THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA.
361
(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
862
J'lllDERAL
vol. 44.
The form of the decree the, gross. amount awarded, with furwill be in favor of ther directions that the said sum be distributed to the different named libelants in tbeamountshtlretofore adjudicated to each.
lingtor., 137 U. S. - , 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 138.
THE HOLLAND.'
BALTIMORE ,,' i" . '
& O. R. R. Co. '
al.
'V.
THE HOLLAND.
(D£BWLct CO'Urt, E. D. New
York. December 19,1890.)
',' "As·thesteam.lship Holland was lying at her pier, a sudden firebrbke out Gin the aldeo,f the pier opposite to where the steamer lay. The ot1lcer in oharge of the requested a tug lying near to towthe steam-ship away, and shortly aft erwardB anotner was slgll81ed by ihe steam-ship and took another line, but, get;, ' ting into such a 8S a,1;)le to brillg but little power to, bear, a third tUIl , came to her assistance. Under power of thes.e three tugs, and with two additional "tugakeepin/t her off from the pier, the steam4ship was moved oUt of danger. The fife department, with: twelve engines two fire came tl? the·fire soon after it started. The steamer could have been warped across the shp by her donkey engines, whloh had steam up. The service of the tugs lasted 'some two hours. ,WithberQ&rgothe steamer. was, wort!). $600,000. Belg, that the.llervicewas a salvage service, in which the value of the property saved was great, but the peril mllillll'ate. andU;500 was awarded to the tugs in proportiOn to their relative merits.
ON PIER-TOWING ENDANGERED VESSEL-AWARD.,
l'
'In AdmiraltY'. 'Consolidatedsuit to recover salvage. :Hi/ln.M Zabriskie, for the Howard Carroll. , Wirtgj' 8houdy & Putna:rn,for the John Fuller. ' , ''Pra'Cy, MacFarland,''Boardman & Platt, for the A. C. Rose. 'Mattirnft Smith, for the Henry T. Sisson. ,Peter S: Carter,for the George L. Hammond. John (Jhetwood,' for the'Holland.
. ]3EIq:DI<:;r, J. This is t\',consolidated action in wqich the owners and crews, of five steam-tugs seek to recover salvage for services rendered the steam.:ship Holland on the 7th day of December, 1889. The Holland was a, large steamer belonging to the National Steam-Ship Company which had just arrived from sea and been moored on the north side of her pier in the North river. Soe had no steam on. With her cargo she was concluded to be worth $600,000. About dinner time 'on of the; 7th day of December, 1889, fire broke out in the, upper deck of pier-pouse on the pf the pier opposite to that where the steamer The fire was sudden and proved disastrous, five lives being lost, tl1e'pier-shed' for part destroyed. As soon as the fire broke out the officer in charge of the Holland determined to move her from accordinglyrequestedthetug HowlirdCarroll, then lying at t,he end of the Ilame pier, to take ,Il line from the steamer in order to i.
G.' Benedict, Esq.; of tlleNew York bar.