Morales v. Moore-McCormack Lines
Decision Date | 09 December 1953 |
Docket Number | No. 14474.,14474. |
Citation | 208 F.2d 218 |
Parties | MORALES et al. v. MOORE-McCORMACK LINES, Inc. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Milton Schwartz, Houston, Tex., for appellants.
M. L. Cook, Royston & Rayzor, Houston, Tex., for appellees.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and RIVES, Circuit Judges.
Appellants on October 31, 1952, approximately two years and six months after their claimed cause of action arose, filed this libel for injuries resulting to them from the alleged negligence of the respondent in permitting poisonous fumigans in excessive quantities to exist in a cargo of grain which libellants, as longshoremen, had been employed to trim.
The respondent, excepting to the libel on the ground that it showed on its face that the Texas Statute of Limitations applicable to their cause of action had barred their suit at law and that no exceptional circumstances to prevent the application of the doctrine of laches were alleged in the libel or are existing in the case moved to dismiss it for laches.
The district judge invited briefs, and full briefs were filed, libellants in their brief carefully setting out the facts upon which, though not alleged by them, they relied to rebut the showing of laches made by the libel.
Thereafter, the district judge, one of the ablest and most experienced of admiralty judges, in the exercise of a wise and informed discretion, matured over the nearly quarter of a century in which he has presided as judge, in a carefully considered and well supported opinion.1 determined that the exception was well taken and that the action should be dismissed. In the course of it he considered as though they had been alleged in the libel the facts set out in libellants' brief and, assessing them, found them wanting.
Agreeing as we do both with the result and with the supporting reasons given for it in the opinion, we will content ourselves with stating our approval of the views therein expressed and with adding briefly to them by referring to authorities not cited in the opinion, and quoting from some of them.
The rule correctly applied in this case received its first clear cut announcement in this circuit in McGrath v. Panama Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 298 F. 303, 304. Since the facts here are closely analogous to those in that case, we quote from it:
In Gardner v. Panama Railroad Co., the district judge, on the authority of the McGrath case, sustained the defense of laches and dismissed the libel, and we affirmed in 185 F.2d 730, 731. The Supreme Court,2 reversed and sent the cause back for trial, and, in a per curiam opinion, after stating the correct rule:
(Emphasis supplied.)
thus applied it to the undisputed facts:
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