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

ee Late Decisions in Maritime Law Legal Tips for Shipowners and Officers By Harry Bowne Skillman Attorney at Law Specially Compiled for Marine Review T WAS declared in the case of Chris- topher v. Grueby, 40 F (2d) 8, that a vessel owners’ duty requires them to provide reasonably safe appliances and equipment that would render those ap- pliances reasonably safe for the uses to which they were to be put in the place where installed and the condi- tion there existing; that the owners cannot escape their duty to provide and equip a seaworthy vessel, or duty imposed upon them by statute, by re- quiring that payment for necessary equipment shall be made from pro- ceeds from sale of fish before distribu- tion among the crew; that the duty of the ship owners to see that their ship is seaworthy, etc., is a personal one, responsibility for which they cannot escape by delegating its performance to another; and that seamen injured through the owners’ failure to see that their ship is seaworthy and the equip- ment safe are entitled to compensa- tion. * * * ASTERS should not impose upon seamen any conditions as to payment of wages, said the court in the case of LAKE GAITHER, 40 F. (2d) 31, and especially should they not im- pose as a condition to payment a waiver of any legal right the seamen may have... If the seaman’s claim be unfounded and preposterous the master takes no chance in payment without condition, and to require what would be in effect a waiver of the right to bring such action as the sea- man may be advised to bring, is in controvention not only of the plain provisions of statute, but is a viola- tion of the clear intention of congress in its passage. * * * OTICE of apparent damage re- quired by steamship bill of lad- ing before goods are removed from the vessel is not equivalent to a claim for damage.—A. Russo & Co. v. United States, 40 F. (2d) 39. * * & A TOWING boat is only required to exercise reasonable care, caution, and maritime skill under similar cir- cumstances, and, if such care, cau- tion, and skill are exercised by those charged with her management, no liability attaches to the tug for in- jury to or caused by the barge in tow.—ELLENVILLE, 41 F. (2d) 47. * * & HEN a carrier by water or by land deliberately, and without any semblance of right, converts goods intrusted to its care, it will not be permitted to take advantage of its tort by an insistence upon compliance by 32 the wronged party of such portions of the contract of carriage as would nor- mally be binding upon him, declared the court in the case of Bank of Cali- fornia v. International Mercantile Marine Co., 40 F. (2d) 78. The court further held that where goods shipped from the United States were wrong- fully delivered in Germany, the cause of action arose at the time of the breach, and the damages should be translated into dollars at the rate of exchange then prevailing. In a second ease between the same parties (40 F. (2d) 80), the court said that a car- rier’s misdelivery of freight to a per- son, who is not entitled to receive the same, subjects it to liability to any one who has a right of property in the goods, or who is entitled to the pos- session thereof. And, if the goods have moved under an order bill of lading, the carrier’s liability extends to any one who, for value, and in good faith, purchases such Dill, and irre- spective of whether the bill was ac- quired before or after the wrongful delivery of the goods by the carrier. A carrier has no right under any cir- cumstances to deliver to a stranger. k *£ & i | depen a charter bound the char- terer to load unconditionally within a prescribed time at a certain rate, an intervening stevedores’ strike, making it impossible to load, is a risk which was assumed by the charterer. It is immaterial that the shipowner was also prevented from doing his part of the work within the required time unless he was at fault; the char- terer takes the risk, and the delay cannot be set as a defense to a claim for demurrage. — United States v. Czarnikow-Rionda Co., 40 F. (2d) 214. * * * HE oral charter of a scow being : treated as a demise, the charterer is not an insurer, but is subject to the law of bailments for hire, said the court in the case of Tomkins Cove Stove Co. v. Bleakley Transportation Co., 40 F. (2d) 249: and as a bailee, he is charged with the duty of ordin- ary care and is liable for negligence resulting from a breach of that duty and for nothing more. The burden of proving ifegligence is upon the owner. * * & AQPARENILY the term “average accidents” has not been used ex- tensively in charters, and seems to have found its way into the books but rarely said the court in the case of Barker v. Moore & McCormack Co., 40 F.. (2d) 410. “It certainly has ac- quired no meaning in maritime law other than it has elsewhere except MARINE REVIEw—March, 1931 in so far as the word ‘average’ may be said to color the expression and — confine it to accidents which do not result in total loss. The term ‘free from average’ in marine insurance is well known to mean that the policy covers total loss only. If this word is given the same significance here, it is akin to partial, and the expression will mean an accident not resulting in the entire loss of the ship and cargo. * * Whatever else may be thought, it surely is true that an acci- dent of some kind is necessary to call into play the off hire clause on ac- count of ‘average accidents.’ ” * * * HARTERS of barges without mo- tive power, accompanied by bargee paid by the owner, are demises. Legal- ly such vessels are regarded as in the exclusive possession of the charterer. In such relation the charterer is only liable for negligence.—Ira S. Bushey & Sons v. W. E. Hedger & Co., 40 F. (2d) 417. * ok * HE peril which forms a good ex- -§ ception in a bill of lading means something so catastrophic as to tri- umph over those safeguards by which skillful and vigilant seamen usually bring ship and cargo to port in safety. Damage to a cargo caused by a wave of such damaging proportions that not only was one ventilator coaming broken, but another ventilator was pushed up and off its coaming, arose from a “peril of the sea.”—Duche c. Thomas and John Brocklebank, 40 F. (2d) 418. * k * HILE a ferry was right in leav- ing her slip, in spite of a fog, according to the case of YOUNGSTOWN, 40 F. (2d) 420, she was of course bound to use caution, once under way, and the fog rules applied as much to her as to any other vessel. * * * HE test of seaworthiness is wheth- er the vessel is reasonably fit to carry the cargo which she has under- taken to transport. In determining whether or not the exemptions of the Harter act are in force, the point 0 time at which the test of seaworthl- ness is to be applied is the commence ment of the voyage. Within this rule, the fact that a vessel which had taken on all her cargo and was ready, so far as stowage of the cargo and edulp- ment or for the voyage were con cerned, to sail, thereafter dropped anchor in another port to discharse, stevedores did not have the effect of making a new stage of the voyage be- gin at that point.—Orrrant, 40 F. (24) )