Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/488

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464
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

tion, which is the act of God or vis major, not accompanied by any accident or injury to the vessel, does not have the effect to terminate or dissolve a contract of affreightment. The owner or master of the vessel is not absolved from his liability to the shipper, nor can the latter demand his goods free of freight on account of the detention.” To same effect, Murray v. Insurance Co., 4 Biss. 417, where the court said: ‘“When a vessel takes a cargo, as in this case, in the fall of the year, to transport to a distant point, it is one of the incidents of the navigation that owing to variable weather or freezing up she may. not be able to reach her port of destination.” Declaring the same principles are Hadley v. Clarke, 8 Term. R. 259; McGaw v. Insurance Co., 23 Pick. 405; Allen v. Insurance Co., 44 N. Y. 437-443; Hubbell v. Insurance Co., 74 N. Y. 246; Hughes v. Insurance Co., 100 N. Y. 58, 2N. BE. Rep. 901, and 3 N. E. Rep. 71; Griswold v. Insurance Co., 1 Johns. 205, 3 Johns. 321; Pars. Shipp. & Adm. 231-233; Jordan v. Insurance Co., 1 Story, 342; The Nathaniel Hooper, 3 Sum. 542-559; Bradhurst v. Insurance Co., 9 Johns. 17; Insurance Co. v. Butler, 20 Md. 41. The master is sometimes bound to forward the goods by other means in case of an interruption of the voyage, instead of delaying to repair. Saltus v. Insurance Co., 12 Johns. 107; Treadwell v. Insurance Co., 6 Cow. 270; Bryant v. Insurance Co., 6 Pick. 131; Adams v. Haught, 14 Tex. 243; Schieffelin v. Insurance Co.,9 Johns. 21. But these were all cases in which the voyage was unexpectedly delayed. In this case both parties must have anticipated that the closing of navigation might intervene, and suspend the voyage. No time for delivery having been specified, no provision for forwarding by other means in such a contingency having been inserted in the agreement, and the contract being to ship all the way by water, it is not a case for the application of the doctrine that delay must be prevented by forwarding the goods by other conveyance. The law, in the light of these circumstances, writes into the compact an assent to such a delay. See Saltus v. Insurance Co., 12 Johns 107; Allen v. Insurance Co., 44 N. Y. 437. Itcannot be said that the master by removing the cargo from the steamer to the river's bank, had abandoned the transportation of the goods. This was