Court Opinion

ID: 8635195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:44:03.523733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:54.297524
License: Public Domain

BETTS, District Judge.
Held, that the pleadings on both sides are exceedingly curt and uninstructive, and the libel would have been dismissed for omitting to set forth a definite cause of action had not the answer happened to supply its defects by intimating that the merchandise consisted of seed. Joining this concession to the loose suggestions of the libel, the court may be justified in implying that the controversy related to thirty-one bags of some kind of seed, and then admit the bill of lading and other proofs to specify and explain the contract between the parties.
That the testimony of the mate plainly imports that the packages when put on board were in good order and full, and may be invoked by the libelant in corroboration of the admission of the bill of lading, and supplies all the proofs which the claimant could demand extraneous to the bill of lading to remove the effect of the clause of “Weight and contents unknown.”
That the cargo then being received in good order, it devolves upon the ship-owner to show from what causes the injury arose, if he would free himself from his positive obligation as common carrier.
That this court has never felt authorized to imply an exoneration of a common carrier by water from responsibility for losses occasioned by perils of the sea when not expressly stipulated by the parties in the contract.
That no proof is given to exonerate the schooner, and the libelant is accordingly entitled to recover.
Decree for libelants, with a reference to compute damages.