Fox v. Patton
| Citation | 22 F. 746 |
| Parties | FOX and others v. PATTON and others. |
| Decision Date | 31 December 1884 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Beebe & Wilcox, for libelants.
Butler Stillman & Hubbard, for respondents.
The libel alleges that in the month of February, 1881, the libelants chartered the British bark Ashur for a voyage from Saint Mary's, Georgia, to Honfleur, France; that said vessel was to make a voyage to Brazil, and thence to proceed in ballast to Saint Mary's, instead of which she took a cargo of merchandise in Brazil and proceeded to New York that by such deviation in her course and her breach of contract the libelants sustained a loss of L60; that the respondents, composing the firm of Patton, Vickers & Co., of the city of New York, representing the said bark in this city, thereupon agreed to pay to the libelants for such damage the sum of L55, which has been demanded of them and payment refused. The respondents except to the libel on the ground that it does not show any cause of action within the admiralty jurisdiction of the court. The decision must turn wholly upon the question whether the respondents' contract was or was not a maritime contract. Nothing in the libel warrants the inference that the respondents were under any legal obligation to pay the damages sustained by the breach of the charter-party. There is no allegation that the charter-party was executed by the respondents, or that they were owners of the bark, or of any part of it. Their only relation to the bark appears to have been that they were her agents in New York. This did not impose upon them any liability for her previous breaches of contract. The only foundation of this action, therefore, is the new and independent promise, on their part, alleged in the libel, to pay the libelants for the previous debt of the ship and of her owners. It does not appear whether or not the debt of the ship and of her owners was discharged, or intended to be discharged, by this new and independent promise of the respondents. If it was not discharged, the libelants' remedy against them remains still available. If the former debt was discharged, then it is a case of novation, in which the only relation of the prior debt to the new obligation is that the former furnishes the consideration of the latter. This original consideration, though in itself a maritime consideration, is not sufficient to make such a new and independent contract a maritime...
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