Baker Salvage Co. v. The Excelsior

| E.D. Va. | Feb 20, 1884

Hughes, J.

Obviously, the service rendered by these libelants- to the Excelsior was a meritorious salvage service. They were telegraphed for as salvors. They left Norfolk and went to the Excelsior for the purpose of rendering salvage service. If their agent, Capti Stoddard, had assented to the protestation of Capt. Baldwin that this was not to be a salvage service, he would not have altered the fact, or destroyed the rights of his employes as salvors, or changed the character of the service already entered upon. It is not the policy of the law maritime, when a vessel is in peril and has invoked the services of salvors, and these have gone to her for the purpose of rendering salvage assistance, to listen to stories of sharp bargains, driven at the instant, in the endeavor to change the character and lower the grade of the service about to be rendered. The law of the subject is laid down by the United States supreme court in the case of The Camanche, 8 Wall. 477, in Which the answer alleged that the services were rendered under an agreement for a fixed sum, and were therefore not salvage services. The court said: “An agreement of the kind suggested is no defense to a meritorious claim for salvage, unless it is set up in the answer with an averment of tender or payment.” In the present case there was no fixed sum agreed upon, and, of course, none tendered. There was an agreement that the compensation should be left to arbitration, in the event of a future disagreement as to the amount to be paid. As to such agreements, the supreme court of the United States, in The Camanche Case, said that “nothing short of a contract to pay a given sum for the services to _be rendered, or a binding engagement to pay at all events, whether successful or unsuccessful in the enterprise, will operate as a bar to a meritorious claim for salvage.” ' This, therefore, was a salvage service, and it is an attribute of such a service that it entitles the salvor not merely to the ordinary compensation for work and labor performed, materials furnished, and money laid out and expended,—which are allowed and are computed at the usual rates commanded in the market by such services,—but to a reward in addition, given on the principle of encouraging daring and enterprising men to be in readiness, and to be prompt and adventurous, in giving aid to ships in distress, and rescuing lives and property in peril of the sea. The reward is gauged according to the peril in which the persons or property rescued may be; and if the thing saved be property, according, in some degree, to its value.

In one respect this was a highly meritorious salvage service; for all the cargo was saved, without any loss or 'damage whatever, and the ship herself was saved without damage of any sort to her beyond what she had received in the collision which sunk her. This being indisputably so, the only further point of inquiry is as to the danger in which the Excelsior and her cargo were, from which they were taken by the salvors; and as to the hazard encountered by the salvors, and their vessels and material, in the course of the service which they rendered. That a large and expensively furnished bay and river steamer, with first-class boilers, engines, and machinery in her hold, lying full of water on the bottom, at a place where a heavy sea could easily effect her destruction, was in very great possible danger, is quite clear. This danger of possible destruction on a December night, though not certain, was imminent, and depended entirely on the caprice of the winds. The danger of greater or less injury to her machinery, her hull, her joiner-work, and cabins, and her decks, from lying in the water submerged, wdth a hole in her sides of «50 superficial feet, was certain and absolute. She could not be removed from the position in which she was until the hole in her hull was closed, and made water-tight. This needed to be speedily and effectually done; it needed the services of one who v?as not only an experienced diver, but a workman of skill; and of the greater skill from the work having to be done under water. Not only was such a diver with such experience absolutely requisite, but after he had accomplished his task, and to some extent while it was in progress, steam-pumps of exceptional size, power, and efficiency were necessary to empty the ship of the water with which she was full, and to empty it expeditiously, without mishap or delay. And, after the vessel was thus— by the work of the diver and of the pumps—made ready to be floated, it was of the highest importance that towing appliances and vessels should be in readiness to take the ship promptly into port, thoroughly guarded from the peradventure of accident to her frail and weakened hull at every step. All this was accomplished in a thoroughly skillful and successful manner by the salvors.

The complainants have not shown that thore were other skilled persons, with ample outfit of divers, steamers, and wrecking vessels and apparatus, at hand, by whose instrumentality this ship and her cargo could have been rescued from the danger they were in, speedily enough to have prevented the irreparable damages that would have resulted from her lying long in the water. That fact could not have been proved; and this court has had such an iteration of evidence in such a large number of cases to tho same effect, that it is now at liberty to assume, until the contrary is shown, that the Baker Salvage Company is the only fully equipped wrecking company available at all times for the most arduous and difficult salvage work, that is to be found anywhere south of the Delaware capes on the Atlantic seaboard. I think the danger of injury which the Excelsior was in was very great; and she was certainly in danger of possible destruction from a rough sea, if one had set in, which, by thumping up under her very wide guards, might have lifted and ripped up her main .deck, and broken up and wrecked all that was above it. Possible danger, which chanced not to have actually occurred, to a vessel in danger, may always be considered as interpreting the - spirit with which the salvors worked, and illustrating the merit of their conduct; but is seldom made, of itself, the ground of materially increasing their reward. As to the danger in which the Resolute and her crew were during the rough part of the night of the fifth of December, I do not think it was actually great. That there was ground for apprehending danger is proved by Capt. Baldwin having requested that the Resolute should lie close along-side of him; and that the Resolute was by Capt. Stoddard willingly subjected to the risk of taking that position, shows that the salvors were ready and prompt to encounter the risks incident to salvage service. On the whole, I think this was a meritorious salvage service, deserving high commendation for the spirit, skill, and success with which it was rendered; but not of high grade when considered with reference to the risks -and dangers incident to it; yet of sufficient merit in both respects to justify a graduation of the reward in some degree by the value of the property s'aved.

