THE E. B. WARD.
, 255
,removal to the dook 8uggested by the charterers must also he borne by the ship, as it must have been borne by her ha,d she gone directly to some other dook of her own seleotion. A proper discharging berth at Little Twelfth street was obtained in the forenoon of the 16th; the disoharge was finished between half 24th. Some iron was discharged every durpast 3 and 4 of 'iug this period, ,excepting one Sunday intervening. Evidenoe was given on the part of. the libelllillt to show that the vessel could' have in ,five rate, of 6,0 Other been to the eff,eottbat this could only)e done by unusual and extraordinary efforts, and that from 35 to 45ton& per day was all that could be discharged from the vessel by harerew with ordinary diligimce,' The' chatter-party itseU, mentiOlls 35 tops as the least rate per day. The captain, te.stified.to delay in dischluging froin the aooumulation of iron upon the wharf; and on the 21st' the ship's agents wrote to the respondents oomplaining oft41s, acoumulation and of the abseno'e of the United States weigher, apa "they ,had taken the trouble to go to the weigher's office and begged them to send some one there to weigh the i r o n . " · · , On the whole I am satisfied that there was some Ciela.y in reoeiving the 246 tons of ii-on after the vessel was 'properly discharging in the ample time for forenoon of the 16th j that five 'and a half a.ays receiving the iron.a.t the ra.te of about 45 tons per day, wh.ichsbould have been therefore; on the 22d·. The respondents should be charged, therefore,wHhtwo days demurrage, amounting, aecording to the terms of the charter-party, to $76.20, with interest from July 24, 1880, making in all $88.89, with costs. ' See Williams v. Theobald, 15 FED. REP. 465.
Tm: E. B. L DEATH CAUSED
WARD,
Jr.*
(CweuU Court, E. D. LOUisiana. March. 1883.)
BY ON HIGH SEAS;-SUTUTE OF J.JOUIBIANA. ' Thcrstatute of Louisiana, which causes .a survival to next of kin of the right of action for damages for dc.ath wrongfullycausM, can have no application to a case where the deatfl was caused .outflide the state of Louisiana and on the by Joseph P. Hornor, Esq · <lfthe'New Orlea1l8 bar.
256
FEDERAL REPORTER.
high seas, and where the deceased was a subject of and domiciled in the kingdom of Sweden. Wltiiford v. Panama R. Co. 23 N. Y. 465, and Mahler v. l'ran8p. 00. 35 N. Y. 352, followed. 2. SAME-REASON OF RULE.
The reason which led the courts of common law to refuse Clamages to memhers of a family for the death of the family head, or of a family support, was because the injury which resulted from the death of a member of the state was regarded as the public injury, i. e., the injury to the state itself ; that the justice to be"satisfied was the public justice. Therefore, only such prosecutions and actions for the death of an individual can be entertained, with such limitations as are permitted and established by that power which ordains and regulates the infliction of public justice in the locality where the death was caused. 3. JURIBDICTI0N OF UNITED STATES COURTS.
The power of the courts ·of the United States to give redress to an individual for the death of another, if the wrong was committed and the death caused upon the land or the navigable waters within the body of a county of a state, would be governed by the laws of that state j if the wrong was committed and the death caused upon the high seas and within the territory of no nation, must be determined by the statutes enacted by congress, or the treaties made by the president and the senate, which by their provisions should operate either upon courts or vessels, 4. SAME-No RELIEF IN A.BsENCE OF STATUTE OR TREATY.
Until the law-.maklng or treaty-making power has authorized this right of action, and affixed its conditions and limitations, courts cannot decree damages to one person for the death of another upon the high seas.
