The Chancellor

30 F.2d 227, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 2364, 1929 A.M.C. 249
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJanuary 14, 1929
DocketNo. 55
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 30 F.2d 227 (The Chancellor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
The Chancellor, 30 F.2d 227, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 2364, 1929 A.M.C. 249 (2d Cir. 1929).

Opinion

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge.

Libelant’s barge Henlopen was loaded with a cargo of coal consigned to tho Stamford Gas & Electric Company, at Stamford, ■ Conn., where there was a dock which the Stamford Gas & Electric Company had for its own use. At the time the Henlopen arrived, the coal barge New Jersey, which was light, lay at this dock, and claimant’s barge Chancellor lay outside of her, loaded. The Chancellor had a cargo consigned to Fleming, who had a dock across the river and about 1,-000 feet from the Stamford Company’s dock. She had been'towed to the Stamford dock by a Red Star tug and left there without permission of the Stamford Company, as her bargee said, beeauso there was not water enough for her at Fleming’s. When the Henlopen was expected at the Stamford wharf, tho assistant engineer of the Stamford Company called up Fleming and told him that the Henlopen was coming in and that he wanted the Chancellor moved. Indeed, he said to Fleming that Capt. Howard, of the tug which was bringing the Henlopen, would move the Chancellor; but Fleming objected to having the Chancellor thus moved, because, as he stated, he did not know how the Red Star people would like it.

On tho arrival of tho Henlopen, the New Jersey and Chancellor were shifted out from the pier. The Henlopen was placed between them and the dock by employees of tho Stamford Company, and her master and mate then made her fast to tho dock on her port side, and the New Jersey and Chancellor were made fast on the other side of her in that order. Tho Henlopen was then partly unloaded in the flood tide, and, as the tide began to fall, her lines were slackened, so that she would clear a ridge at the foot of the piles supporting the dock. But the Chancellor, as the tide ebbed, went aground on a ridge in the shelving bottom where she lay, and so listed shoreward that she pushed the New Jersey over against the Henlopen, whereby the latter was squeezed between the New Jersey and the ridge at the foot of the piles next the doek, and sustained damage to the amount of $2,360.

[228]*228It was argued that the Henlopen. was injured because she was not sufficiently unloaded during high water to prevent her grounding, and not because of anything done by the Chancellor. But the Henlopen had been at the same berth several times before, and found that nothing was necessary but to slacken her lines, as she did this time, in order to avoid the ridge at the foot of the dock. It is quite clear that the listing of the Chancellor initiated forces which entirely changed the situation of the Henlopen, and caused her to ground by reason of the impact of the New Jersey, and that the damage she suffered was without fault on her part.

The trial court held the Chancellor solely. at fault, because she occupied the berth outside the New Jersey, without right or permission of the Stamford Company, and, by her listing, pushed over the New Jersey and caused the damage to the Henlopen.

The proprietors of the dock were bound to know the condition of the berth in which they placed vessels, and the fact that the Chancellor was a trespasser did not make her an outlaw. For example, vessels were bound to navigate with reasonable care in respect to her. The Westernland (D. C.) 24 F. 703; The Lady of Gaspe (C. C. A.) 276 F. 900. The same rule was applied by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to a vehicle which occupied a Boston street in violation of a city ordinance. Newcomb v. Boston Protective Department, 146 Mass. 596, 16 N. E. 555, 4 Am. St. Rep. 354; The English spring gun cases are analogous. Bird v. Holbrook, 4 Bing. 628; Barnes v. Ward, 9 C. B. at page 420.

Lowery v. Walker, [1911] A. C. 10, illustrates the same principle. There the owner of a savage horse, who knew people were accustomed to cross his land where the horse was kept, was held liable to persons injured by the animal, though they were unlawfully on the premises. .Recoveries for injuries to mischievous children in the turntable eases have been allowed oh the ground that such accidents might have been foreseen, and unguarded turntables have always allured the young to those places of danger. United Zinc Co. v. Britt, 258 U. S. 268, 42 S. Ct. 299, 66 L. Ed. 615, 36 A. L. R. 28.

When the proprietor does not know of the presence of a trespasser, or have reason to expeet his advent, it is hard to imagine how he can be under any duty toward such a contingent invader. But it would seem to be only in such cases that no duty toward a trespasser exists. Rights of action, which have been denied to persons injured by railroads when they were unlawfully on the right of way, belong to this class. St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Bennett (C. C. A.) 69 F. 525; Sheehan v. St. Paul & D. Ry. Co. (C. C. A.) 76 F. 201; Grand Trunk Ry. of Canada v. Barnett, [1911] A. C. 361.

But here the Stamford Company was well aware of the presence of the Chancellor, and when her owner did not move her away ordered the Henlopen moored next the dock, and the other two barges shoved further out, so that the Chancellor lay in a berth where the bottom was shelving and she would rest on a ridge at low tide. If she had stranded and suffered damage thereby, the persons who placed her in an unsafe berth would, under the foregoing authorities, have been responsible in spite of the fact that she was a trespasser. By the act of the persons who placed the Chancellor in a berth where she was likely to ground and list, as she eventually did, the berth of the Henlopen was rendered unsaf e. And it was this affirmative act, and not the mere presence of the .inanimate Chancellor, that must be regarded as the cause of the injury to the Henlopen, though we do not suggest that the result could be foreseen, or that the cause was “proximate,” within the legal definition of the term. The Chancellor did not select the berth she finally found herself in. Her first berth, where her own tug placed her, was safe, for she lay there without trouble over several tides. But she got into the berth where she grounded because pushed into it by the mooring of the Henlopen between the Chancellor and New Jersey and the dock, and not through anything she did herself. In these circumstances, she could not become liable for any damages suffered by the Henlopen, unless she failed in some duty to the Henlopen after the time when she was placed in the berth where her listing injured the latter.

It is contended that the Chancellor should have taken soundings to ascertain the condition of the bottom and the depth of water in the berth to which she had been moved. If, in spite of the general duty of a wharfinger to furnish a safe berth, or give warning of any hidden danger to a vessel which it has placed at its dock (Smith v. Burnett, 173 U. S. 430, 19 S. Ct. 442, 43 L. Ed. 756), it be assumed that the Chancellor should have made soundings in order to be free from fault toward the Stamford Company, yet we can see no connection between a failure to do this and the damage to the Henlopen.

■ By taking soundings, the Chancellor would [229]*229have discovered the ridge on which she grounded, and could have foreseen that she was likely to rest on it at low tide, and perhaps, as a result of this, to list over against the Now Jersey. But the discovery would not have informed her that the listing was likely to cause damage to the Henlopen.

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30 F.2d 227, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 2364, 1929 A.M.C. 249, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/the-chancellor-ca2-1929.