Except for the stress laid by claimants’ counsel upon the matter, it would hardly be worth while to indicate the marked distinction between this case and the case of the same steamer Excelsior, when, in December, 1881, she was by accident run on Hampton bar, not far from where she was' beached by Capt. Baldwin. For the first case see 5 Hughes, 416" court="E.D. Va." date_filed="1882-08-05" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/french-v-the-excelsior-8842849?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="8842849">5 Hughes, 416. There is in fact no similarity between the two cases, except that the vessel was the same and the bar on which she was grounded the same. In the former case, the Excelsior was merely aground, though so fast aground, by reason of her bottom being exceptionally broad and flat, that she could not be pulled off by tugs, and resort had to be made to wrecking anchors and cables. It is true that the services of a wrecker were called for, and the apparatus of wreckers employed. By the use of these means, and by taking advantage of the tides, which were waited for, the steamer was floated, and then proceeded on her voyage. She had been merely delayed. I believe none of her cargo was removed. On the authority of abundant precedent, I held that the case was one of salvage, but of salvage of a very low grade. It was more than a case of tugging and towing. It was a case for the use of wrecking anchors and cables, and for wrecking services. On this ground alone, I allowed, in additioh to compensation by the rule of quantum meruit, a reward of $350. It was not a case for the reward to be made to bear any relation to the value of the property saved, which then was $180,000.

In contrasting the present case with that, it is unnecessary to advert further than already done to the circumstances under which the present libelants found the Excelsior in Hampton roads,—sunk to her main deck on the bottom; full of water; with a hole in her hull, graphically described by one of the witnesses as “big enough for a street car to pass through;” with $10,000 worth of cargo on board nearly readied by water, on the main deck; with this deck and all above it liable to be lifted off and broken up by a heavy sea from the eastward; and with injuries inflicted by collision upon her hull to an extent then painfully and apprehensively unknown, but since discovered to be more than $10,000 could repair. The only elements of safety in the condition of the Excelsior were that she was squarely bottomed on one of the bars which skirt Hampton roads, and that she was within 12 miles of Norfolk, on the border of one of the safest anchorages and most capacious roadsteads for shipping in the world. The success with which she was saved, with all her cargo, was due to two causes, viz.: First, to the accident that no heavy wind or sea arose during the 42 December hours when she lay on the bottom; and, second, to the consummate skill with which the salvors performed their work. Though the former accident, that of good weather, may go to the diminution of the salvage reward, the latter should not. It is the characteristic of these salvors that, whenever success is possible, they perform their work with such facility and perfect success as to produce the impression on those who are benefited that their labors have not been difficult enough to deserve a liberal compensation. Such an objection is faulty both in its logic and justice, and I cannot accede to it.

As to what claimants’ counsel say of “harbor service,” Hampton roads is rather an inland sea than a harbor. It is an anchorage and roadstead, into which sea-going vessels put for safety by hundreds, without a thought of going into port. It is surrounded by headlands, fiats, and bars, and there are but two wharves on its entire boundary, and these run out far from land in reaching the channel.

The services rendered by the libelants to the Excelsior in this case were of the same character, though not as tedious, laborious, or difficult, as those which were rendered within the harbor of San Francisco in the case of The Camanche, 8 Wall. 448" court="SCOTUS" date_filed="1869-11-15" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/the-camanche-88109?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="88109">8 Wall. 448, where the award was onetliird of the value of the property saved, where only a part of the property at risk was saved, and where the service was what counsel calls “harbor service.” The work there was divers’ work, and that of powerful lifting machinery. It was done in the harbor, and in perfect safety, except as to the accidents ordinarily incident to diving and the handling of machinery. Yet in that case, where there was no sea danger, nor much danger of any sort, the award was, as before stated, one-third of the value of that portion of the sunken property which was saved—$25,000 for $75,000.

The case of The Blackwall, 10 Wall. 1" court="SCOTUS" date_filed="1870-04-30" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/the-blackwall-88231?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="88231">10 Wall. 1, was also a notable case of harbor service, in which for a half-hour’s work with city fire-engines on board of a harbor tug, a fire on a ship was put out, and §10,000 awarded for saving property worth $100,000.

Salvage services are rewarded in proportion to the danger attending them, to the peril from which the property was rescued, and to the energy, promptitude, skill, and success with which the salvage is affected. When of the requisite grade in these respects, the amount awarded is fixed with some reference to the values saved. In this case I will give a decree for 3£ per cent, of those values, or $5,600. In the second libel filed I will give a decree for the amount claimed, or $470.70.

The libelants claimed in argument 10 per cent, of the value of the property recovered, or $16,000; but as a compromise, to avoid the necessity of suing, reduced the amount of the bill presented to $10,-000. I do not, in view of all the circumstances of the case, feel justified in awarding a larger amount than $6,000, as above stated.