In Admiralty., On exception to libeL John D. Rouse and William Grant, .for libelants. William S. Benedict and Andrew J. Murphy, for claimants·. BILLINGS, J. This is a suit brought by the widow of Peter Peterson, deceased, the father and mother o(Gustaf Leander Joussen, deceased, and the mother and slster of Erick Anderson Holm, deceased, claiming damages against the steam-ship E. B. Ward, Jr., which they have respectively suffered by the death of a husband, a son, and a son and brother, tortiously produced by a collision between the bark Hemick with the E. B. Ward, Jr., through the fault of the latter. The collision and deaths took place upon the high seas and within the territory of no nation. One of the colliding vessels, the Henrick, was a Swedish vessel, and the other, the 'E. B. Ward, Jr., was a vessel of the United States, the horne port of which is the port of New Orleans. The damages are laid doubly: (1) As the damages suffered by and surviving from the deceased person; and (2) the damages su:(iered by and accruing directly to the libelants, respectively, by the death of their respective relatives. There is no alleg'Mion of loss of service after the tortious act and before death. There is also a claim
257
for the loss of personal effects belonging to each of the deceased relatives. 1. So far as relates to the damages suffered by the intestates, which are claimed to have survived to the libelants respectively. The statute of Louisiana stands alone, so far as I have been able to consult the modern statutes, in continuing, in case of a wrongfully-caused death to the next of kin, /a right of action for damages caused to a deceased person. The statutes of all the other countries and states, so far as they have created or allowed aotions arising out of the death of other persons, have been for loss or injury which the living members of the family suffered themselves by the death of the family head or family member.· The statute of Louisiana (Civil Code, art. 2314) merely qualifies, or rather, 80 far as concerns husband, wife, children, and parents, supplants, the civil and common-law maxim, actiones per80nales moriuntur cum persona. I do not think this change in the quality of an action for damages was designed to or could affect the case of persons who as libelants were 8ubjects of the kingdom of and there domiciled, having no relation to the state of Louisiana, and when the cause of action arose wholly outside of that state. This question would be precisely the same and must have the same answer in the courts of common law and the courts of admira,lty. The operation of the statute was intended to be confined to establishing a rule of survivorship for the government of the community who constitute the state of Louisiana, and could not include a cause which did not concern its inhabitants and did not originate within its territory; and, least of all, could it give a lien upon or authorize an action against a vessel. Whitford v. Panama R. Co. 23 N. Y. 465; Mahler v. Tmnsp. Co. 35 N. Y. 352. 2. The claim for damages suffered directly by the libelants brings up the whole question whether, in case of the death of a person tortiously caused upon the high seas, in the conrts of admiralty of the United States an action may be maintained by next of kin for damages which that death wrought to them. I cannot find that the 8upreme court of the United States has committed itself at all upon this question. In the Prohibition Case, Ex parte Gordon, 104 U. S. 515, they affirm the jurisdiction,-the power of the admiralty courts to decide this question,-but they guardedly abstain from saying as to whether there could be a recovery. But the courts of common law always had the jurisdiction, and the right to recover was, neverthe· less, always denied. Nor has this qnestion been adjudicated in any v.16,no.2-17
258
of the district or circuit courts. In The Sea Gull, decided by Chief Justice CHASE, page 145 of his Reports, and in The City of Houston, decided by myself, and affirmed by Judge (now Justice) WOODS, the death happened and the damage arose within the body of the county, upon waters where: the statute law of a state within which those waters were situated gave the right of action. The cause of action therefore, existed by force of· the territorial statute, and since it constituted a tort, and was upon nlllvigable waters and occurred in a case ofco1lision, the court of, admiralty could enforce it in a proceeding in rem. . It is needless to multiply authorities .when all are concurrent. But it may be stated that both in the common law and in the admiralty, in the courts of England and the United States, except in cases affected by statutes, it has been uniformly held that death of a person could not constitute a cause for a civil action. No stronger case .could be put than that of 1"!'8. Co. v. Brame, 9;> U. 8. 759. That case arose in Louisiana. The plaintiffs in error had insured McElroy's life. Brame tortiously killed him, whereby the plaintiffs were compelled to pay, and did pay, the amount insured upon his life, and under the law of Louisiana, which provides that (Civil Code, art. 2315) "every act whatever of man that causes damage to another, obliges him by whose fault it happens to repair it," brought an action for damages, and yet the court rejected the plaintiff's demand to be indemnified. The ground upon which the decislbn is put is that the damages of the insurance company were too remote to be allowed. If the supreme court, in construing such a statute; adopt, not the conclusion of the common law, but the reason upon which that conclusion is based, it must follow that the force of the reason would be the same, and the conclusion the same, in a case coming before it from courts of admiralty. It is equally true that among the Saxons and the tribes of Germany and at Rome, such an action was, to a certain extent, permitted. Ruth. Inst. Nat. Law, book 1, c. 17, § 9; Grotiu8, Lit. 2, c.17; and Puff. Law of Nat. book 3, c. 1, § 7. Puffendorf, perhaps, lays down the limits within which the early law permitted an individual action or suit more clearly than any other writer. He says: "The unjust slayer was oblig-ed to defray the charge of physicians and chirurgeons, and to give to those persons whom the deceased was, by a full and perfect duty, boilnd to maintain, as wife, children, and parents, so much as the hope of their maintenance shall be valued at."
