The Steam Tug Eugene Moran 15 18 v. New York Central Hudson River Railroad Company No 87 Henry Dubois Sons Company v. the Steam Tug Charles Matthews No 88

• Citation: 29 S.Ct. 339,53 L.Ed. 600,212 U.S. 466
• Decision Date: 23 February 1909
• Docket Number: Nos. 87,88,s. 87
• Parties: THE STEAM TUG EUGENE F. MORAN, Michael Moran, Claimant, and the Scows 15 D and 18 D, Henry Dubois Sons Company, Claimant, v. NEW YORK CENTRAL & HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY and the Steam Tug Charles E. Matthews, John D. Daily et al., Claimants. NO 87. HENRY DUBOIS SONS COMPANY and the Steam Tug Eugene F. Moran, Michael Moran, Claimant, v. THE STEAM TUG CHARLES E. MATTHEWS, John D. Daily et al., Claimants. NO 88
• Court: United States Supreme Court

212 U.S. 466

29 S.Ct. 339

53 L.Ed. 600

THE STEAM TUG EUGENE F. MORAN, Michael Moran, Claimant, and the Scows 15 D and 18 D, Henry Dubois Sons Company, Claimant,

v NEW YORK CENTRAL & HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY and the

Steam Tug Charles E. Matthews, John D. Daily et

al., Claimants.

NO 87.

HENRY DUBOIS SONS COMPANY and the Steam Tug Eugene F.

Moran, Michael Moran, Claimant,

v. THE STEAM TUG CHARLES E. MATTHEWS, John D. Daily et

al., Claimants.

NO 88.

Nos. 87, 88.

Argued January 22, 25, 1909.

Decided February 23, 1909.

Messrs. James Emerson Carpenter, Samuel Park, and James Keith Symmers for the Henry Dubois Sons Company.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 467-468 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Archibald G. Thacher, Frederick M. Brown, and Wallace, Butler, & Brown for the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 469-470 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Harrington Putnam and Charles C. Burlingham for the tug Eugene F. Moran.

Messrs. William S. Montgomery and George H. Emerson for the tug Charles E. Matthews.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 470-471 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

These cases come here on certificates setting forth in nearly the same terms the facts of a collision. They both are proceedings in rem. In the first the New York Central & Hudson River Railway Company, as owners of a car float that was damaged, libels the steam tug Charles E. Matthews, the steam tug Eugene F. Moran, and the scows 15 D and 18 D. In the second, the Henry Dubois Sons Company, as owner of the two scows, libels the two steam tugs. The statement of facts, slightly abridged, is as follows: At about half-past 7, in the evening of February 1, 1905, the railroad company's car float was pro- ceeding up the Hudson river in tow of the tug Matthews, the navigation of the two being conducted solely by the master of the tug. They met the tug Moran, which was towing two mud scows down the river, scow 15 D, immediately behind the Moran, on a hawser, and, behind 15 D, scow 18 D on another hawser. A collision took place between the car float and 15 D. Neither 15 D nor 18 D had the required lights. There was an employee of the owner in charge of each scow, and it was their duty as well as the duty of the master of the Moran to have the lights put up. The Moran was guilty of other faults also, so that the tug and the scows all three wrongfully contributed to the damage done to the float. The tug Matthews also was to blame, but the car float was not, unless, contrary to Sturgis v. Boyer, 24 How. 110, 16 L. ed. 591, answerable for the faults of the Matthews, which her owner had hired to move her from place to place in the harbor. The cases in the district court are reported in 143 Fed. 187; in the circuit court of appeals, in 83 C. C. A. 153, 154 Fed. 41.

The question certified in the first case is, 'In what proportion shall the damages sustained by the car float be assessed upon the offending vessels?' In the second the same question is put concerning the damages sustained by the libellant, the owner of the two scows. In the latter case neither the car float nor the scow 18 D are made parties or brought in. The district judge divided the liability for damages to the float equally among the four vessels in fault, and on the same principle charged one quarter of the damage suffered by scow 15 D to that scow and one quarter to each of the other three, thus leaving the libellant to bear one half and dividing the other half between the two tugs. Counsel for the two tugs agree that this result was right, although it is argued for the Moran that the true ground for it in the second case is the rule, that, when a vessel has contributed to a collision by her own fault, her owner cannot recover more than one half of the damages.

For the Henry Dubois Sons Company, which, as owner of the two scows, was required to pay one half the total amount due to the float, it is contended that the court should look to the owners after they have appeared, and should divide the damages on the ordinary principles of personal liability into thirds, or else regard the Moran and the two scows as one vessel, jointly liable for one half, each owner to bear a quarter as between themselves. There is a faint suggestion that, in the last apportionment, regard might be had to the degree of fault.

The New York Central Railroad gets all its damages in any view, unless Sturgis v. Boyer, supra, should be overruled. In that case it was held that a tug having control of a vessel in tow was solely responsible to a lighter upset by the vessel through the fault of the tug alone. (For the opinion of Judge Betts below see note to The Express, 46 Fed. 864.) We see no reason why the decision should not stand. No doubt the fiction that a vessel may be a wrongdoer and may be held, although the owners are not personally responsible, on principles of agency or otherwise, is carried further here than in England. The China, 7 Wall. 53, 19 L. ed. 67; The Barnstable, 181 U. S. 464, 467, 468, 45 L. ed. 954, 957, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 684; Homer Ramsdell Transp. Co. v. La Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 182 U. S. 406, 413, 414, 45 L. ed. 1155, 1160, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 831. See The Blackheath (United States v. Evans) 195 U. S. 361, 366, 49 L. ed. 236, 237, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 46. Possibly the survival of the fiction has been helped by the convenient security that it furnishes, just as no doubt the responsibility of a master for a servant's torts that he has done his best to prevent has been helped by the feeling that it was desirable to have someone who was able to pay. See Williamson v. Price, 4 Mart. N. S. 399, 401; Williams v. Jones, 3 Hurlst. & C. 256, 263. But, after all, a fiction is not a satisfactory ground for taking one man's property to satisfy another man's wrong, and it should not be extended. There is a practical line and a difference in degree between the case where the harm is done by the mismanagement of the offending vessel and that where it is done by the mismanagement of another vessel to which the immediate but innocent instrument of harm is attached. See The Clarita and The Clara (The Clara Clarita v. Cox) 23 Wall. 1, 23 L. ed. 146; The Alabama, 92 U. S. 695, 697, 23 L. ed. 763, 764; The Atlas (Phoenix Ins. Co. v. The Atlas) 93 U. S. 302, 318, 23 L. ed. 863, 867.

The fact that the vessels composing each flotilla...