In re P. Sanford Ross, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1912
• Citation: 196 F. 921
• Parties: In re P. SANFORD ROSS, Inc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

196 F. 921

In re P. SANFORD ROSS, Inc.

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

May 28, 1912

Everett Clarke & Benedict, of New York City, for petitioner.

Martin T. Manton, of New York City, for claimant.

CHATFIELD District Judge.

A verdict has been recovered for $8,000 in an action brought by Ida Wenderlin, as administratrix, etc., of Frithof Wenderlin deceased, who was killed upon a scow or barge owned by the petitioner herein, and upon which there was in operation at the time a pile driver of the usual form. This pile driver was moved around from place to place by tugs. At this time it was close to shore in shallow water, where the scow could be held by hawsers and moved about as was necessary, unless it rested upon the bottom at low tide.

The accident in question occurred upon the 27th day of July 1909. The deceased was a laborer engaged at the time in holding in position the particular spile which was then being driven. He was using a handspike and was standing upon the lowest or deck platform of the scow. The piles were being driven across the channel but close to the bank in Flushing creek, which is tidewater at this point, and the verdict of the jury has fixed the responsibility of the defendant for negligence in the conduct of the work.

It appears that the verdict of $8,000 was more than the estimated value of the pile driver, and the petitioner therefore, on the 27th day of June, 1911, surrendered the pile driver to this court in this proceeding. The pile driver was sold for the sum of $1,700, but it is now contended that this amount is less than the value which might have been obtained by an immediate surrender at the time of the accident. The testimony shows, however, that the ordinary depreciation for wear and age, even though lessened by the repairs which were actually placed upon the boat and superstructure during the intervening time, would equal any difference between the estimated sale value of the pile driver at the time of the accident and the amount actually realized upon the sale, and no evidence has been interposed to lead the court to the conclusion that in this proceeding the petitioners should be compelled to surrender more than the amount obtained.

So far as the right to surrender is concerned, the administratrix, who without objection proved a claim for the verdict obtained, now contends that this court has not jurisdiction, and that the petition should not be maintained under the statute. She asserts that the pile driver was not at the time a vessel and was not in a navigable portion of the stream, that it was driving piles upon the shore and not in navigable water, and was either resting upon the bottom or attached to the bank by hawsers; so that it was merely such a structure as would have been erected along the shore and used as an ordinary pile driver upon tracks or staging and not upon a boat. The claimant therefore asks that the petition be dismissed and that the verdict be allowed to stand as a judgment against the petitioner, entirely apart from any admiralty jurisdiction.

A vessel may be surrendered under the statute allowing limitation either before or after a verdict has been obtained settling the responsibility for the accident. City of Boston (D.C.) 159 F. 257; The Benefactor, 103 U.S. 239, 26 L.Ed. 351. If a verdict is recovered in an action in a state court or in a common-law action in a United States court, and if a right to limit all liability to the value of the craft upon which the accident occurred is given by act of Congress, then the right of trial by jury may be enjoyed by the plaintiff; but the collection of damages may be confined to the value of the vessel on which the liability occurred.

A proceeding to limit liability need not be affected by the form or the manner in which the liability is fixed. The statute of Congress was intended to and does allow a substitution of the res for the personal claim against the individual in certain kinds of cases, and no reason is shown why this should not apply to a cause of action in judgment as well as to a cause of action before trial.

In the present instance the question is not whether the judgment can be avoided. That matter is res adjudicata, and the administratrix's right to her judgment has been established. But the case presents the question whether because of the place in which the accident occurred, and through prior lack of knowledge of the defective conditions, the owner of the vessel can avoid as great responsibility for the accident as would have rested upon him if the pile driver had been working upon staging attached to the shore.

Admiralty jurisdiction embraced the scow and the pile driver at the time. The place where she was resting was a part of the tidewater, and it is impossible to hold that a boat, moving or subject to the rise and fall of the tide, should be within the jurisdiction of the admiralty court when afloat, and out of its jurisdiction if it happens to ground or temporarily rest upon the bottom. Dailey v. City of New York (D.C.) 128 F. 796; Steamship Jefferson, 215 U.S. 130, 30 Sup.Ct. 54, 54 L.Ed. 125, 17 Ann.Cas. 907.

Nor did the method of mooring alter the character of the structure. The accident did occur upon a boat; the proximate cause of the death was negligence in handling the boat, or in the method of construction of the boat's equipment, according to the finding of the jury; and while in this particular case hardship may result by reduction of the amount of recovery nevertheless the court cannot limit the application of the statute and alter the principle, in order to except this particular accident from the legal principles covering every accident of the same sort. If the verdict of the jury was based upon the failure to so move the pile driver as to bring the pile into a position under the hammer where it could withstand the blow, then, surely, the handling of the boat and the act of the foreman in managing the...