276 F. 418 | S.D.N.Y. | 1921
(after stating the facts as above). The first question is whether there was a breach of contract in failing to deliver the cargo at Havana, a question quite distinct from whether the prepaid freight must be returned. Every one agrees that the understanding to deliver as evidenced by the bills of lading was absolute except in so far as it was excused, and there are only two excuses offered : . First, that the venture was frustrated by impossibility of performance; second, that performance was excused under the terms of the bills of lading themselves. For the sake of argument I shall assume for the moment that the respondents are right in saying that between October 9 and November 25, 1920, they had no opportunity of berthing the “Poznan” anywhere in the harbor of Havana, that they could not have discharged in lighters, and that there were no other Cuban ports which offered better advantages. If the bill of lading or the law excused them from delivery, they were right in returning to New York, but if it did not, they were still in duty bound to make right delivery at Havana, and they should have waited till a berth was avail
The only way in which the moratorium could have played a part, and this I understand to be conceded, is by preventing merchants from withdrawing their goods from the “habilitated” warehouses or the lighters, thus keéping these full of goods. A fair test of its effect should therefore be the daily withdrawals of goods through the Custom House before and after October 10th. Importations into the port of Havana we should also expect to fall off after the moratorium, though apparently that was exactly what did not happen, but that consideration is irrelevant, because any crowding which was due to importations after the Poznan arrived makes no difference. She was chargeable with getting the benefit of the date of her arrival, and in so far as the delay in receiving the manifest prevented her from doing so, she is to blame. The question really becomes this: What was the mass of accumulated merchandise of which she must await the withdrawal, and how far was that withdrawal delayed by the moratorium?
The figures given by Yero in his general list show September packages withdrawn at 1,421,000, October, 1,155,000, November, 1,207,000. In his detailed statement given later the footings for September and November are about the same, but those for October are 1,550,000, of which 474,000 were before October 10th, and 1,076,000 for the balance of the month. The discrepancy is not accounted for. If the later list be taken, the daily average of withdrawals from September 1st to the date of the moratorium was about 56,000 and from the moratorium to December 1st about 50,000. The daily withdrawals in October after the moratorium were nearly 60,000. On these figures it would appear that the moratorium did not stop withdrawals from the warehouses and lighters at all. If the first figure for October be taken and divided by 3, the daily figure for September and the first third of October is 53,000, for the last two-thirds of October and November is a little less than 44,000 and for the last two-thirds of October alone about 43,000.
Accepting the earlier figures as most favorable to the ship, there is still no reason to attribute to the moratorium any such effect as could possibly be deemed a frustration of the enterprise. There was some slackening in the withdrawals, say an average of 10,000 packages a day, i. e., 260,000 in a month, which would have delayed her about a week to work off at the rate of withdrawal during the last two-thirds of October. It would be absurd to treat this increased difficulty and delay as terminating the whole contract.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the conditions in October after the moratorium were not substantially different from what they had been during the summer. In October very large quantities did come in, and no doubt served still further to increase the congestion, but as I have said, this cannot fairly be taken in. the ship’s favor unless the neglect to furnish the manifest be ignored, which it should not be.
There remains, therefore, only the general phrase, “other circumstances * which * * * are likely to give rise to delay or difficulty in * * * discharging.” If these'words are to be, used in their bare grammatical meaning, then all that precedes was redundant, and the article as a whole gave the master the right to terminate Ihe voyage for any reason as soon as he in good faith thought the discharge would be difficult or delayed. But nobody has ever thought that such a clause went so far as that. Yet the words must add something to the preceding specifications, and the question, of course, is how much. Lord Justice Farwell in Tillmanns v. Knutsford, [1908] 2 K. B. 385, 403-405, thought that it must be possible to find a single cate
I have found no authorities in this country directly in point. The nearest is Niver Coal Co. v. Cheronea S. S. Co., 142 Fed. 402, 73 C. C. A. 502, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 126 (C. C. A. 1st), a case involving delays caused by crowded berths. The exception read “strikes, lockouts, civil commotions or any other causes or accidents beyond the control of consignees,” but the decision went off on another point, and there is little to indicate the court’s opinion from what is said on pages 412, 413, of 142 Fed., 73 C. C. A. 502, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 126.
There are general expressions of the doctrine as in Hickman v. Cabot, 183 Fed. 747, 106 C. C. A. 183 (C. C. A. 4th), Board of Commerce v. Security Trust Co., 225 Fed. 454, 140 C. C. A. 486 (C. C. A.
The English cases are more directly in point. In Re Richardson & Samuel, L. R., [1898] 1 Q. B. 261, the steamer was delayed in loading due to the fact that workmen, who had been paid off, when the railway service was interrupted, could not be reassembled in time to discharge the ships in season. Thus the berths remained crowded and the steamer had to wait her turn. The charter party contained the following:
‘■The act oí God. the Queen’s enemies, war, riots, floods, strikes, lockouts, accidents to railway factories or machinery loss or damage from fire on board in hulk or craft or on shore, arrests and/or restraint of princes rulers and people or other causes beyond charterer’s control.”
