaks of this kind, so small as to be practically negligible, are not “discharges”, because they are not intentional, or reasonably preventable, either in the act of discharging, or in the creation of the condition which permits the escape of oil.
This does not mean that the statute does not cover the case of a leaking tanker, which is sent out in a leaking condition known to the owner and the master, for here there would, in my opinion, be a discharge suffered or permitted, since the condition which caused it was existing and known to those who sent, or took, the ship to sea.
It is this situation of a leaky tanker which confused me on the first hearing. I was convinced then, and am convinced now, that the statute extends to leaking tankers which are known to master and operator to be leaking, and which are nevertheless kept and maintained in service. I think the difference between such a case and this is, that here we have no leaky tanker. We have a riveted tanker, which only occasionally, and then in a small way, and under certain pressure conditions, (which sometimes, but by no means always, occur in loading), permits a small and negligible amount of oil to escape.
When I come to the second point, the personal guilt of the Master, I think the case for reversal even stronger. The Master had nothing whatever to do with the leakage. This was the result of conditions arising during the loading, over which he had no control; a leakage so negligible as not to amount to a discharge, and one which, after previous trips, everything had been reasonably done to remedy.
I respectfully dissent.