Texas Company v. R. O'BRIEN & CO.
| Decision Date | 26 August 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 4910.,4910. |
| Citation | 225 F.2d 280 |
| Parties | The TEXAS COMPANY v. R. O'BRIEN & CO., Inc. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Joseph M. Brush, New York City, with whom Thomas H. Walsh, Boston, Mass., and Thacher, Proffitt, Prizer, Crawley & Wood, New York City, were on brief, for appellant.
Seymour P. Edgerton, Boston, Mass., with whom Charles S. Bolster and Bingham, Dana & Gould, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for appellee.
Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and WOODBURY and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from an interlocutory decree in admiralty adjudging the tanker Ventura solely at fault for colliding with the trawler Lynn and referring the cause to an assessor for the determination of damages. The appellate jurisdiction of this court under Title 28 U.S.C. § 1292(3) is clear.
The vessels collided not long after dark on a clear calm evening in November in Broad Sound not far from the outer end of the North Channel leading into Boston Harbor. There is and can be no substantial dispute as to the following facts.
The Lynn, a steel-hulled diesel-powered trawler about 100 feet long and of approximately 170 gross tons owned by the appellee R. O'Brien & Co., Inc., left her berth at the Fish Pier in Boston Harbor about 4:30 p. m. on November 28, 1951, bound for Georges Bank on a fishing trip. She was preceded out of the harbor by about half a mile by the trawler Bonnie and followed by about the same distance by the trawler Ballard. The speed of the three vessels as they traversed North Channel and approached Broad Sound was between 8 and 9 knots.
The Ventura, a T-2 tanker over 500 feet long and of approximately 10,500 gross tons, owned by the Ventura Corporation and operated under a bare boat charter by the appellant, The Texas Company, left the Union Oil Dock in Chelsea about 3:30 p. m. on the same day bound for Eagle Point on the Deleware River in New Jersey. She dropped her undocking pilot and discharged her tugs at about 4:30 at a point some distance further up the harbor than the Boston Fish Pier. She then proceeded in charge of a qualified coastwise pilot out of Boston Harbor at various courses and speeds and without incident until she overtook the Ballard in the North Channel. At that time she was proceeding at her full speed of 13 or 14 knots.
The pilot of the Ventura sounded one whistle blast to the Ballard, which was not answered although it was heard by the captain of the latter vessel who was on deck but not by the men in the pilothouse, and then, in accordance with the signal, the Ventura passed the Ballard close aboard on its starboard side. At about that time the pilot of the Ventura saw the lights of the Lynn ahead as that vessel turned to starboard around buoy No. 1 at the southerly side of the mouth of the North Channel and shaped its course through Broad Sound toward the whistling buoy north of The Graves. The Ventura, after passing the Ballard swung slightly to port and then swung gradually to starboard around buoy No. 1 and also shaped its course toward the whistling buoy off The Graves.
The pilot of the Ventura sounded two blasts of the whistle when his vessel was somewhere between 250 and 400 yards behind the Lynn but received no answer. Nevertheless he undertook to pass the Lynn on its port side and in doing so the vessels collided, the stem of the Ventura striking the port side of the Lynn about 24 feet forward of its stern post. The Lynn swung around the stem of the Ventura rolling over on its starboard beam ends as it did so, passed down the port side of the Ventura, still on its beam ends, and filled and sank with the loss of 15 of the 17 men on board.
The vessels involved were lighted in every respect as the law requires and except for the Bonnie and the Ballard, which picked up the surviving captain and helmsman of the Lynn, there were no other vessels in the immediate vicinity.
There is the usual sharp conflict in the evidence as to the cause of the collision. The pilot of the Ventura, corroborated by its captain, testified that after the two-blast passing signal was given and the Ventura was about to pass in accordance therewith, the Lynn swung radically to port, and that when this maneuver was observed, the Ventura's rudder was immediately put hard left and its engines stopped and reversed at full speed but that it was then too late to avoid the collision.
The captain of the Lynn, corroborated in substantial part by his helmsman, said that as the Lynn left North Channel he...
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Texas Company v. R. O'BRIEN & CO.
...Ventura was solely at fault, R. O'Brien & Co. v. S.S. Ventura, D.C.Mass.1954, 130 F. Supp. 176, affirmed sub nom. Texas Co. v. R. O'Brien & Co., 1 Cir., 1955, 225 F.2d 280, the question of damages was referred to an assessor. The assessor found that although the Lynn had been raised and re-......
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