The Carrie L. Tyler

106 F. 422, 54 L.R.A. 236, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 3977
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit·Decided February 7, 1901·No. No. 385·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

BIMONTON, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). No objection lias been or can be made to the jurisdiction of the court beiow. Hobart v. Drogan, 10 Ret. 120, 9 L. Ed. 363. Nor can any objection be made to the provision of the law giving a pilot the same fees for services tendered and refused as he would have earned if the services had been accepted and performed. Cooley v. Board, 12 How. 299, 13 L. Ed. 996. The sole question in the case is this: Was this barge, being wholly without motive power of any kind, bound by law to accept the services of a pilot while she was in tow of a steam tug, whose master was a licensed pilot of the bar and river over which she was navigating? The point is a narrow one. It is a municipal regulation of the state of North Carolina, recognized and made of force under the legislation of congress. Cooley v. Board, supra. No decision of any court in that state has been quoted, and none can be found, bearing on thin question. It comes up for the first lime for adjudication. The class of pilots has existed from the earliest times, and laws have been enacted in every nation engaged in commerce regulating and protecting them. The purpose of these laws is to insure at all times a due ¡supply of men well qualified by skill, knowledge, and experience to protect vessels entering Into ports and harbors from the dangers of navigation. They are engaged in a perilous calling, and must he ready to brave the perils of their vocation. To encourage such men, and to secure permanence in their ranks, every nation engaged in commerce, and all the states in the Union having harbors, have enacted laws making it compulsory upon all -vessels entering- their ports, except those of very small tonnage, to employ a duly-licensed pilot for the purpose of piloting them. [424] The propriety and legality of these regulations by the states have been sanctioned by the supreme court of the United States. Steamship Co. v. Joliffe, 2 Wall. 450, 17 L. Ed. 805; Wilson v. McNamee, 102 U. S. 572, 26 L. Ed. 234. And these cases also sustain the regulation that if a pilot offer his services, and they be refused, he is entitled to be paid the pilotage, unless some other pilot be first engaged. Mr. Justice Curtis, in Cooley v. Board, 12 How. 312, 13 L. Ed. 1002, speaking on this subject, says:

‘We think this particular regulation concerning half-pilotage fees is an appropriate part of a general system of regulations of this subject. Testing it by the practice of commercial states and countries legislating on this subject, we find it has usually been deemed necessary to make similar provisions. Numerous laws of this kind are cited in the learned argument of the counsel for the defendant in error; and their fitness, as part of a system of pilotage, in many places, may be inferred from their existence in so many different states and countries. Like other laws, they are framed to meet the most usual cases. ‘Quae frequentius accidunt.’ They rest upon the propriety of securing lives and property exposed to the perils of a dangerous navigation by taking on board a person peculiarly skilled to encounter or avoid them; upon the policy of discouraging the commanders of vessels from refusing to receive such persons on board at the proper times and places; and upon the expediency, and even intrinsic justice, of not suffering those who have incurred labor, and expense, and danger, to place themselves in a position to render important service generally necessary, to go unrewarded, because the master of a particular vessel either rashly refuses their proffered assistance, or, contrary to- the general experience, does not need it. There are many cases in which an offer to perform, accompanied by present ability to perform, is deemed by law equivalent to performance. . The laws of commercial states and countries have made an offer of pilotage service one of those cases; and we cannot pronounce a law which does this to be so far removed from the usual and fit scope of laws for the regulation of pilots and pilotage as to be deemed, for this cause, a covert attempt to legislate upon another subject under the appearance of legislating on this one.”

This compulsion exists on the masters of all vessels, notwithstanding that they themselves, by frequent visits to the port, may possess sufficient knowledge to cross the bar and navigate the rivers in safety. In every case the language is general, — “every ship or vessel.” The North Carolina statute says:

“When any master of a vessel, not having a pilot on board, coming over the bar of Cape Fear river or being in the river and going out either of the inlets, shall refuse a pilot across the bar, then each pilot so refused shall be entitled to the same pilotage as if he had been actually employed to pilot and had piloted such vessel.”

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The Carrie L. Tyler, 106 F. 422, 54 L.R.A. 236, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 3977 (4th Cir. 1901).

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