28 Mo. 323 | Mo. | 1859
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiffs, who were the owners of the steamboat D. S. Stacey, brought their action against the defendants, who were the owners of the steamboat Ironton and the barge John Argent, to recover the value of merchandise shipped by the Stacey on the steamboat Ironton and barge John Argent. A bill of lading in the usual form was executed by Rawlings, master of the Ironton, in which the dangers of the river and of fire were excepted, and to which was added the following clause: “ The steamboat Ironton and owners insure the freight shipped on the barge against leaking and sinking.” On the 22d of October, 1853, the Stacey stopped at Hat Island, in the Mississippi river, being too heavily laden to bring her cargo over the bars, and for that reason shipped part of her cargo on the Ironton and the barge John Argent to be brought to St. Louis. The river at that time was very low and the navigation difficult and dangerous. It was shown that on the night of the 23d October, 1853, before the moon rose, the Ironton, whilst running up stream in Rozier’s Bend, about sixty miles below St. Louis, with two barges in tow, took a sheer to the larboard, on which side the barge Argent was attached, and drifted so abruptly and violently against the bank that the side of the barge was forced in, which caused it to sink, and by that means property of the plaintiff of the value of fifteen thousand dollars was lost. The plaintiffs contend that the goods were lost by the negligence of the defendants in having an unskillful and incompetent pilot at the wheel at the time of the accident; but the defendants insist that the loss was caused by an unavoidable peril of the river.
There was evidence tending to show that, though all boats
There was also evidence tending to show that Credell was the only pilot on board; that he retired about sun-set, telling the captain that it was better not to run the boat after dark until the moon rose, and was in his bed asleep at the time of the accident; also that, after Credell retired, Henry Decker, who was not a pilot but a mere steersman, took charge of the wheel and was steering the boat when the barge sunk; that regular and competent pilots received that season from two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars per month, but Decker was employed at forty dollars per month, with the privilege of keeping a bar on the boat, which carried no passengers, and that he had made only five or six trips on the river between St. Louis and Cairo as a steersman, whereas, in the opinion of many of the witnesses, it was unsafe to trust a person with that amount of experience to pilot a boat in the night with barges in tow.
It is a rule founded on public policy and convenience that
The carrier is not only bound to provide a vessel which is tight, staunch and strong, and in all respects fully equipped for the voyage on which he proposes to embark, but he must employ diligent and skillful officers; for he is responsible for damages resulting from a defect of the vessel, or from want of care and attention on the part of her officers, and also from the want of proper knowledge and skill to manage her. It was formerly held that if the carrier was delinquent in any of his duties, and a loss occurred whilst his wrongful act was in operation and force, though it did not remotely (contribute to the injury, he could not set up as a defence to the action the bare possibility of a loss if he had been all the 5 time in the line of his duty; but it is now held that he will f not be responsible if the loss was wholly independent of his
The witness should have been allowed to answer the question whether it was proper to suffer Decker to pilot the boat at the time and at the place of the accident. He knew the pilot and the place, and, as an expert, was competent to answer the question.
We see nothing in the objection to the competency of Decker as a witness, or to the propriety of reading his deposition.
The obscurity of the record is such that we do not understand the natute or scope of the objection to the reading of Credell’s deposition taken by the defendants. If, however, it is intended to present the point whether a party can read to the jury only such portions of a deposition as suits them, we say that when either party offers to read a deposition which has been taken in the cause, he must read all of it, except, of course, such parts as are decided by the court to be incompetent.
The last clause in the bill of lading, we think, was only intended to insure the seaworthiness of the barge, that it should not leak or sink by reason of its infirmities. It was not designed to insure the goods shipped on the barge from loss that might happen to it by external violence, for such a construction would not only do away with the common law exceptions, but those expressly named in a previous part of the bill of lading.
The other judges concurring, the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.