The Carib Prince/Opinion of the Court

by Edward Douglass White

United States Supreme Court

170 U.S. 655

The Carib Prince

It was averred in the answer that the damage to the property of the libelant 'was due to latent defects in certain rivets, angle irons, braces, and straps in the bulkhead between the No. 1 hold and the peak tank just forward of it, or to some error or fault in the management or navigation of the vessel in filling the said peak tank on the voyage.' The district court and the circuit court of appeals held that the sole cause of the accident was a latent defect in a rivet from which the head had come off, leaving the hole through which the water poured in and upon the merchandise of the libelant. This defective condition of the rivet was found to have been caused by the fact that the quality of iron had been injured during the construction of the vessel by too much hammering, so that it became brittle and weak, rendering it unfit to sustain the reasonable pressure caused by filling the tank with water while at sea, and consequently causing the vessel to be unseaworthy at the time the bills of lading were issued and the goods were received on board. The settled doctrine of this court is that the concurrent decisions of two courts upon a question of fact will be followed unless shown to be clearly erroneous. Compania La Flecha v. Brauer, 168 U.S. 104, 18 Sup. Ct. 12, and cases there cited; Steuart v. Hayden, 169 U.S. 114, 18 Sup. Ct. 274; Baker v. Cummings, 169 U.S. 198, 18 Sup. Ct. 367. As, after a careful examination of the evidence, we conclude that it does not clearly appear that the lower courts erred in their conclusion of fact, we accept as indisputable the finding that the Carib Prince was unseaworthy at the time of the commencement of the voyage in question, by reason of the defect in the tank above referred to.

Upon this premise of fact, the first question which arises for solution is this: Did the exceptions in the bill of lading exempting the shipowner 'from loss or damage from * * * accidents to or latent defects in hull, tackle, boilers, and machinery or their appurtenances,' operate to relieve him from damages caused by the stae of unseaworthiness existing at the inception of the voyage, and at the time the bill of lading was signed? This question is no longer open, as it is fully answered in the negative by the decision in The Caledonia, 157 U.S. 124, 15 Sup. Ct. 537. In that case the damage sought to be recovered had been caused by the breaking of the shaft of the steamer by reason of a latent defect which existed at the commencement of the voyage. The exemption from liability, which was there asserted to exist, was predicated on a provision in the bill of lading relieving the owner from 'loss or damage * * * from delays, steam boilers and machinery, or defects therein.' It was held that the clause in question operated prospectively only, and did not relate to a condition of unseaworthiness existing at the commencement of the voyage, and that it must be construed as contemplating only a state of unseaworthiness arising during the voyage. The principle upon which the ruling rested was that clauses exempting the owner from the general obligation of furnishing a seaworthy vessel must be confined within strict limits, and were not to be extended by latitudinarian construction or forced implication so as to comprehend a state of unseaworthiness, whether patent or latent, existing at the commencement of the voyage. The rule thus announced in The Caledonia but expressed the doctrine stated by Lord Selbourne in Steel v. Steamship Co., 3 App. Cas. 72, that the exceptions in a bill of lading ought, if in reason it be possible to do so, to receive 'a construction not nullifying and destroying the implied obligation of the shipowner owner to provide a ship proper for the performance of the duty which he has undertaken.' The fact that the exempting clause in the present case refers to latent defects, while that passed on in The Caledonia embraced defects generally, does not take this case out of the control of the general rule laid down in The Caledonia. The decision in The Caledonia was based, not on the particular character of the defects there referred to, but on the general ground that,u nless there were express words to the contrary, the language of the exempting clause would not be held to apply to defects, whether patent or latent, existing when the voyage was commenced; in other words, that, where the owner desires the exemption to cover a condition of unseaworthiness existing at the commencement of the voyage, he must unequivocally so contract. An illustration of such contract was found in The Laertes, 12 Prob. Div. 187, referred to in the opinion in The Caledonia. In that case the bill of lading stipulated, not merely against latent defects, but against all such defects existing at the time of the shipment.

