Court Opinion

ID: 9651263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:11:40.916887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:31.451540
License: Public Domain

CHASE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with my brothers in all but their conclusion that the Mary proved beyond a reasonable doubt that her fault in running “blind” was not in part at least a contributing cause of the collision. It seems to me that the circumstances proved show that the District Judge was right as to that. The Mary was able to stop almost dead at any time because of her slow speed and the drag of her net, and had she seen the Doubleday as soon as she would have seen her had there been an attentive lookout on the Mary, she could easily have stopped a little more than half her length away and avoided the collision. Thus it seems clear that but for her fault in having no lookout preventive means would have been at her command.
The more difficult problem, of course, is whether with the knowledge she should have had, prudent navigation in these special circumstances would have dictated the use of such preventive means by stopping instead of holding her course and speed. I think it would. With a proper lookout she could hardly have penetrated so far into this convoy without seeing any of the ships and should, accordingly, be charged with knowing that she was probably in the midst of a number of ships which might run her down. That the less she moved about in such waters the safer she would be appears almost, if not quite, self evident. The fact that the other fishing boat in similar circumstances did, stop and escaped unscathed does not necessarily show that the Mary’s navigation was wrong but it is a circumstance which with all the rest seems to me to make it impossible to find that the Mary demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that her fault in maintaining no lookout whatever could not have helped cause the collision. For this reason I would affirm the decree dividing the damages.