W. R. Grace & Co. v. Hansen

273 F. 486, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 1208
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 7, 1920
DocketNo. 3413
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 273 F. 486 (W. R. Grace & Co. v. Hansen) 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
W. R. Grace & Co. v. Hansen, 273 F. 486, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 1208 (9th Cir. 1920).

Opinions

HUNT, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). [1] It is argued by appellant that the subjects of deck and under-deck cargoes are found in separate paragraphs, and that appellant’s initial obligation extended no further than the furnishing of an under-deck cargo; that by the use of the term “full cargo” in the first paragraph a full cargo under deck was meant, and that under the second paragraph the master [491]*491is given an exclusive option to load or not to load a cargo on deck; and that as a matter of law such option relieved Grace & Co. from the duty of providing a deck cargo before the master exercised the privilege of carrying one.

Our construction of the provisions of the charter party is that the charterers were allowed 10 working days within which to furnish the full cargo at the average rate of 150,000 feet per day. If the lay-day period commenced at 1 o’clock of August 28th, and holidays and Sundays are excluded from the lay-day period, the 10 lay days allowed the charterers for loading expired at noon on September 8th. From that time on, days of demurrage would run continuously without deduction, so that, when the last cargo was put upon the ship at noon of October 8th, there had been a detention for 30 days. There arose, then, an obligation on the part of the charterers to pay such demurrage, unless they were excused on account of some exceptive clauses to be found in the charter party. Charterers say that there is such an exceptive clause in that which pertains to strikes, lockouts, or stoppage, partial or otherwise, or any other hindrances or delays, of whatever nature, connected with the working, delivery, or shipment of the cargues, or any part thereof, beyond the charterers’ or agent’s control.

The provision of the charter party whereby the owner covenanted and agreed to the freighting and chartering of the “whole of said vessel,” and also the provision that the charterers did “engage to furnish the said vessel for the voyage aforesaid a full cargo of sawn lumber,” measure the obligation. Although the shipowner never directly notified the charterers of any “option” to carry a deck load, the great weight of the evidence is that all concerned acted upon the assumption that the ship would carry a deck load. The charter was in the main in the usual form used by Grace & Co. with respect to Pacific Coast lumber charters. The ship was a motorboat, but there does not appear to have been anything unusual about the type which would affect her capacity to carry lumber, or her loading capacity generally. There was uncertainty in the minds of the charterers as to the amount of the deck load which the ship would carry, ánd what the height of her deck load might be; but it was the usual custom for ships in the lumber carrying trade to take deck loads, and we think that the evidence is that when the ship was chartered it was understood that she would carry a deck load. The stipulation in the charter party whereby the ship was to have the privilege of loading a deck load not endangering the safety of her cargo was not based upon a doubt as to the capability of the ship to carry a deck load, but upon how much deck load she would carry without endangering the safety of her cargo. Naturally the ship would carry as much of a deck load as was safe, and the charterers, for their own protection, insisted that the vessel should not carry a deck load so great as to endanger the safety of her cargo.

As further evidence that the charterers were concerned as to the safety of the cargo, there is the provision wherein the vessel is required to furnish a certificate from a marine surveyor of the San Francisco Board of Underwriters that the ship was in proper condition for her voyage and that she was properly loaded. The obligation [492]*492of the charterers being to furnish the ship a full cargo, notification by the owner to the charterers that a full and complete cargo would require not less than 1,500,000 feet fixed the obligation on the charterers to furnish such cargo. The stowage of the cargo being under the supervision of the owner, it was immaterial to Grace & Co. where the 1,500,000 feet should be stowed, provided, always, the stowage was such as not to endanger the safety of the cargo. The testimony of Mr. Thompson, of the Douglas Fir Company, was that the charter required full and complete cargo, and that it made no difference how much the vessel would take, and Robinson seems also to have understood the charter party as imposing upon the charterer the obligation to furnish a full and complete cargo.

Appellant’s claim for 6 days’ demurrage in loading the under-deck cargo rests upon the hypothesis that the obligation of the charterers to furnish a full and complete cargo was of a twofold nature: primarily, to furnish an under-deck cargo; and, secondarily, to furnish a deck cargo — the iatter part of tire obligation, however, not arising until the owner had exercised his option to carry such deck load. But, as we construe the charter, Grace & Co. being obliged to furnish a full and complete cargo of not less than 1,500,000 feet for loading within the lay days provided in the contract, the rate at which the under-deck cargo was loaded became immaterial. The rate at which the loading would be carried on would not necessarily detain or delay the loading of the ship. The fact is undisputed that tíre charterers did not furnish a full cargo of 1,500,000 feet, so that the whole of the cargo could have been loaded on board the ship within the period of the lay days provided for in the charter party. Alexander Sons v. Aktieselskabet, 25 Com. Cus. 21. The demurrage clause of the charter party contains a provision for payment of demurrage for each and every day’s detention by the fault of the charterers, which means ultimate detention in the vessel’s loading beyond the 10 days allowed by the charter for loading. That such is the true construction is confirmed by that clause of the charter party which provides that time used in moving from one loading mill to anothér should count as lay days. It could hardly be that there was an obligation to load the full 150,000 feet each day, and yet that the time used by the ship in moving from one mill to another should count as lay days.

[2] Nor can we agree with the appellant that the duty of loading the cargo at the charter party rate fell upon the appellee. The,language used “allowed” the charterers a prescribed time for loading. The fact proved was that the work of loading was done by stevedores, and not by employes of the loading mills or the crew of the ship. The stowage was under the master’s supervision and direction, but the loading was not. It was expressly provided in the charter party that the cargo was to be stowed under the master’s supervision and direction, “charterers’ stevedore to be employed at current rates.” The evidence is that the charterers’ stevedores loaded the cargo of lumber here involved as directed by the lumber inspectors of the charterers. The argument that the stevedores were at fault in loading with only one gang, and that the progress in loading was not satisfactory, does not [493]*493help the charterers, inasmuch as it was their duty to have provided additional stevedores, or otherwise to have made provision for the expedition of the work of loading. It is also established by the evidence that the work of loading, when first undertaken at the St. Paul and Defiance mills, could not have hastened the final loading of the ship, because the ship and the stevedores were idle and waiting for cargo for some 12 or 13 days after the first cargo had been loaded on the ship.

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Bluebook (online)
273 F. 486, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 1208, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/w-r-grace-co-v-hansen-ca9-1920.