The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Late Decisions in Maritime Law Legal Tips for Shipowners and Officers By Harry Bowne Skillman Attorney at Law Specially Compiled for Marine Review VIDENCE in the case of CodAsT- WISE, 68 F. (2d) 720, showed that a steamship proceeded down the Eliza- beth river for ten minutes after see- ing another vessel, which she knew would have to back before proceed- ing down stream ahead of her, when over a mile away, and that she put her engines full astern only a minute before colliding with the other vessel. The court held that the steamship was at fault, applying the principle that when the fault of one vessel is gross and the fault of the other doubtful, the former should bear the whole loss. % % * T IS not negligent to place a barge j in a slip constantly frequented by many. other barges without inquiring whether its waters contain hidden dan- gers. The tug may be bound to as- certain whether there is enough water in the slip for barges of the draft she is mooring, and is, of course, chargeable with such information as harbor charts disclose, but she has a right to assume that a slip crowded with barges does not have such de- fects as broken piles in one berth when the adjacent berths are occupied by barges that lay in them safely. A tug may shift a barge to another con- venient berth whenever she obstructs the course of navigation, but this right must be exercised with care and cau- tion and only when reasonably neces- sary and for the purpose of tempo- rary removal.—GILDERSLEEVE No. 339, 68 F. (2d) 845. e * * HIP mortgage act will not be con- S strued to extend to mortgages se- curing loans of money intended and actually used for nonmaritime pur- poses, in the absence of express pro- vision. It does not conflict with rights of state tribunals to enforce con- tracts governed by state laws and not strictly maritime and does not confer jurisdiction on federal courts to fore- close a ship mortgage, not made a maritime lien for navigation or ship- ping purposes. The only remedy for enforcement of a mortgage on a ship for nonmaritime purposes is a sale of the ship on the order of a common law court.—THomMAS Barium, 68 F. (2d) 946. wow TEAMSHIP being undocked by tugs was not negligent, it was held in the case of EnizaApeTH M. Baker, 69 F. 22 (2d) 54, in putting her engines full astern, aS was customary, where the tug’s hawser broke and the steamship’s stern struck a moored barge. The barge being struck only one minute after the hawser broke, the steamship was not negligent in putting her helm hard-a-starboard with engines reversed to counteract the tide; nor was the steamship blameworthy in starting out with boats at the end of the pier where boats would not have interfered if the hawser had not broken. The steam- ship was not obliged to anticipate the breaking of the hawser. N THE case of Kookapurra, 69 F. (2d) 71, it appeared that the dam- age to the cargo involved, when a barge struck the falsework of a rail- road pier and sank, was caused by the fault of two towing tugs belonging to the same owner and of the railroad. The court held that the damages were assessable one-third against each tug and one-third against the railroad, rather than half against the owner of the two tugs and half against the rail- road. RINTED conditions on the back of Pp. standard form attached to a steamship ticket, relating to notice of claim for injuries and time for bringing suit, not referred to in the ticket proper or on the face of the standard form, was merely a notice, said the court in the case of Baer v. North German Lloyd, 79 F. (2d) 88, and was not available to defeat a per- sonal injury action by a passenger unless distinctly brought to the pas- senger’s knowledge. * * ECKHAND dunnage to be _ sea- worthy must be laid so that the superimposed load wil! bear as evenly as practicable upon all the dunnage. This applies to thwartship as well as fore and aft dunnage, it was said in the case of InprEN, 5 Fed. Supp. 349. And in determining whether seaworth- iness of a vessel was impaired by over- loading, the plimsoll mark placed on the vessel after mathematical deter- mination of a safe loading point should be regarded as very strong evidence of the vessel’s capacity. The efficacy of the plimsoll mark should not be destroyed except upon clear and con- vincing proof that it is erroneously placed or that specific facts warrant MARINE REVIEW—June, 1934 a finding that loading the vessel so as to submerge the plimsoll mark did not render the vessel unseaworthy. * & O RECOVERY can be had for the death of a seaman from typhoid fever contracted on ship, in the ab- sence of a showing of some negligence as the result of which the fever was contracted—Goodrich v. United States, 5 Fed. Supp. 364. N THE case of American Scantic i Line v. United States, 5 Fed. Supp. 410, the court decided that the burden of proving that a wreck without fault of the shipowner as respected the gov- ernment’s liability for the care of des- titute seamen rested upon the govern- ment; that the owners of a wrecked vessel transporting members of the crew to the United States were en- titled to recover transportation charges from the government regardless of the ownership of the wrecked vessel; and that owners’ voluntarily spending money for subsistence and necessaries for the crew were not entitled to re- cover the amount expended from the United States. % * * OTICE by the war department re- quiring floating plants to display wooden arrows indicating course to be following in passing plants was nugatory as applied to a river dredge, it was declared in the case of FLYING By, 4 Fed. Supp., 884, the power to es- tablish rules for day signals on such dredges being in the commerce depart- ment. * * * ACT that vessel, contemplating tak- F ine on cargo at several ports and unseaworthy when leaving last port,. was allegedly seaworthy at prior ports. did not exempt the owner from lia- bility for loss of cargo loaded at prior ports, though stranding of the vessel occurred after leaving the last port,. the court held in the case of Horarsan Maru, 5 Fed. Supp. 311. It was de- cided, further, that where the owner of a vessel is a corporation, privity or knowledge of unseaworthiness, to deprive the owner of limitation of liability for cargo loss, must be privity or knowedge of the managing officer or agent, the test being the extent of the person’s authority, not whether he is technically an officer.