THE SAPPHO.

859

Crabbe,208. A vessel can leave a port on Sunday, although the Jaw of the port may forbid travel on that day. GRIER, J., in Philadelphia, W. & B. R. Co. v. Philadelphia, etc., To1b-Boat Co., 23 How. 209. This court is always open for the redress of wrongs. Seamen specially are under its protection. In the present case the vessel has unexpectedly changed her day for sailing, and has anticipated it by proposing to sail to-day. The libelant did not learn that his wages would not be paid in time to begin his case before to-day. In this view of the case, and in the absence of authority to the contrary, let the warrant of arrest issue.

THE SAPPHO. 1 BROOKLYN WATER FRONT WAREHOUSE & DRy-DoCK Co. ". THE SAPPHO. KNUDSEN fJ. BROOKLYN WATER FRONT WAREHOUSE & DRy-DoCK Co.
(1X8trWt Oourt, E. D. New York. December 28,1890.)
NEGLIGENOE-DRy-DOCKS-IMPROPER DOCKING.

A dry-dock company applied an hydraulic jack under the keel of a vessel in Its dry-dock, whereby the keel was split and the vessel Injured. It appearing that the keel was sound and stron//:, and that the cause of the accident VIall the failure of the dry-dock company to take the ordinary precaution of placing a plank between the keel and the head of the jack, heZd, that the dry-dock company was liable for the damage.

In Admiralty. Suit to recover for. services in dry-docking vessel. Cross-suit for damages received by vessel while in dry-dock. ' Peter S. GUrter, for the Brooklyn Water Front Warehouse & Dry-Dock Company. North, Ward &; Wag8taff, for the Sappho.

dock, shifting the blocks, etc. The cross-libel is filed by the owner of the bark to recover for injuries alleged to have been done to the vessel while on the dock by the negligence and want of skill on the part of the dry-dock company· The dry-dock was made in sections ofabout 25 feet in length into which the water was allowed to flow to depress them, and when depressed the vessel was floated over them and raised by them by pumping the water out of the sections. Upon these sections blocks were placed at intervals upon which the keel of the vessel rested. When a vessel is to be coppered-as this bark was-while on the dock, the portion of the bottom where the vessel rests upon a block is covered with copper either by placing a sheet of copper on top of the block before the vessel is raised, or by shifting the block under the vessel after she is raised. The block is shifted by placing an hydraulic jack under the keel of the vessel and resting on the edge of one of the sections of the dock, so that by
1

to recover the sum of $415.50 for hauling the bark out on the libelant's

BENEDICT, J.

These are cross-libels.

The action against the bark is

Reported by Edward G. Benedict,Esq., of the New York bar.

360

FEDERAL REPORTER,

vol. 44.

pumping the jack the edge of that section is forced down into the water, the whole section being depressed enough to remove the pressure on the block, and then the block can be shifted. In this case when it came titne to shift the block at the bow ·of the bark the hydraulic jack was placed under the keel a few inches from its end. The keel was pitch pine 14 or 15 inches in width. The head of the cap of the hydraulic jack was about 6 inches in diameter. When the power was applied by the jack to depress the section the keel split, the bolts through the dovetail plates pulled out, and the vessel was injured to an extent that made it necessary to remove 16 feet of the keel and replace it with new, involving a detention of some three days longer upon the dock, an.d other damages. On the part of the bark the contention is that the keel split because the dock owner attempted to apply the power of the hydraulic pump d,ire.dly to the keel at a point close to the end of the timber, and without placing a plank between the jack and the keel to distribute the pressure. On the part ,of the dry-dock company it is contended that the damage resulted from a defect in the keel, a bad heart shake in the timber, which made the keel unsound. Tile weight of the evidence is that the keel was of pitch pine; tha;t pitch pine is a wood commonly used for this purpose, and that while there was a heart shake, as is usuapy the case in this kind of timber, the keel was sound and strong, able to endure the pressure required to shift the block if f1istributed by means of a plank between the jack and the keel. Next, it is contended on the part of the dry-dock that it was no negligence on the part of the dock to omit to use a plank to distribute the pressure. But the evidence shows that it is an ordinary precaution adopted under similar circumstances to place between the cap of the jack and the keel a bit of plank by which the pressure is distributed. In this case such a precaution was the more necessary because in ships constructed like the libelant's the stem runs down flush with the bottom of the keel, and the end of the keel abuts up against the aft side of the stem, where it was held in position by dead 'Yqod inside; dovetailed plates of heavy metal being bolted on the outside, by which the keel is fastened to the stem. Common prudence required the use of a plank in such a case. . Next., it is contended in behalf of the dock that the'plank was omitted in this case because the block was not high enough to permit a plank to be inserted between the jack and the keel. But the proof is that the blocks were 20 inches high and the jack only 18. This would have enabled a plank to have been used, and furthermore, if the blocks were too lowit was the fault of the dock owner,. who knew that the block had to be shifted after the vessel was raised, and whose duty it was to provide proper blocks. " The libelant in the se()ond case must have a decree for the amount of the damages sustained by the splitting of the keel, and a reference to ascertain the amount. The libelant in the first case, on payment of the damages, will be entitled to a decree for the amount of his bill.

THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA.

361

THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA.

(District Court, S. D. New York.

December 20,1890.}

CoLLISION-PRACTICE-DECREE. Where several libelants, having distinct damage interests, recover in a cause of collision, the decree may be in form for recovery by all of the aggregate sum, and directing a distribution to each of the sums respectively adjudicated to them.

In Admiralty.

Libel for damages by collision. George A. Black,for libelant. Robert B. Benedict, for claimant.

BROWN, J. In this cause of collision the damages were divided, Fed. Rep. 427 ,) and, a number of seamen and others having been wards joined as co-libelants to recover damages for their individual losses, the libelants have presented for settlement a decree which is, in effect, a several decree in favor of each individual interest. The claimants object thereto, and ask that the decree be a single decree, upon which a single execution would issue, with directions for distribution by the clerk to the several libelants of the amounts awarded to them., respectively. The difference in the form of the decree has respect to iti! supposed bearing upon the right to appeal, and upon a stay of proceedings as respects the various individual interests. It is not necessary to determine whether any difference might result in that respect; T;heprecise question here raised seems to have been presented to Judge WoonRUFF, as circuit judge of this circuit, and to have been determined by him in favor of the. claimants, in the case of Avery v. The Wanata,' and, as the question was deliberately considered by him, his decision should be followed here. I SeeThe Connernara, 103 U. S. 754; Ex parte Baltimore, etc., R. Co., 106 U. S. 5, 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 35; The Propeller Bu/'1 Per WOODRUFF, C. J. The claimants ask that the decree herein may award a gross sum to the libelants, and execution therefor; the same to be distributed by the clerk

caused by the collision, for which the schooner is condemned. The libelants, on th9 other hand, ask that the decree be.in substance severed decrees; that is to say, that it condemn the schooner for each several amount of loss, and award execution to each libelant to collect the amount of his separate loss. The materiality of these conflicting claims is supposed to arise from the apprehension of an appeal by the libelants to the supreme court, and a suggestion that, if the decree were in the form last mentioned. no appeal would lie from those parts of the decree which awarded to either or any of the libelants a' sum less than $2,000; and that the supreme court would not have jurisdio. tion to reverse any part except that which awards morc than $2,COO to one of the libelants,' Whether the form proposed by the claimants of decreeing the payment of a gross stim, to be distributed among the libelants, will affect the question of the jurisdiction of the supreme court to reverse the whole decree if found erroneous, is not for this court to del<lde. If the apparent injustice of compelling the claimants to pay a part of the loss when the decision of the supreme court, as the case may be, declares that the claimants or their schooner have been wrongfully condemned, and ought not to be required to pay anything, can be avoided without Violating any importaut rnl(l of practice or form, then 'surely such avoidance would be matter for satisfaction rather than regret. Such apparent injustice was strongly illustrated in the case of Ricll?t. Lambert, 12 Bow. 847, and perhaps still more strikingly in the cases of The Mary Eveline and Petty v. Merrill, 3 Ben. 438, 16 Wall. 338, 848. 1 therefore settle the decree in the form which the claimants have requested.

to the several libelants, according to the amounts of their several loss or damage