The doctrine of England and United States, in refusing all pri. vate redress, seems to have been"e'stablished at the early inception of constitutional government in that kingdom. So early aathe fourth of James 1., which was in 1607, we find it held by J. ..If a man beat the servant 01 J.8., so that he dies of that battery, the master shall not have an action against the other for the battery and loss of service, because the servant dying of the extremity of the battery it is now become an offense to the crowll, and drowns the particular offense and private wrong offered to the master befor-e, and his 3Otion is thereby lost." Hi,qgins v. Butcher, Yelv. 90.
In Baker v. Bolton, 1 Camp. 493, which was an action by a husband for damages for the death of a wife,Lord ELtENBOROUGH stated the law to be that in a civil court the death of a human being cannot be complained of as an injury. Baron COMYNS,in his Digest, under the head of "Action on the Cas13," after enumerating cases where the action will lie, gives the cases of "a man killing the servant of another," and "the battery ofa wife, of which she died," as instances where the action will not lie under the subdivision. "For an act of another nature," which I understa.nd to mean for an act for which redress is public and not private. 'If we can arrive at the reason of this doctrine-this refusal of the law to entertain this sort of action -we shall derive much aid in our inquiry. It has been suggested by some writers that the reason of the doctrine was that a human life transcended all moneyed value. But Puffendorf makes a distinction which shows that that could' not have been the on'ly reason, for he says the reparation is not for the value of a life, but merely for the value of the interest which those dependent upon the deceased had in the support derived from them. Other writers urge that it sprung entirely from the system of feudal law, whereby, since in case of felony the goods and estate of the felon became forfeited to the crown, there would be nothing remaining ou t of which to satisfy any private demand. But, I think, 'Yhile the ground for the doctrine was in part both these, the principal ground was that the life of a subject was, so far as could it be capable of proprietorship, the property of the government; that the justice which was to be satisfied was, therefore, public justice; that the deceased person and his family were viewed by the law only as members of the state; that the public, through the government, inflicted the punishment and received the amercement, and, so far as necessity existed, provided for the family, aud therefore private redress or satisfaction was excluded. This subordination of reparation for the individual to the justice 01
260
the country is given as the ground of postponing, even in the case ot lower offenses than murders which amount to felonies, all private actions till after the criminal trials. See opinions seratim of Liml ELLENBOROUGH and GROSE, J., (Crosby v. Leng, 12 East,112.) Now, if we examine the statutes of Great Britain and the various states of the Union, we find that they in no instance authorize the action upon the doctrine of property in human life. They limit the amount of damages as in case of a fine. They permit such an action to be brought only in favor of those who would naturally be dependentnpon the person slain, and, after his death, upon the state; and the effect of the action is, pro tanto, to relieve the state of a public charge. 'fhe suit for damages becomes a private action, and the right of action when once attached by the local law to the act of killing, may be enforeed in the courts of any country to the same extent as any other personal action. Dennick v. Railroad Co. 103 U. S. 11; but the statutes are enacted in furtherance. of public justice. The purpose of the statute is by civil remedy still further to atone for a wrong to the state. Neither Lord Campbell's act, (9 and 10 Viet. c. 93,) nor the remedial statutes of any of the states of the United States, so far as I have been able to examine them, gives the creditors of the person killed any right to recover damages; and, under the Massachusetts ,:;tatutes, (St. 1840, c. 80,) the procedure is to be by indictment, 9.ndthe reparation by fine not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, lVhich is to be given by the state to the widow, and if there is no widow, to the heirs. My conclusion, therefore, is that the recent statutes, their territorial force, tend rather to uphold and supplement the principle upon which private actions were prohibited, leaving the matter of what prosecutions and actions shall follow the killing of a member of the state, with what limits and conditions, to be determined by that department of the government which regulates the infliction of public justice. According to this view the courts of admiralty are controlled by the statutes of the country npon the subject,-equally with the common-law courts,-and, when the statute has given no remedy, are powerless equally with the other courts to give reparation. There are two acts of parliament which give the English admiralty courts complete power to award damages in such a case as this: Lord Campbell's act, which gives a right to recover damages, and Viet. c. 10, which extends the "admiralty court's act," (1861,) that right to ships, by declaring that "courts of admiralty shall have
