Gould Coupler Co. v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation
| Decision Date | 09 December 1919 |
| Citation | 261 F. 716 |
| Parties | GOULD COUPLER CO. v. U.S. SHIPPING BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION. EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY ASSUR. CORPORATION, LIMITED, OF LONDON, v. U.S. SHIPPING BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Greene & Hurd, of New York City, for Gould Coupler Co.
Koehler & Weymann, of New York City, for Employers' Liability Assur. Corporation, Limited, of London.
Francis G. Caffey and John E. Walker, both of New York City, for the United States.
Wm. Y C. Anderson, of Philadelphia, Pa., for Emergency Fleet Corporation.
The Lake Monroe, 250 U.S. 246, 39 Sup.Ct. 460, 63 L.Ed. 962 seems to me finally to control both cases. In that case the vessel had been requisitioned and completed by the Fleet Corporation and chartered by the Shipping Board, under the 'emergency shipping fund' provision of the Urgent Deficiencies Act. That provision (40 Stat. 182 (Comp. St 1918, Sec. 3115 1/16d)) empowered the President to requisition any ship then being constructed and to exercise his powers through any designated agencies. The question was whether such a ship was within the liability to arrest of section 9 of the Shipping Act (Comp. St. Sec. 8146e), or whether that act applied only to ships which had been built chartered, or purchased by the Shipping Board under section 5 of the Shipping Act (section 8146c). It was held that, though the President was free to select other agencies, Congress showed that it contemplated the probability that he would in fact choose the Shipping Board and the Fleet Corporation, and that if he did choose them the general administrative provisions of the Shipping Act should apply, among them the liability of all vessels to be arrested on civil process. Therefore the court thought it an irrelevant consideration whether the Shipping Board had chartered the Lake Monroe under its powers derived from the Shipping Act or as a delegate of the President. In either case section 9 applies to such vessels.
Now, in these cases it appears to me too clear for dispute that the Fleet Corporation is in general capable of being sued. Section 11 of the Shipping Act (Comp. St. Sec. 8146f) provides that the corporation shall be chartered under the laws of the District of Columbia, and no one disputes that this means under its general corporations laws. The corporation was so formed under Code of Law D.C. c. 18, subchapter 4, which authorized actions by and against any corporation so organized. The Fleet Corporation was therefore meant to be a legal person without immunity quite as much as any other corporation. In view of these provisions it is unnecessary to consider any of the cases touching the general liability to process of corporations in which the United States may be a stockholder or which it may organize for governmental purposes.
If so then this process would have been legal if these actions had concerned any activities authorized by the Shipping Act. But the objection raised is to process in suits which arose out of the execution of duties imposed upon the Fleet Corporation by the President under the...
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