Laura White v. Island Transportation Company

• Decision Date: 13 April 1914
• Docket Number: No. 206,206
• Citation: 34 S.Ct. 589,233 U.S. 346,58 L.Ed. 993
• Parties: LAURA G. WHITE, Appt., v. ISLAND TRANSPORTATION COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

233 U.S. 346

34 S.Ct. 589

58 L.Ed. 993

LAURA G. WHITE, Appt.,

v ISLAND TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

No. 206.

Submitted January 26, 1914.

Decided April 13, 1914.

Messrs. M. J. Gordon, P. C. Sullivan, and E. B. Stevens for appellant.

Messrs. Alpheus Byers and Ovid A. Byers for appellee.

Mr. Justice Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court:

While a passenger on the steamboat Fairhaven, plying upon Puget sound, Laura G. White sustained a severe personal injury in being caught or thrown by a rod, called a hog-chain, extending through the deck and connecting with the paddle-wheel. To recover for the injury she brought an action against the Island Transportation Company, the owner of the vessel, in the superior court for King county, in the state of Washington, naming $21,350.87 as her damages. The owner then filed a libel or petition in the district court of the United States for that district to secure the benefit of the statute limiting the liability of vessel owners. Rev. Stat. §§ 4283-4285, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 2943, 2944; admiralty rules, 53-57, 210 U. S. 562, Digest Sup. Ct. 1908, vol. 6, p. 33 Appx., 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. XLV. The petition referred to the action in the state court, and alleged that the damage claimant was insisting that her injury was caused by 'the carelessness and negligence of the employees' of the owner in handling the vessel, in not furnishing the passengers with safe and proper facilities, and in not informing them of dangerous conditions. It also alleged that the claimant was injured through her own negligence, without any fault in the construction, equipment, management, control, or care of the vessel, and especially without the privity or knowledge of the owner; that there was a valid and meritorious defense to the claim; and that the value of the vessel did not exceed $10,000. The petition, while insisting upon the right or the owner, under admiralty rule 56, to contest its liability and that of the vessel in that proceeding, prayed for an appraisement of the vessel and her pending freight, for an order for the payment of the amount of the appraisement into court, or the giving of a stipulation with sureties for such payment whenever required, for the issuance of a monition in the usual form and upon the usual condition, for an order restraining the prosecution of the action in the state court, for a decree limiting the owner's liability, if any, and for other appropriate relief. Although laying no special basis for it, the petition also, in a general way, indicated that the owner apprehended other claims and actions of a like character, and the prayer for the monition and relief was so framed as to include them. After other steps in the proceeding, which need not be noticed, the claimant answered, alleging, in substance, that her claim was founded solely upon the owner's negligence in that the hog-chain was part of the construction of the vessel, and, with the knowledge and acquiescence of the owner, was negligently left unboxed, uncovered, and unguarded, so that it endangered the passengers when upon the deck, in the place regularly assigned to them, and that her injury was caused by such negligence, and not by any fault of her own. In addition, the answer contained this paragraph: '8th. The respondent further alleges that the facts are such that the petitioner is not entitled to take the benefit of the limited liability acts, and joins issue with the petitioner thereon, and asks that the court determine this question before it proceeds further in the said matter.' The claimant also moved to dismiss the proceeding for want of jurisdiction, upon the ground that the pleadings showed that the injury was attributable to negligence of the owner, and that the petition disclosed but one claim and laid no basis for apprehending the existence of others. The motion to dismiss was overruled, and an exception reserved. The claimant elected to stand upon the motion, and refused to move further in the proceeding, whereupon proof of the allegations of the petition 'being waived,' a final decree was entered for the owner, adjudging that the claimant take nothing by the proceeding. This appeal followed, and a certificate was granted showing the grounds of the motion, the court's ruling, and the exception. See Judicial Code, § 238 [36 Stat. at. L. 1157, chap. 231, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 228].

The objection that the court was without jurisdiction, because the pleadings showed that the damage was occasioned by the negligence of the owner, evidently resulted from a misapprehension of what was in the pleadings. So far were they from settling where the fault lay that they put the matter directly in issue, the petition alleging that the injury was occasioned without the owner's privity or knowledge, and the answer affirming that it was caused by the owner's negligence, and not otherwise. If the fact was as...