The Powhattan

12 F. 876 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern New York | 1882

Blatchford, Justice.

On the question as to whether the wind-sails were not put up till Wednesday morning, as contended by the libel-lant, or were put up on Sunday before reaching Sandy Hook, as contended by the claimants, the district court found in favor of the latter view. As to the omission of the ship to put up wind-sails while she lay at the pier, the district court held that wind-sails would have been of use while the vessel was at the pier; that it was negligence in the ship not to put up wind-sails then; and that the subsequent sickness and death of the cattle in the between-decks were caused by such omission. The argument on the part of the libellant is that the cattle in the between-decks were shipped in good condition, not overheated or exhausted by their transfer from the yards to the ship; that if there were no means of ventilating the between-decks at the pier by wind-sails, the ship should have notified Mr. May that she could not sail till 3 o’clock, so that he might have kept the cattle on the pier; and that the failure to put up the wind-sails was negligence, and all the damages sustained by the libellant can be reasonably attributed to its results. It is further contended for the libel-lant that such injury was aggravated by the neglect of the ship to put up wind-sails till Wednesday, and that the permanent ventilators of the vessel were insufficient. My conclusions as to these'propositions of fact appear in the findings. The burden of proving negligence and of proving that the damage arose from the facts alleged to constitute negligence is on the libellant.

It is not established that there was any negligence anywhere except such as existed in confining live cattle in the between-decks of an iron vessel such as the Powhattan was in hot weather in July. That was the act of the libellant. Negligence in the carrier is not to be presumed from the sickness and death of cattle under such circumstances. The necessity for putting up wind-sails at the pier must be shown, and that it would have prevented the sickness and death; and that the damage was the direct and proximate result of the omission. This has not been done. The continuance of the mortality through Wednesday, although the wind-sails were put up before reaching Sandy Hook, and kept up, and the bad condition of the surviving between-decks cattle, lead irresistibly to the conclusion that the fatal thing was the keeping the cattle at all in the between-decks of that ship in that weather, and not the omission to put upwind-sails at the pier or to keep the cattle on the pier till the hour of sailing. Certain it is that, with the ship as she was from Sandy Hook on, with wind-sails up and all the appliances she had in use and the hatches open, in view of the causes operating and of the results, no possible discrimination can be made between the damage resulting from the operation of those causes before reaching Sandy Hook and the damage resulting from those causes after reaching Sandy Hook. The evidence is all of it very vague and general. There was not, on the part of any one, any intelligent observation of particular animals as there might have been, so as to show that they sickened or died from ihe effects of the heat at the pier. All the deaths and all the sickness and all the damage cannot on the evidence be legally attributed to the subjection of the cattle to the heat in the between-decks before reaching Sandy Hook.

The libel must be dismissed, with costs to the claimant in both courts.

See 5 Fed. Rep. 375.