Bazin v. Steamship Co.

| U.S. Cir. Ct. | Apr 15, 1857

GRIER, Circuit Justice.

The objection of the respondent’s counsel, that the contract is not a maritime contract, cannot be supported. The case presents a bill of lading by which defendants bind themselves, to carry goods received at Havre, and deliver them in Philadelphia. It is a contract for a maritime service, and it would be difficult to say what is a maritime contract if it be not one. If it had been merely an agreement by respondents with libellant, that if he would send goods by their line, they would receive and forward them for a certain con- i sideration, and the breach of the agreement was in refusing to receive or transport the libellant’s goods at all, or for the consideration stipulated, then this iirst objection of the respondents would apply. But when the respondents have received the goods on board their vessel, and given a bill of lading to transport them across the ocean, it can hardly be called a preliminary agreement to a maritime contract, and not the contract itself. i

The ease then presents these two questions on the merits:

1st. Are respondents liable?

2d. If so, what is the rule of damages, and how is their amount to be ascertained?

The reason given by the answer why the City of Manchester was named in the contract, may possibly have been the true one, or that assigned by the libel, to wit, that the libellant “directed his agent in France to send his goods by the City of Manchester,” which was advertised to sail on the 6th of September, because he knew her to be a safe and reliable vessel, and under skilful management. But we need not search for any reason, “Stet pro ratione voluntas.” The li-bellant may, in fact, have had no better reason than that he believed the City of Manchester to be a lucky vessel, or he may very justly have preferred a tried boat and crew to a new iron steamer, whose officer or whose compass had not been tested by a trip across the ocean. Reason or no reason, he had a right to have his contract fulfilled according to its stipulations, and the result has shown that if such had been the case, his goods would have arrived safely. If the goods had been sent by the Manchester, the risks accepted in the bill of lading would have been borne by the libellant. For them he was his own insurer, and the carrier of those not accepted. If the carrier changes the vessel and the time of dispatching the goods, he has substituted different risks from those stipulated by the parties, and should be held as insurer against, all loss from whatsoever cause. The loss to libellant is a result of defendant’s breach of contract.

But, assuming that the libellant had no good reason for desiring his goods to be sent by a particular vessel, and that the insertion of the name of the City of Manchester was merely pro forma, to fill up the usual blanks in a printed bill of lading, is there any evidence whatever that the goods were not injured in consequence of any accident accepted in the bill of lading?

The respondents aver that the ship was seaworthy in every way; the libellant denies the fact in his replication. The testimony of the captain shows his steamboat to have been new, made of iron, tight and stanch, well rigged and manned. The only account given of the loss of the vessel, was as follows: “She struck the point of Cape Race; up to that time she continued per-i fectly seaworthy. If she had not struck, at the average of our rate, we should have been in Philadelphia in five days. The steamer was wrecked. We backed off the point of Cape Race and run her on shore to save the lives of the passengers, and to keep her from sinking. There was no tempest. She struck in a dense fog; the sinking of the vessel and the damage done, resulted from her striking the cape.”

Here, then, we have no other reason given by the captain, nor any testimony whatever, as to how or why this great mistake of running against a cape occurred. The answer and the witness both seem to assume that running against a cape or a continent is one of the usual accidents and unavoidable dangers of the sea. That cannot be termed an “accident of the sea” within the exceptions of the bill of lading, which proper foresight and skill in the commanding officer might have avoided. If the compass on the new iron vessel was not sufficiently protected to traverse correctly, the vessel was as little seaworthy as if she had no compass—and this should have been carefully ascertained before she started on her voyage. If there was no fault in the compass, then it is very evident that the officer who is thirty or forty miles wrong in his calculation, and driving through a thick fog with a full head of steam, and first discovers his true position by running on an island, a cape, or a continent, has neither the skill nor the prudence to be entrusted with such a command—and for want of such an officer the vessel is not seaworthy.

The loss of the goods committed to a carrier, and in possession of his servants, puts the burthen of proof on him, to show how it took place, and that it was not by their fault, but in consequence of some of the unavoidable accidents excepted in the bill of lading.

The respondents have not alleged or proved any one fact tending to relieve them from responsibility. That a steamboat has been either ignorantly, carelessly or recklessly dashed against a cape in a thick fog, cannot be received as a plea to discharge the carrier. Yet for anything that appears such is the case before us. If there were any circumstances tending to lead to a contrary conclusion, they are not in evidence in the case.

II. The rule of damages in these cases is, that the carrier shall pay for goods not delivered, them net value at the port of delivery. He is not liable for any speculation or possible profits which the owner might have anticipated in his peculiar business. Thus, suppose the carrier liable for non-delivery of a hundred barrels of flour at Philadelphia on a given day, and on that day flour is worth five dollars a barrel, the amount of the owner’s damage is clearly just $500, because he could have bought a hundred barrels of flour and supplied his loss for $500. The owner cannot be allowed to show that he was a baker and could in a few weeks have cleared ten dollars a barrel by manufacturing his flour into bread. The sum of money which represented the net value of the lost articles, with interest till paid, is all that can be recovered from the carrier when goods have been lost in the course of transportation. And as the owner would have paid freight as a deduction from the net value of his flour, so when the carrier pays its value, he will be entitled to have his freight deducted, if it has not been paid.

In all cases when the article to be delivered has a definite market value, the application of the rule is without any difficulty.

The libellant keeps a variety store in Philadelphia. The eighteen cases contained a selection of ten thousand articles of perfumery, &c., &c., to be found only in such shops. They are retailed generally at one hundred per cent, profit on the original cost in Paris. But few if any of these numerous trifles have any known wholesale or market value in Philadelphia, nor could libellant have supplied himself with the lost goods most probably in the Philadelphia market at any reasonable price. How, then, are we to • arrive at a rule of damages to ascertain the amount of loss to libellant for the non-delivery of his articles? Certainly not as contended by his counsel, by taking the original cost, adding expenses and charges of transportation, and seventy-five per cent, “for loss of anticipated profits.”

If these articles, like most other goods and wares, had a known value in market here, for which they could be purchased, the original cost and charges of transportation would have nothing to do with the calculation. But as such is not the case in the present instance, we must inquire what was the original cost and what the charges of transportation, &c., in order to arrive at their value here; or more properly, what would it cost to get other goods of precisely the same value in place of those lost. Now, we may assume (as nothing is pretended to the contrary) that a bill for the very same sort of articles which Bazin has purchased could be filled in Paris for the same sum of money. In less than sixty days, every article not delivered here by the carrier, could be put in Bazin’s shop, for the same price which he has paid for them. But he will have lost only the interest of his money for sixty days longer. How much profit he might have made by retailing them, or what the amount of “anticipated business profits,” being matters not capable of certain ascertainment, cannot make a part of the consideration. Legal interest is all that the law knows as the damage for detention of money. As the goods lost, therefore, have no market value here, and could not be purchased in our market, their value must be ascertained by adding costs and charges, and sixty days’ interest on this sum. Prom this amount deduct freight, which is unpaid, and add interest on the balance till judgment.

If counsel can agree upon the amount of damages calculated on these principles, the decree will be entered for such amount; if not, the case will be referred to a master to report.