The Jefferson

• Decision Date: 14 January 1908
• Citation: 158 F. 358
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: THE JEFFERSON.

158 F. 358

THE JEFFERSON.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia.

January 14, 1908

Thorp &amp Bowden, for libelants.

H Putnam and Loyall, Taylor & White, for respondent.

WADDILL District Judge.

The libel in this case was filed by E. A. Simmons, late master of the steam tug Helen, 'in behalf of himself and others interested as salvors,' against the steamship Jefferson one of the Old Dominion Steamship Company's vessels plying between the cities of Norfolk, Va., and New York, to recover for salvage services rendered in aiding to extinguish a fire on said steamship while in the dry dock of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, at Newport News, Va.

The cause is now before the court upon exceptions to the libel taken by the owners of the Jefferson, which present for determination the question of whether or not the Jefferson while thus in dry dock is subject to a claim for salvage. The precise point in issue seems not to have been decided before. Certainly no case has been brought to the attention of the court specifically passing thereon, though the cases of Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co., 119 U.S. 625, 7 Sup.Ct. 336, 30 L.Ed. 501, and The Warfield (D.C.) 120 F 847, bear strongly upon the subject. In the first-named case the Supreme Court held that a dry dock permanently attached to the shore, and not intended for navigation, was itself not a subject of salvage service, and in the latter Judge Thomas, of the Eastern District of New York, decided that a vessel undergoing repairs in a dry dock was not the subject of a maritime lien for an injury sustained while therein by a person falling through one of her hatches. The correct determination of this case must depend more upon the proper consideration of the general principles of maritime law applicable to salvage awards than upon decisions definitely controlling the same. The elements of a salvage claim may well be taken into account in this connection, including the kinds of property against which it can be asserted, together with the character of service, and where the same may be performed.

Salvage is not based upon the mere right of compensation for work done and labor performed, but upon public considerations affecting the interests of commerce, the advancement and safety of navigation, and the security of lives and protection of property of those engaged in the hazardous service. In arriving at the amount of such an award the courts especially take into account the risks involved to the salvors, the enterprise, labor, and skill displayed, the value of the property salved, the extent of the danger from which it was saved, and also the value of the property and apparatus used in the expedition. These, however, have relation to perils encountered and services rendered and performed to vessels actually engaged in commerce, either on the high seas or other public navigable waters. The ship's business, the character of peril, and its locality, one and all, are important considerations. The Jefferson at the time of the service sued for was not a medium of commerce subject to dangers and hazards of the seas. She, on the contrary, was in an unseaworthy condition undergoing repairs. She could not move of her own volition, nor could she be used at the time in furtherance of commerce. She was neither pursuing nor capable of engaging in her ordinary business of navigation of the seas. In the Hendrick Hudson, 3 Benj. 419, Fed. Cas. No. 6,355, the court says:

'The fact that the structure has the shape of a vessel, or had been once used as a vessel, or can by proper appliances be again used as such, cannot affect the question. The test is the actual status of the structure ad being fairly engaged in commerce or navigation.'

In The Warfield (D.C.) 120 F. 847, supra, Judge Thomas said:

'In her position, on the dry dock, she was not only out of commission and withdrawn from navigation, but also incapable of navigation.'

Nor can it be said that the libelants rendered their services in saving the Jefferson from a peril of the sea, which is manifestly the character of loss for which a salvage award is made. Hughes, Adm'r, 129; The Charlotte, 3 W.Rob. 68. The libel avers, in substance, that while the Jefferson was on fire, and in a dry dock from which all water had been withdrawn, the Helen hurried to the scene, and while lying at the bulkhead of one of the piers, and as close to the dry dock as possible, she, along with other tugs, played streams of water from their fire hose upon said steamship Jefferson and continued so to do until the fire was completely extinguished, and that 'during all of which time libelant and said salvors rendered every possible assistance to said steamship, and during all of which time libelant and others entitled as salvors as aforesaid underwent great suffering from smoke, flame, and sparks, and endured great hardship from exposure to the wind and water in the bitter coldness of the weather, and libelant and other salvors incurred great danger from said smoke, flames, and sparks, and from electric wires, falling poles, adjacent burning buildings,' etc. This language makes it clear that the peril in which the Jefferson was placed arose from a fire on the shore, and that there was no peril in connection with the sea, or the navigation thereof, other than that the libelants by means of the fire hose of their tug played the water from the harbor on the fire, with a view of extinguishing the same. In Benedict's Adm. (3d Ed.) Sec. 300, this definition of salvage is...