The condition of unseaworthiness found to exist not being then within the exceptions contained in the bill of lading, it remains only to consider whether under the facts disclosed by the record, aside from the exceptions in the bill of lading, the shipowner was liable for the damages caused by the unseaworthy condition of the ship. The contention is that, as the owner exercised due diligence to make the ship seaworthy, he was consequently not liable, because, under the present state of the law, a shipowner is no longer under the obligation to furnish a seaworthy ship, but only to exercise due diligence to do so. The radical change in the duties and obligations of shipowners which this proposition involves is asserted to arise from the statute of February 13, 1893 (27 Stat. 445), commonly described as the 'Harter Act.' The proposition rests on the assumed meaning of the second and third sections of that act. The second section is as follows:

'Sec. 2. That it shall not be lawful for any vessel transporting merchandise or property from or between the ports of the United States of America and foreign ports, her owner, master, agent or manager, to insert in any bill of lading or shipping document any covenant or agreement whereby the obligations of the owner of owners of said vessel to exercise due diligence [to] properly equip, man, provision, and outfit said vessel, and to make said vessel seaworthy and capable of performing her intended voyage, or whereby the obligations of the master, officers, agents or servants to carefully handle and stow her cargo and to care for and properly deliver same, shall in anywise be lessened, weakened or avoided.'

Now, it is patent that the foregoing provisions deal, not with the general duty of the owner to furnish a seaworthy ship, but solely with his power to exempt himself from so doing by contract, when the particular conditions exacted by the statute obtain. Because the owner may, when he has used due diligence to furnish a seaworthy ship, contract against the obligation of seaworthiness, it does not at all follow that, when he has made no contract to so exempt himself, he, nevertheless, is relieved from furnishing a seaworthy ship, and is subjected only to the duty of using due diligence. To make it unlawful to insert in a contract a provision exempting from seaworthiness where due diligence has not been used cannot by any sound rule of construction be treated as implying that where due diligence has been used, and there is no contract exempting the owner, his obligation to furnish a seaworthy vessel has ceased to exist. The fallacy of the construction relied on consists in assuming that, because the statute has forbidden the shipowner from contracting against the duty to furnish a seaworthy ship unless he has been diligent, thereby the statute has declared that without contract no obligation to furnish a seaworthy ship obtains in the event due diligence has been used. And the same fallacy is involved in the contention that this construction is supported by the third section of the act. The third section is as follows:

'Sec. 3. That if the owner of any vessel transporting merchandise or property to or from any port in the United States of America shall exercise due diligence to make the said vessel in all respects seaworthy and properly manned, equipped and supplied, neither the vessel, her owner or owners, agent or charterer, shall become or be held responsible for damage or loss resulting from faults or errors in navigation or in the management of said vessel, nor shall the vessel, her owner or owners, charterers, agent or master, be held liable for losses arising from dangers of the sea or other navigable waters, acts of God, or public enemies, or the inherent defect, quality or vice of the thing carried, or from insufficiency of package, or seizure under legal process, or for loss resulting from any act or omission of the shipper or owner of the goods, his agent or representative, or from saving or attempting to save life or property at sea, or from any deviation in rendering such service.'

The exemption of the owners or charterers from loss resulting from 'faults or errors in navigation or in the management of the vessel,' and for certain other designated causes, in no way implies that, because the owner is thus exempted when he has been duly diligent, thereby the law has also relieved him from the duty of furnishing a seaworthy vessel. The immunity from risks of a described character, when due diligence has been used, cannot be so extended as to cause the statute to say that the owner when he has been duly diligent is not only exempted in accordance with the tenor of the statute from the limited and designated risks which are named therein, but is also relieved, as respects every claim of every other description, from the duty of furnishing a seaworthy ship. These considerations dispose of all the questions arising on the record.

The decrees rendered both in the circuit court of appeals and in the district court must therefore be reversed, and the case be remanded to the district court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

And it is so ordered.

Mr. Justice BROWN, with whom was Mr. Justice BREWER, dissenting.

Notes