The Benjamin Franklin

• Decision Date: 16 January 1906
• Docket Number: 75.,Nos; 74,s; 74
• Citation: 145 F. 13
• Parties: THE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. THE EDWIN H. MEAD. THE EMMA J. ROSE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

145 F. 13

THE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. THE EDWIN H. MEAD. THE EMMA J. ROSE.

Nos; 74, 75.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

January 16, 1906

R. D Benedict, for the Mead.

A. G Thacher, for the Rose.

James E. Carpenter, for the Franklin.

For opinion below, see 127 F. 457.

This cause comes here upon appeals from decrees of the District Court, Southern District of New York, which held the steamtugs Benjamin Franklin and Edwin H. Mead both liable for damages from a collision of the former with the barge Emma J Rose, in tow of the Mead. The Mead was bound down the Hudson river from Rondout, with 15 boats and barges in tow; the Rose being starboard boat on the hawser tier. The Franklin, which had landed an excursion at Hoboken, was bound up to Yonkers unincumbered. The collision happened between 10 and 11 p.m July 14, 1901. The district judge found that: 'In this case the Franklin was clearly in fault. If there was such a fog that she could not see the lights on the Mead, she was in fault for running at a very high rate of speed in a fog. If, as I think was the truth, the weather was simply hazy, and the lights of the Mead and on her tow could be seen, she was in fault for not seeing them. Her navigation was reckless. * * * I cannot see that the Rose was in fault. * * * She had a light, and it was in a sufficiently correct position. ' Since the appellant does not dispute the finding as to the Rose, and the Franklin, by not appealing, concedes her own fault, it will not be necessary to enter into the details of the navigation. Such facts as bear on the navigation of the Mead will be stated in the opinion. The opinion below is reported in 127 F. 457.

Before LACOMBE, TOWNSEND, and COXE, Circuit Judges.

LACOMBE Circuit Judge (after stating the facts).

The District Court held the Mead in fault for 'being on the east side of the river with her tow, in violation of rule 25,' which reads as follows:

'In narrow channels every steam vessel shall, when it is safe and practicable, keep to that side of the fairway or midchannel which lies on the starboard side of such vessel.'

This rule, long in force in the regulations governing navigation in the open ocean, was applied to inland waters by Act of June 7, 1897, c. 4, 30 Stat. 96 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p 2875). The question presented on this appeal is whether that part of the Hudson river where this collision and the immediately antecedent navigation took place is a narrow channel, within the meaning of the rule, and its decision is not of such momentous importance as the arguments assume. If the result of an affirmance would be to hold that the Hudson river, from the head of navigation 'at the railroad bridge at Troy' (Atlantic Coast Pilot) to the upper bay of New York, is to be considered a single narrow channel, under rule 25, the question would be a very far-reaching one. The testimony-- much of it given by men who for years, by day and night, have navigated the big passenger steamboats carrying hundreds of passengers on a single trip, under all conditions of weather-- shows that such a finding would revolutionize the navigation of the river. But the situation presented here is a far simpler one. From some miles above Yonkers to some miles below it, the river runs without a bend and, roughly speaking, about S.S.W. In the vicinity of Yonkers the portion of the river near the west bank is comparatively shallow. It is deep enough to float even the large passenger boats (the Albany draws only seven feet, the Adirondack ten), but of course a moving boat needs plenty of water under her, and for a fast-moving boat there must be a sufficient distance kept from shoal water to guard against the effects of suction and displacement-waves upon vessels moored or berthed at landings near the shore. Moreover, it is not unusual to find a vessel drawing 20 feet of water included in some tow. The District Judge has correctly found that a 'safe channel for ordinarily large boats at that point extends from the eastern shore two-thirds of the way across the river. ' This channel varies from about 2,500 to 3,000 feet, it deepens from 3 to 3 1/2 to 4 fathoms on the west side to 6 to 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 on the east, shoaling again to 5 fathoms near the docks at Yonkers. It will be seen that here we have a single, wide, straight deep-water channel; not the situation presented elsewhere in the river, where two (or more) deep-water channels each navigable by the larger vessels, running generally in the direction of the river's course, are separated by shoaler reaches of water, safely navigable only by vessels of lighter draft. Nor have we the complication presented in The Bee and The Booth (C.C.A.) 138 F. 303, where the federal government has designated a part of the natural channel as an anchorage ground. The collision took place above the limits of the port of New York. The pleadings and some of the witnesses state that it took place 'below Yonkers'; but the pleader and the witnesses were referring to the riverman's 'Yonkers,' Yonkers' landing, where the docks of Yonkers are. They were not concerned with the political divisions of the state, nor the geographical boundaries of the city of Yonkers. The overwhelming weight of the evidence shows that it took place within a few hundred feet of the landing at Ludlow, which is within the limits of the city of Yonkers, whose...