The Baltimore

by Nathan Clifford

United States Supreme Court

75 U.S. 377

The Baltimore

THE schooner Woolston, with a cargo of coal, and the steamer Baltimore, collided in the Potomac, on the 16th of December, 1863, and the schooner and her cargo sank. The owners of the schooner accordingly libelled the steamer in the Admiralty Court of the District. The libel averred that the collision had been caused wholly by the steamer's fault, and that the schooner had sunk in such deep water as to make both her and her cargo a total loss, since the cost of raising either, or both, would be greater than its or their value.

These allegations, both as to the fault and the total loss, the answer explicitly denied. The testimony as to the question of fault, need not be stated, since it appeared that a part of it was given below, was not in the record sent to this court, and the court therefore did not pass at all upon the merits. On the other matter, the matter of total loss, it rather showed that the water in which the schooner went down, was not so deep but that her masts were visible eighteen feet above the water, and that her position, as she lay, was clearly discernible.

No proof was given of the fact of a total loss, further than that the vessel sunk.

The court, regarding the steamer as in fault, entered a decree for the libellants, and, upon the report of a commissioner, decreed, as damages, notwithstanding exceptions by the respondents, the full value of the schooner and cargo, at the time of the collision, and awarded to the libellant's counsel $500 as a fee. This decree having been affirmed by the Supreme Court in general term, the case was now here on appeal.

Mr. Ashton, for the appellant:

I. The most palpable error in law of the court below, and one considerable, as respects amounts, relates to the assessment of damages.

The true measure of the damages in this case, was the expense of raising and repairing the vessel, so as to make her equal to the value before the collision, and the expense of raising the cargo, and the amount of any deterioration which it might have undergone in consequence of the sinking.

Mr. Justice Grier, in a collision case in the third circuit, ^[1] forcibly observes:

Notes

1. The Harriet Rogers, A. D. 1867, 3 Wallace, Jr.