2G1
jurisdiction over any claim for damages done by any ship." Independently of these statutes, the English courts of admiralty could not give these damages. So far as they have recently given them they have simply recognized and enforced what parlia,ment has enacted. It would be a serious question to what extent legislatures of the states of the the Union could make any law which would affect torts perpetrated by vessels upon the high seas, since this whole subject is but an incident of commerce, the regulation of which is by the constitution vested in the congress. Article 1, § 8. But the power of the congress of the United States over the whole subject is absolute. It can make a law which shall effect its shipping, leaving to treaty or comity the application of the laws of foreign nations to their shipping; :>r they may make laws which shall operate upon its admiralty or .other courts and include all vessels. The congress has already established such a rule for the courts of the United States with reference to one class of acts. It haa alread:' provided that there shall be a right of action to recover damages for any deprivation of rights secured by the constitution, and in case of death caused by such wrongful act, legal representatives may recover not exceeding $5,000 for benefit of widow, and if no widow, for benefit of 'next of kindred. Rev. St. art. 1981, p. 344. If such a deprivation were caused to the citizens of the United States upon the high seas, undoubtedly the courts of admiralty of the United States could award the damages. The congress has but to extend this rule for our courts to all collisions or torts resulting in death, committed on the high seas, which may affect the. ships or be brought before the courts of the United States. Until that is done-until the law-making :,)r treaty-making power has created this right and affixed its limitationseourts cannot decree damages in actions by "ne person for the death. of another upon the high seas. Except so far as relates to the personal effects, the exception to the libel is maintained. In the admiralty of the United States the death of a human being upon the high seas, or waters navigable from the sea, caused by negligence, may be complained of as an injury, and the wrong redressed, under the general maritime law. The Harrisburg,15 FED. REP. 610. See, also, The Favorite, 12 FED. REP. 216, note, citing cases, and The (Jarland,post, 28S.-'-[ED.
262
fEDERAL
BEPOBTER.
THE INDIA, her Engines) etc. (Circuit Court, S. D. New York. I
March 15, lSS3.)
Where supplies are furnished at a foreign port, they are presumed to have been furnished on the credit of the vessel. 2. BAME-L'HARTERER AS OWNER FOR VOYAGE.
A charterer to whom is given the- entire possession, control, and management, becomes the owner pro MO fJiu, although by the terms of the charterparty the general owner app01nts the master and the crew. 3. BAME-AUTHORITY TO BIND VESSEL.
When the general owners allow the charterers to have the control, manageof the vessel, and thus to become the owners for the ment, and voyage, he must be deemed to consent that the vessel should be answerable for necessary repairs and supplies furnished at a foreign port for the prosecution and completion of the voyage.
In Admiralty. UUo et Davison, for claimants and appellants. Beebe, Wilcox & Hobbs, for libelants and appellees.
WALLACE, J. The libelants supplied the steam-ship with coal at the port of Philadelphia, upon the order of S. Morris Waln & Co., who were the agents at that place of Huser, Watson & Co., of New York city. The steamer was a foreign vessel, owned in Hamburg. but had been chartered by the owner to Huser, Watson & Co. for service between the United States and Brazil. The steamer required the coal for an intended voyage for the charterers. She was in tht possession and under the control of the charterers, and the master was, by the terms of the charter-party, under the orders and directions of tile charterers as regarded employment and agency. The libelants did not rely exclusively upon the credit of S. Morris WaIn & Co., or of the charterers, in furnishing the supplies, but relied in part upon the credit of the vessel. Unless the charterers were the owners of the vessel for the voyage, and, in that capacity, were competent to bind the vessel to a lien in favor of the libelants, the libel cannot be maintained. S. Morris WaIn & Co. were not, in fact, the agents of the general owner; and, irrespective of testimony introduced for the first time upon this appeal, indicating that the libelant had reason to know that WaIn & Co. were acting for the charterers, there was enough in the circumstances to require the libelants to ascertain whether WaIn & Co. were authorized to represent the general owner before dealing with them upon such an assumption.