Stricker v. the Maurice

• Citation: 128 F. 652
• Decision Date: 04 March 1904
• Docket Number: 22.
• Parties: STRICKER v. THE MAURICE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

128 F. 652

STRICKER v. THE MAURICE.

No. 22.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

March 4, 1904

Horace L. Cheyney, for libelant.

Willard M. Harris, for The Maurice.

John L Kinsey and Harry T. Kingston, for city of Philadelphia.

J. B McPHERSON, District Judge.

I do not think it necessary to discuss in detail the evidence in this case. It presents the usual difficulties and contradictions, but makes up for them to some extent by offering the testimony of several disinterested witnesses whose account of what they saw is entitled to considerable weight. In a word, I have come to the conclusion that the barge Rogers, which belonged to the libelant, was alone to blame for the accident, and that the fault with which she is chargeable is her master's failure to give proper attention to the wheel during the quarter of a mile that intervenes between the draw of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge and the draw of Gray's Ferry Bridge, where the barge was sunk. There is no doubt that the barge sheered suddenly to starboard as the Gray's Ferry Bridge was approached, and I think it altogether likely that the few inches more that were needed to carry her clear would have been gained if the masters of the two barges had been attending strictly to the important business on hand. What caused the sheer, I am unable to say but, in my opinion, the testimony exonerates the tug from fault. The length of the hawsers seems to me to be immaterial. Either 80 feet or 150 feet was safe enough if the barges were carefully steered, but in a narrow river, such as the Schuylkill, especially in approaching a passageway not more than 65 or 70 feet wide, or thereabouts, with a tow 35 feet in breadth, vigilance was demanded of the barges, not less than of the tug. I think, also, that the weight of the evidence establishes the fact that the hawsers were properly adjusted. In my opinion, the barges could not have been towed at all if one hawser had been from 8 to 16 feet longer than the other, as the master of the Rogers is venturesome enough to affirm. It would probably have been safer to tow the two barges tandem instead of abreast, but I cannot say that it was negligence to tow them abreast, in view of the fact that this manner of towing is often done with safety in the Schuylkill. In any event, the Rogers discussed the matter with the tug in the morning before the tow was made up, and expressed a preference for the...