Sacramento Nav Co v. Salz
| Decision Date | 21 February 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 51,51 |
| Citation | 1927 A. M. C. 397,273 U.S. 326,71 L.Ed. 663,47 S.Ct. 368 |
| Parties | SACRAMENTO NAV. CO. v. SALZ |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. L. T. Hengstler and H. H. Sanborn, both of San Francisco, Cal. (Mr. Frederick W. Dorr, of San Francisco, Cal., on the brief), for petitioner.
Mr. Carroll Single, of San Francisco, Cal. (Mr. S. Hasket Derby, of San Francisco, Cal., of counsel), for respondent.
This appeal involves the construction and application of section 3 of the Harter Act, 27 Stat. 445, c. 105 (Comp. St. § 8031), which, so far as pertinent here, provides:
'That if the owner of any vessel transporting merchandise or property to or from any port in the United States of America shall exercise due diligence to make the said vessel in all respects seaworthy and properly manned, equipped, and supplied, neither the vessel, her owner or owners, agent, or charterers, shall become or be held responsible for damage or loss resulting from faults or errors in navigation or in the management of said vessel. * * *'
Petitioner is a common carrier on the Sacramento river in California, and owns and operates the barge Tennessee, which is not equipped with motive power, and the steamer San Joaquin No. 4. On September 23, 1921, petitioner received from respondent for transportation a quantity of barley in sacks. The bill of lading acknowledges shipment of the barley 'on board of the Sacramento Transportation (Navigation) Co.'s barge Tennessee, * * * with the privilege of reshipping in whole or in part, on steamboats or barges; also with the privilege of towing with one steamer, at the same time, * * * two or more barges, either loaded or empty.' While being towed by the steamer in the course of transportation, the barge came into collision with a British ship at anchor and was swamped. The barley was a total loss. The sole cause of the collision was the negligence of the steamer. That both barge and steamer were 'in all respects seaworthy, and properly manned, equipped, and supplied,' is not in dispute. Upon these facts, respondent filed its libel in personam against petitioner.
In the view we take of the case the sole question to be determined is whether the barge alone, or the combina- tion of tug and barge, was the 'vessel transporting' the barley, within the meaning of the Harter Act. This question is a nice one, and the answer to it is by no means obvious. The court below thought the contract was between the respondent and the barge, and did not include the tug; that, since the barge had no power of her own, there was an implied contract that a tug would be furnished to carry her to her destination; and that the Harter Act should receive a strict construction, and, so construed, it applied only to the relation of a vessel to the cargo with which she was herself laden-that is to say, in this case, the barge alone. The decree of the District Court for respondent, accordingly, was affirmed. 3 F. (2d) 759.
The libel recites that it is 'in a cause of towage,' and in argument this is strenuously insisted upon. Towage service is the employment of one vessel to expedite the voyage of another. Here, while there was towage service, the contract actually made with respondent was not to tow a vessel, but to transport goods, and plainly that contract was a contract of affreightment. See Bramble v. Culmer (C. C. A.) 78 F. 497, 501; The Nettie Quill (D. C.) 124 F. 667, 670. Respondent's contention, however, seems to be that the shipping contract as evidenced by the bill of lading was with or for the barge alone, but that, when petitioner took the barge in tow, an implied contract of towage with respondent at once arose. This view of the matter, we think, is fallacious.
The fact that we are dealing with vessels, which by a fiction of the law are invested with personality, does not require us to disregard the actualities of the situation, namely, that the owner of the tug towed his own barge as a necessary incident of the contract of affreightment, and that the transportation of the cargo was in fact effected by their joint operation. The bill of lading declares that the cargo was shipped on board the barge. But it was to be transported, and this the barge alone was incapable of doing, since she had no power of self-movement. If results, necessarily, that it was within the contemplation of the contract that the transportation would be accomplished by combining the barge with a vessel having such power. Respondent says there was an implied contract to this effect; that is, as we understand, a distinct contract implied in fact. But a contract includes, not only the promises set forth in express words, but, in addition, all such implied provisions as are indispensable to effectuate the intention of the parties and as arise from the language of the contract and the circumstances under which it was made. 3 Williston on Contracts, § 1293; Brodie v. Cardiff Corporation (1919) A. C. 337, 358. And there is no justification here for going beyond the contract actually made to invoke the conception of an independent implied contract.
Considering the language of the bill of lading in the light of all the circumstances, it is manifest that we are dealing with a single contract, and the use of the tug must be read into that contract as an indispensable factor in the performance of its obligations. To transport means to convey or carry from one place to another; and a transportation contract for the barge without the tug would have been as futile as a contract for the use of a freight car without a locomotive. In this view, by the terms of the contract of affreightment, in part expressed and in part necessarily resulting from that which was expressed, the transportation of the goods was called for, not by the barge, an inert thing, but by the barge and tug, constituting together the effective instrumentality to that end.
It is said that the Harter Act is to be strictly construed. The Main v. Williams, 152 U. S. 122, 132, 14 S. Ct. 486, 38 L. Ed. 381. Even so, the rule of strict construction is not violated by permitting the words of a statute to have their full meaning, or the more extended of two meanings. The words are not to be bent one way or the other, but to be taken in the sense which will best manifest the legislative intent. United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385, 396, 18 L. Ed. 830; United States v. Corbett, 215 U. S. 233, 242, 30 S. Ct. 81, 54 L. Ed. 173. In the light of the decisions presently to be noted, the words a 'vessel transporting merchandise,' etc., are entirely appropriate to describe the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Seymour v. Hug
...with New York law, that compliance was obviously an implied and indispensable term of the agreement. Sacramento Navigation Co. v. Salz, 273 U.S. 326, 329, 47 S.Ct. 368, 71 L.Ed. 663 (1927); Jensen v. Quik International, 345 Ill.App.3d 713, 715, 280 Ill.Dec. 179, 801 N.E.2d 1124, 1126 (2003)......
-
Bisso v. Inland Waterways Corporation
...Ninth Circuit's position any clearer. In Sacramento Navigation Co. v. Salz, 3 F.2d 759, 761, reversed here on other grounds, 273 U.S. 326, 47 S.Ct. 368, 71 L.Ed. 663, that Circuit considered a contract between the owner of a barge and a shipper of merchandise which excused the former from l......
-
Duplan Corp. v. Deering Milliken, Inc., Civ. A. No. 71-306.
...be unnecessary, the existence of such conditions will be regarded as implied terms of the obligation. Sacramento Navigation Company v. Salz, 273 U.S. 326, 329 47 S.Ct. 368, 71 L.Ed. 663; Wheeling & L. E. R. Company v. Carpenter, 218 F. 273 (CCA 6)." Baldwin Rubber Company v. Paine & William......
-
Fed. Deposit Ins., Corp. v. Fbop Corp., Case No. 14 CV 4307, Case No. 14 CV 4307.
...arise from the language of the contract and the circumstances under which it was made.' ") (quoting Sacramento Navigation Co. v. Salz, 273 U.S. 326, 329, 47 S.Ct. 368, 71 L.Ed. 663 (1927) ).45 The provisions on which the FBOP Defendants rely to show that FBOP had complete control over all t......