South Carolina State Highway Department v. The Fort Fetterman

155 F. Supp. 359, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2936
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. South Carolina
DecidedOctober 17, 1957
DocketNo. 1073
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 155 F. Supp. 359 (South Carolina State Highway Department v. The Fort Fetterman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
South Carolina State Highway Department v. The Fort Fetterman, 155 F. Supp. 359, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2936 (southcarolinaed 1957).

Opinion

WYCHE, District Judge.

(Sitting by Designation)

In this suit, a libel in rem by the South Carolina State Highway Department, an agency of the State of South Carolina, the Highway Department seeks damages in the sum of $250,000 against the T-2 tanker Fort Fetterman, owned by Chas. Kurz & Co., Inc., as the result of a collision between the Fort Fetterman and the Highway Department bridge across the Ashley river in Charleston harbor.

At the opening of the trial, the Highway Department moved to increase the ad damnum in its amended libel to $300,-000, but I decline to rule on this motion and reserved the same for subsequent proceedings herein, since the question to be decided by me is one of liability only.

The shipowner in its cross-libel claims damages in the amount of $175,000 for repairs, loss of use, rehandling and reshipment of cargo, etc.

During the course of the trial, at the suggestion of, and in company with, Proctors for both parties, I viewed the scene of the accident and the approaches thereto, not only from the highway bridge but also from a small yacht, in which the general course of the Fort Fetterman, from her anchorage to the bridge, was retraced. During this trip the undamaged eastern bascule arm was raised, enabling me to see the liveload block in position, the working of the bascule, as well as the working of the gear rack, during the raising process and its position after the raising of the bascule had been completed. I also examined the wreckage of the damaged bascule.

In compliance with Rule 46% of the Admiralty Rules, 28 U.S.C.A., I find the facts specially and state separately my conclusions of law thereon, in the above suit, as follows:

Findings of Fact

1. The South Carolina State Highway Department is a department or agency of the State of South Carolina, vested by law with the functions of constructing, maintaining and operating bridges within the State of South Carolina.

2. Chas. Kurz & Co., Inc., is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Delaware, and on October 5, 1955, was the owner of the Tank Steamer Fort Fetterman.

3. The South Carolina Legislature by an Act, approved February 14, 1918, 30 St. at Large, p. 1072, authorized the Sanitary & Drainage Commission of Charleston County to construct a bridge across the Ashley river, within the State of South Carolina. Pursuant to the provisions of a federal statute, plans for [361]*361the construction and location of the bridge were submitted to the Chief of Army Engineers and the Secretary of War, who issued an Approval Permit on May 23, 1923. The bridge was built in 1923-1925 by the Sanitary & Drainage Commission of Charleston County, and about 1925, was taken over by the South Carolina State Highway Department, which has operated and maintained the bridge ever since.

The plans for the construction of the bridge called for a 43 foot wide bridge structure with a 34 foot roadway, and showed the Ashley river at this point running in a direction, which I shall, for convenience, designate, as north and south, but with the bridge crossing the river, not at right angles in a direct east-west direction, but rather from a southeast to northwest direction on a 20° skew or angle measured clockwise to the east-west line.

4. The bridge was constructed according to the approved Permit, except as hereinafter stated. The draw portion of the bridge had two rotating pivot spans or bascule leaves operated by separate counterweights and separate electric motors housed in concrete piers or abutments on each side of the draw opening.

5. There was a guiding or protective line of piles or fenders placed along the face of the concrete abutments on each side with wings extending outward and back from the channel. There was a 110 foot clear channel running diagonally through the draw opening at an angle of 20° measured counter-clockwise from a perpendicular to the roadway centerline. There was a distance of 146 feet between the concrete abutments and an open distance of 138 feet between the line of piles or fenders along the face of the concrete abutments, leaving 4 feet inboard between each fender and each concrete pier. Each fender consisted of a single line of piles (diameter varying from 12" to about 16") driven into the mud and joined together with horizontal strake boards on the channel side with heavy timber on top of the piles furnishing a narrow walkway. South of the southern-end of the piles parelleling the pier, a cluster of 7 pilings, wrapped with cable, were located approximately 18" westwardly of the line of the strakes on the pilings parallel to the pier. The piles along the face of the concrete abutment were not braced or battered against a blow from the channel, but the upper and lower wings of the fenders on each side fanning out from the draw opening were braced and battered. It was impossible to install more than a single line of piles along the face of the concrete pier without narrowing the channel-opening, in violation of the Permit.

6. Each bascule was comprised of two long steel girders supporting the roadway in between them. The girders were deepest in the vertical plane at the point near the trunnion or axle about which the bascule rotates. They tapered down somewhat at the tip ends where, in the closed position, each bascule was joined to the opposite one. The girders on each bascule were connected and held in their vertical plane by trussed cross frames and stiffeners under the roadway. Bearing and weight-supporting strength was provided to the girder on its upper side by a heavy steel flange in the horizontal plane and similarly fastened to its lower or under-side was another 20" wide heavy steel flange in the same plane. In any position of the bascule the top flange was subject to tension and the bottom flange to compression. The lower flange was the thickest near its area of maximum compression, which was at the trunnion end where the gear rack was attached.

Each bascule arm was raised by two 35-horsepower electric motors assisting the gravity pull of the counterweights. These motors operated a system of gears which activated gear-wheel pinions near the foot of each girder of the bascule; These pinions engaged a quadrant gear rack on the bottom flange of each girder and as the pinions turned, the gear racks and the bascule were forced up or down, depending upon the motion imparted. [362]*362The gear rack was attached to the lower flange by heavy metal plates and numerous bolts. When the bridge was in a closed position, the two bascule tips were connected by a mechanical center lock which kept them together and made the roadway level. In this position, the trunnion ends of the girders of each bascule rested on heavy cast steel blocks attached to the bottom flange of each girder; these blocks are known as live-load blocks or shoes, and in the closed position they rested on a similar but immovable block fastened to the concrete abutment. This liveload block was about two and one-half feet above the upper-end of the gear rack on the lower flange of each girder. When the bridge was raised, the gear racks moved upward in a constant arc with the outermost point of the teeth of the rack extending about 18" over the water beyond the face of the concrete pier but about 3%' within and not beyond the fenders or piling along the face of the concrete pier. At the time of the collision, the point of maximum protrusion of the gear rack was about 20 feet above the water level and the top of the fender system was about 7% feet above the water level.

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155 F. Supp. 359, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2936, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/south-carolina-state-highway-department-v-the-fort-fetterman-southcarolinaed-1957.