44 F. 504 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York | 1890
To all arguments based upon the payment of salvage by cargo owners, in order to obtain free delivery of their goods, the sufficient answer is that libelants made no such payments. The salvors asserted no lien upon the goods; their claim was settled by the ship, whose agents, at the captain’s request, paid the salvage award and cleared the goods from any lien for such service. The captain made no attempt to bind the cargo or the owners by his agreement with the sal-vors. Instantly, upon the fixing of the amount due to them, he procured the funds upon the ship’s responsibility from its agents and paid the salvors. Bo far as the ship was concerned, her whole contract of carriage was fully performed. She delivered the goods to consignees in good order, and free from any lien or incumbrance. It is true that she herself asserted a claim for the proportionate amount of the salvage she had paid, and of certain other expenses connected with the stranding; but there is nothing in the evidence to show that she sought to compel payment of this claim by any duress of goods. To any action upon such claim, whether hacked by a general average bond or not, negligence causing the stranding would be a full defense. Nay, more, the ship could not establish such claim upon proof of the bare fact that she