Osaka Shosen Kaisha v. Pacific Export Lumber Co.

272 F. 799, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1685
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 9, 1921
DocketNo. 3609
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 272 F. 799 (Osaka Shosen Kaisha v. Pacific Export Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Osaka Shosen Kaisha v. Pacific Export Lumber Co., 272 F. 799, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1685 (9th Cir. 1921).

Opinion

ROSS, Circuit Judge.

The appellant steamship company is a Japanese corporation, and the owner of the steamship Saigon Maru, on which it agreed by charter party made with the appellee, a corporation of the state of Oregon, to carry from a port on the Columbia or Willamette river a full cargo of lumber, including a full deck load, to Bombay, India, and there deliver the same to parties to whom the appellee contracted to sell and deliver it. The other appellant is surety only. In pursuance of the terms of the charter party the steamship came to Portland, and there received from the appellee a full cargo of the lumber below deck, and 241,559 feet, board measure, on her deck, after which the captain of the ship refused to receive any more, on the ground that it would not be safe to do so.

The court below found and held that the ship could safely have taken on deck 308,441 additional feet of lumber, and for her failure to do so held her liable in rem for damages in the sum of $2,453.65, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum from August 2, 1917, for and on account of loss of profits suffered by the libelant by reason of [800]*800the ship’s failure to carry and deliver at Bombay the 308,441 additional feet of lumber, and in the further sum of $5,192.86 for and on account of the claim for damages made against' the libelant by the parties to whom the appellee had agreed to deliver the said additional 308,441 feet of lumber, with interest thereon at the rate of 6 per cent, per an-num from August 2, 1917, besides costs.

The record shows, and the trial court so found in effect, that the 308,441 additional feet of lumber mentioned had not been sawed by the mill company from which the appellee had engaged it, because of the refusal of the captain to receive upon the deck of the ship more than the 241,559 feet that he had already taken aboard.

[1] The primary question in the case, therefore, is whether in such circumstances the appellee ever acquired any lien on the ship, growing out of the 308,441 feet that the captain refused to receive and carry, in view of the facts relating thereto. The respective positions of the opposing proctors may be briefly stated:

On the part of the appellee the contention is that, by taking on board a portion of the cargo covered by the charter party, the ship thereby entered upon the performance of the contract, and that a maritime lien thereupon arose against her and in favor of the libelant, not only as respects the portion so actually-received, but also as respects the entire contemplated cargo; whereas the appellants insist that there can be no lien against or in favor of the ship as regards any portion of a contemplated cargo not actually placed on board, or in the custody of or under the control of the ship, and especially so in respect to such portion of the contemplated cargo as does not in fact exist. The proctors for the appellee concede that it is the settled law in this country that, where the contract remains wholly executory, the ship is not liable in rem for any breach of it; but they urge that where she partly executes the contract, as by taking on board a part of the cargo, as was done in-the present case, she thereby becomes-liable in rem for all breaches of the contract.

The learned judge of the court below sustained this position of the proctors for the appellee, citing in support of his ruling the cases of Scott v. The Ira Chaffee (D. C.) 2 Fed. 401; The Hermitage, 12 Fed. Cas. 27, No. 6410; The Williams, 29 Fed. Cas. 1342, No. 17, 710; The Director (D. C.) 26 Fed. 708; The Starlight (C. C.) 42 Fed. 167; The Oscoda (D. C.) 66 Fed. 347; The Helios (D. C.) 108 Fed. 270; The Oceano (D. C.) 148 Fed. 131; Wilson v. Peninsula Bark & Lumber Co., 188 Fed. 52, 110 C. C. A. 190.

The contention of the appellants that the cases so cited are not here applicable we think not well founded. On the contrary, the last case there cited, Wilson v. Peninsula Bark & Lumber Co., 188 Fed. 52, 110 C. C. A. 190, which is a decision by the Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit, while based upon a state statute — as appears from the record of that case, not, however, called to our attention until the petition for rehearing in the present case was filed—is, it seems to us, strikingly in point upon the question, urged by the appellants, that the 308,441 feet of lumber had not been sawed prevented the lien claimed by the appellee from attaching to the ship. In that case the court said:

[801]*801“The controlling facts disclosed by the testimony are substantial ly as follows: The libelant had contracted to furnish certain hemlock timbers at the government’s locks in Sault Ste. Marie. It had purchased these timbers from the Worcester Company under a contract which required the latter company to deliver the timbers to the libelant, ‘f. o. b. water, delivered alongside boat at • Chassell.’ It was necessary for the libelant to transport or cause to be transported the timber from Chassell to Sault Ste. Marie for delivery. For tMs purpose, on July 25, 1008, the libelees entered into the following contract with the libelant:
“ ‘On the part of the owners of the steamer Mathew Wilson, we hereby agree, to carry approximately 1,000,000 feet of 12-12 hemlock timbers from Chasseli, Mich., to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.; said timbers to be delivered on or before November 15, 1908. The commencement of said delivery to be at your call in about 10 days. ‘The price for delivering said timber to be $1.50 per M. Said Umber to be received in sufficient water alongside of boat, either in rafts or cribs, and to be delivered at Sault Ste. Marie on dock as far away from the boat as the boom will reach; you to care for the timber as soon as It is cast from the boom.’
•'The first notice that timber was ready for transportation, and the first call for the vessel, was given and made by the charterer August 18, 1908, as appears from the following telegram, addressed to William Wilson: ‘We chartered steamer Mathew Wilson some time ago, Chassell to Soo, Mich, haul timber. No word since. Want to know at once when we can expect it. Three loads ready. Wire answer.’
“In response to this cali, the vessel arrived at Chassell on Thursday, September ,‘id. After the hold was filled with certain lumber destined to Muskegon, which the vessel was at the time also engaged in transporting, they proceeded on Friday, September 4th, in the afternoon, to load the hemlock timbers on the deck of the vessel. The notice of August 18th stated that the charterer had ‘three loads ready,’ yet because of the close inspection made by the representative of the government as the timbers were being put aboard the vessel, and perhaps from some other causes not important, it resulted that there were only about 153,000 feet of timber then actually at Chassell ready for transportation. The Umbers were put aboard Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday morning up to 9 o’clock. A short time thereafter, and without demanding any additional timber to complete the cargo, the vessel sailed for the Sault.”

The claim of the vessel there was that, when first called by the li-belant and notified that three loads of lumber were ready, it responded, and on arrival at Chassell found only a small portion of that amount ready, and because the libelant failed to furnish sufficient timber it was compelled to sail with a short cargo, and was therefore relieved from further performance under the charter.

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Related

San Juan Trading Co. v. Marmex
107 F. Supp. 253 (D. Puerto Rico, 1952)
Osaka Shosen Kaisha v. Pacific Export Lumber Co.
260 U.S. 490 (Supreme Court, 1923)

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Bluebook (online)
272 F. 799, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1685, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/osaka-shosen-kaisha-v-pacific-export-lumber-co-ca9-1921.