Keeley v. Kerr
| Decision Date | 07 February 1921 |
| Docket Number | L-8659. |
| Parties | KEELEY v. KERR et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Oregon |
Lee Roy E. Keeley, of Portland, Or., in pro. per.
Roscoe C. Nelson, of Portland, Or., for defendants.
The case of Keeley v. Fleet Corporation et al. is an action at law, brought in the state court against sundry individuals including the attorney for the Fleet Corporation, to recover damages for a tort. The complaint charged in substance that in March, 1919, the plaintiff commenced an action in this court on behalf of one Mrs. Dibbern against a boat claimed by the Emergency Fleet Corporation; that the Fleet Corporation appeared by its attorney, and immediately thereafter certain named defendants, in pursuance of a conspiracy with the other defendants, sought out Mrs. Dibbern and induced and persuaded her to breach her contract with the plaintiff and discharge him as her attorney, and for that he brings this action of damage.
A petition for removal of the case to this court was filed by all the parties jointly, and the case was removed here on the ground that the Fleet Corporation is a governmental agency and that therefore the cause of action was one arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. After the case had been transferred here, a motion, joined in by all the defendants, was made to strike out parts of the complaint, and it was sustained. Amended complaint was thereupon filed, to which the Fleet Corporation alone has demurred, on the ground that it does not state a cause of action against it.
The Fleet Corporation was organized in the District of Columbia by the Shipping Board, with the approval of the President, to build and equip ships; the government subscribing for all the stock of the concern. There is a question now before the courts as to whether the Emergency Fleet Corporation can be sued at all, or, if at all, whether it can be sued in this court for claims amounting to more than $10,000, but that question is not involved here, because it is settled that the government is not liable for torts of its agents, even though committed in the discharge of their official duties, and hence it was held in the Court of Appeals of this Circuit in Ballaine v. Alaska Northern Railway Co., 259 F. 185 170 C.C.A. 251, 8 A.L.R. 990, that a private corporation maintained for governmental purposes, and in which the government owned all of the stock, could...
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Providence Engineering Corporation v. Downey Shipbuilding Corporation
...reached in the district of Oregon. Astoria Marine Iron Works v. U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, 270 F. 635; Keeley v. Kerr et al. (D.C.) 270 F. 874. 1921, in Astoria Marine Iron Works v. U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, supra, the United States District Judg......
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Taylor v. American International Shipbuilding Corporation
... ... U.S., 98 U.S. 433; Wells v. Roper, 246 U.S ... 335; Rixon v. Telegraph Co., 271 Pa. 67; Sloan ... Shipyards v. Fleet Corp., 268 F. 624; Keeley v. Kerr, ... 270 F. 874 ... Appellant's ... evidence on no material point contradicted that of appellee, ... but simply emphasized and ... ...
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Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. United States Shipping Bd. Emergency Fleet Corp., 182-E.
...was an entity created to exercise the governmental functions and immune from suit. Judge Bean, of the same district, in Keeley v. Kerr et al., 270 F. 874, concluded. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, in Pussy & Jones Co. v. U.S. Ship. Bd. Em. Fl. Corp., held a claim in excess o......
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