The Court of Appeal held that the delay due to dismissing the hands did not fall within these exceptions, being for the charterer’s own purposes. Neither was it a lockout, nor ejusdem generis with, a lockout. A. I,. Smith, E. J., further added that the delay arising from loading in the older of arrival was not within the general clause. Insofar as the case may be disposed of on the first ground, possibly it is not pertinent, but the. judges clearly intended it to rest in part anyway on the second raid ihird, and in so far as it does, it is closely in point.
In Thorman v. Dowgate S. S. Co., L. R., [1910] 1 K. B. 410, the ship lost time through being obliged to wait her turn through a block in the harbor, precisely as in the case at bar. The charter party contained by reference the words:
“Strikes of pitmen or workmen, frosts or storms, and delays at spouts caused by stormy weather, and any accidents stopping the working, loading, or shipping of the cargo, also restrictions or suspensions of labour lockouts delay on the part of railway either in supplying wagons loading the coals, or any other cause beyond my control.”
Lord Sumner (then Hamilton, J.) held, relying partly on In re Richardson & Samuel, supra, that the concluding clause must be construed ejusdem generis with what went before and that the defendant, the charterer, was not excused for the delays, and must pay demurrage. The case appears to me on all fours with that at bar.
In Northfield S. S. Co. v. Compagnie 1’Union des Caz, L. R., [1912] 1 K. B. 434. (he steamer was prevented from discharging because the berths were all taken and the port rule of the shore laborers forbade their working except upon berthed ships. The charter party had an exception as follows:
“In case of strikes, lockouts, civil commotions, or any other causes or accidents beyond the control of the consignees which prevent or delay the discharging.” etc.
The delay was held by the Court of Appeal to he on charterer’s account under the rule ejusdem generis. Aktieselskabet Frank v. Namaqua Copper Co., Ltd., 25 Com. Cas. 212.
The last three cases dispose of the suggestion that Larsen v. Sylvester, L. R., [1908] A. C. 295, in which the words were “accidents or
My conclusion is that both on principle and authority, so far as can be gathered from the books both here and in England, the delay of a ship caused by the insufficiency of berthing facilities is not comprised in such a clause as article 8. It is especially to be noted that this applies even when the charter party contains an exception against strikes and lockouts, which clearly contemplate economic disorders. Thorman v. Dowgate, supra, and Northfield S. S. Co. v. Compagnie, supra, were therefore much stronger cases for the charterer than the case at bar is for the owners here.
Judge Brown in Calderon v. Atlas S. S. Co. (D. C.) 64 Fed. 874, 877, 878, expressly distinguished between land and water carriage in this respect, holding that as to water carriage the loss need not be directly caused by the deviation, and that the carrier was an insurer. He did not, however, decide that the contract had been abandoned, because he enforced one term of it. He was reversed as to this in the Supreme Court, but not on the ground stated in Thorley v. Orchis, supra. He again declared obiter the same rule in The Bordentown (D. C.) 40 Fed. 682, 689.
Justice Story, in Trott v. Wood, Fed. Cas. No. 14190, held the ship liable for a loss by capture which was not the direct result of forwarding by another vessel, and Justice Grier did the same in the case of a shipwreck in Bazin v. S. S. Co., Fed. Cas. No. 1152. The ship was held to be an insurer, but the ratio decidendi was not given. Judge Betts, in Thatcher v. McCulloh, Fed. Cas. No. 13862, appears obiter to have thought that the loss must appear to be due to the deviation.
In The Citta di Messina (D. C.) 169 Fed. 472, 475, Judge Hough, obiter, went still further, saying that the shipper has an option to treat the deviation as a cbnversion, or to hold the ship for any loss subsequent to deviation regardless of its causal relation. It must be conceded that at least in the case of delays the same rule does not apply to land carriage. Railroad Co. v. Reeves, 10 Wall. 176, 19 L. Ed. 909; St. Louis, etc., Ry. v. Com. Ins. Co., 139 U. S. 223, 237, 11 Sup. Ct.
I must own that it seems to me open to question whether any deviation of however slight account, must be regarded as a total abandonment of the enterprise and the substitution of a new voyage, under the rule in Thorley v. Orchis, supra, followed in The Citta di Messina, supra, and 1 am much strengthened in this doubt by the opinion of Mr. Williston. That there may be such a deviation is of course, very clear, as, for example, if a ship bound from New York to Eon-don should proceed by way of Rio and Buenos Ayres. 1 see no reason in such a case for refusing to treat the voyage as totally abandoned, and the contract of carriage as no longer applicable. In the case at bar it is too clear for words that the return to New York was a total abandonment, even if the Acme Company intended to transport the goods again to Havana by another bottom, which indeed is far from true. Therefore, here it is not necessary to rule on the general question suggested.
Upon these issues a great deal of testimony was taken and if I could make any useful decisions upon it now, perhaps I should do so, so as to guide the Commissioner, but I cannot. I am satisfied that the stowage was in large part negligent, but such a general finding is useless at this stage, because the stowage of each parcel of this mixed cargo may present a separate question, which cannot properly arise until the nature of the damage to that part is proved. Then only can the question of stowage become practically important.
The cause will be referred to Judge Lacombe as Special Commissioner, if he cares to take it up, as soon as the parties wish; otherwise to such other commissioner as the parties may agree upon.