In re Marine Const. & Dry Dock Co.

• Decision Date: 03 April 1904
• Docket Number: 195.
• Parties: In re MARINE CONST. & DRY DOCK CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

130 F. 446

In re MARINE CONST. & DRY DOCK CO.

No. 195.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

April 3, 1904

R. J Mahon, for petitioners.

C. P Moses, for respondent.

Before WALLACE, LACOMBE, and COXE, Circuit Judges.

LACOMBE Circuit Judge.

The motion is made on the ground that the corporation was a shipbuilder, and therefor not engaged in manufacturing within the intent of Bankr. Act July 1, 1898, c. 541, Sec 46, 30 Stat. 547 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3423). These authorities are mainly relied on:

People v. N.Y. Floating Dock, 92 N.Y. 488. This case holds that a corporation incorporated for the purpose of constructing, using, and providing one or more dry docks, or wet docks, or other conveniences and structures for building, raising, repairing, and coppering vessels, was not within the provisions of an act which exempted 'manufacturing corporations' from certain taxes. The court says:

'Its main object, evidently, is building, raising, repairing, and coppering vessels. The principal portion of the work which the corporation is authorized to perform relates to the improvement of vessels which have already been constructed, and not to the construction of the same, and, taking all the parts enumerated together, they cannot be considered as embraced within the term 'manufacturing,""'

In The Conqueror, 166 U.S. 110, 17 Sup.Ct. 540, 41 L.Ed. 937, the Supreme Court held that a screw steam yacht of 372 tons was 'not dutiable under the tariff act, and not properly included in the phrase 'manufactures of iron or wood.' A ship is doubtless constructed of manufactured articles, which, if imported separately, would be the subject of duty, but which, put together in the form of a ship, are taken out of the class of 'manufactures."

In Palmer's Shipbuilding & Iron Co. v. Clayton, L.R. 4 Q.B. 209, it was held that a ship was not an 'article,' within the meaning of an act forbidding the employment of children to labor in the manufacture of articles or parts of articles, but that an iron plate was an article of metal, even though used in shipbuilding, and the shaping of the plate was a part of the manufacture.

'The susceptibility to bankruptcy of a corporation does not depend upon its charter. ' Matter of Quimby (D.C.) 121 F. 139.

The language of section 4b is 'any corporation engaged principally in manufacturing * * * pursuits,' and that phrase has been recently construed by the Court of Appeals of the First Circuit in White Mountain Paper Company v Morse & Co. (Oct. Term, 1903) 127 F. 643. The corporation in that case was organized to manufacture pulp and paper. It had expended a very large amount of money in acquiring lands and erecting buildings necessary and suitable, and intended to be used, for that purpose and no other. It had under construction a pipe line to give power to its mills, had cut a large quantity of timber, and sawed the same into four-foot lengths, and floated part of it some 50 miles down the Saco river, but no pulp or paper had ever been manufactured and sold by it. The court...