Harbinger v. Carver’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 9 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The liens created or recognized by the law upon the contracts of the ship with seamen, freighters, supply-men, or lenders on bottomry, are designed for the security of the parties concerned, and are deemed necessary for the conveniences of commerce, andin the exigencies of navigation. Such claims, moreover, are mostly incapable of being conveniently secured in any other way than by a lien on the ship, and are therefore, as a rule, equitably entitled to a.superior privilege. Damage liens, on the other hand, whether for injuries to cargo or to vessels, by collision, by stranding, or by other negligent navigation, belong to the perils of the seas, and are, for the most part, otherwise secured by the universal practice of marine insurance. If this security is neglected, it is by the choice or fault of the owner. The same need of security upon the ship, as respects such perils, does not exist; and hence they have everywhere been ranked by the maritime law below contract liens'for wages, bottomry, and supplies. The controversy in the great majority of cases is practically with the insurer, (as it is mainly in this case,) who, having in the first instance paid the loss, in effect, out of the fund created by the premiums advanced by all ships insured, seeks to recover indemnity from the offending ship. The insurer does, indeed, have the benefit of the injured party’s lien. But to subordinate prior lienors for wages, bottomry, and supplies to the collision lien, would be practically,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Loud v. The John G. Stevens

2. ““The act of 1884, limiting the liability of the owners of a vessel on account of the samo, does not, I think, restrict the liability of owners upon their own personal contracts, but only their liability ‘ on account of the vessel; ’ that is, the liability that is imposed on them by law, in consequence of their ownership of the vessel, viz., for the contracts or acts of the ship, or her master, without the owner’s express intervention.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McPhail v. Williams