Thomas v. Gray
Thomas v. Gray
Opinion of the Court
Two objections of a preliminary character are taken on the part of the respondent — one as to the effect of the supplemental libel and the admissibility of proofs under the issue, as it is formed, and the other to the jurisdiction of the court with respect to the assault and wounding. The original libel was filed on the 5th of June On the 25th, an amendment was filed, introducing the allegations, that the libellant was compelled, by the cruel treatment of the master, to leave the vessel, and is, therefore, entitled to wages for the full period of six months. The original libel claimed that $32 and upwards were due for wages, over aud above all just allowances. The answer was filed after the filing of the supplemental libel; and it is alleged by the respondent, that the answer was put in without notice that a supplemental libel had been filed. Proceedings in admiralty are deemed to be apud acta, in open court, and by authority of the court. Clerke, Praxis, Adm. tit. 19; Clerke’s Ecel. Pr. tit. 31. The in-tendment of law is, that both parties thus have notice, in facie curia;, of ail processes in the cause, by the act of taking a step in it. When the warrant of arrest was returned
It is further insisted, that by the practice and the standing rules of the court, the libel-lant is precluded from offering proofs against the allegations of the answer, because his replication was not put in until ten days after the answer was filed. By a rule adopted in October, 1833, a libellant is held to admit the matters set up in the answer, if he does not, within four days after the answer is put in, file a replication thereto. See The Mary Jane [Case No. 9,213], Under a sound construction of the eighteenth rule,
This court has heretofore, when it was practicable, avoided taking cognizance of causes of action arising within the harbors and territorial jurisdiction of the state, not strictly of a maritime character, and where the remedy would be merely coincident with that supplied at common law; although there is high authority sanctioning the jurisdiction in such cases. 2 Browne, Civ. & Adm. Law, 169; 3 Bl. Comm. 106; 2 Sir Leo. Jenkins, 774; Chamberlain v. Chandler [Case No. 2,-575]; Thorne v. White [Id. 13,989]. Suits in personam, founded on torts as the sole cause of action, have, therefore, not been adjudged sustainable in this court, unless the injury was received upon the high seas. See Borden v. Hiern [Id. 1,655]. But the present case is not so circumstanced, upon the facts and pleadings, as to demand an explicit judgment on that point. Proceedings in rem are sustained, when the cause of action is maritime in its nature, without regard to the locality of its origin, whether upon the high seas, or in bays or harbors where the tide ebbs and flows, or even on land, upon the acceptation that those cases are not embraced within the reservation, in the ninth section of the act of congress of September 24, 1789 (1 Stat. 77), of cases in which the common law affords an adequate remedy. But it may be essential to the jurisdiction of the court, particularly in suits for services, that the locality of the service and the nature of it should both be maritime. When the privilege of a lien on a vessel or on goods
. A suit in admiralty, simply for an assault and battery, would take from a jury and leave to the discretion of a single judge, the determination of an allowance of damages, and would, in that respect, be a departure from a cardinal usage and principle of American jurisprudence; but I am by no means prepared to declare such a suit not to be within the lawful jurisdiction of this court. When a claim for damages for personal wrongs is connected, as an incident, with other matters properly appertaining to the cognizance of admiralty, it is the habit of the court to take jurisdiction of both causes of action; because the personal tort may well be inquired into, and damages, by way of compensation. be awarded, upon the same testimony, and thus the duplication of suits be avoided, and because the division of actions into stated formulas does not prevail in admiralty, and the rights of both the actor and the respondent are adjusted upon the whole case made, without regard to the denomination of the causes of action in pleadings at common law. But, if the tort be sued singly, as a substantive cause of action, the court, if not at liberty to reject the jurisdiction entirely, is careful to discourage appeals to its exercise, by every legitimate power. This claim for damages, in the present case, being coupled with a demand for wages, may properly be disposed of in this action, since all the proofs on both sides have been given without any exception having been taken, prior to the final hearing, to the jurisdiction of the court.
The objection to using Guttridge’s deposition. because he is a permanent resident of the city, and has not been proved to be now absent, must prevail. On the examination of the deposition, however, it is not found to contain matter that would change the character of the cause in the libellant’s favor, even if the court might disregard the objection to it or should open the cause for the purpose of receiving the viva voce examination of the witness.
(The opinion, after examining minutely the testimony of the various witnesses in the cause, proceeded:) Admitting that the libel-lant’s proofs import that the libellant was wounded by the firing of the pistol into the rigging by the master, the witnesses stand so far contradicted and impeached by the general bearing of the whole evidence, that no safe reliance can be placed on their testimony, nor can any decree be properly rendered thereupon against the respondent. Even the fact of the wounding by a pistol shot is not affirmatively asserted by any witness. It is Inferred, from the appearance of the injury when the libellant was under surgical treatment in the hospital, as proved by Dr. Stevens, and from the circumstances, that after the firing the libellant descended from the rigging bleeding in one of his knees and lame, and that, to an inquiry of some bystander, if he had been shot, he replied, in the presence of the respondent, that he had. Against this implication and presumption, there is the answer of the respondent, which may at least be received as evidence explanatory of the transaction, if not as substantive proof for the defence, and which positively denies the wounding; and there is also, more particularly, the testimony of several disinterested and unimpeached witnesses, who saw the libellant hit by the márling-spike when, in his attempt to strike the master with-it, it was jerked back by the lanyard. Upon a careful consideration of the proofs in the case, I am of opinion that the libellant has not substantiated any cause of action against the respondent for a personal tort.
The conduct of the libellant towards the respondent on board the vessel, on the morning •referred to in the pleadings and proofs, is fully proved to have been insubordinate to an extreme degree. Not only was his language insolent, and his behavior generally disorderly and disobedient, but he seized the master in a manner and with a state of temper which indicated a mutinous purpose, and might authorize his arrest for that offence. His conduct was so violent and refractory that the master was well justified in calling in the civil authority to control and punish him. The libellant was taken out of the vessel by process of law. and whether that was after-wards prosecuted or not will not vary the rights of the respondent, since he establishes an adequate cause for resorting, in the first instance, to the aid of the authorities. After the libellant obtained his release from that arrest, be was put into the hospital, being disabled by his wound from doing duty on ship-board, and never again joined the vessel or offered to do so. Therefore, he cannot charge that detention against the respondent, it being already shown that the respondent is not answerable for the wound itself. And, as the commitment of the libellant, in a home port, to the custody of the civil authority, to answer for a breach of the peace and for acts of personal violence to the master, was justifiable, there is no ground for the claim to wages during the per,od of that confinement or detention by law, although it was during the running of the contract of hire, no improper act of the master having prevented the libellant from performing his duties and fulfilling his agreement. The claim for wages for the time subsequent to the arrest of the libel-lant is accordingly dismissed. But I think the libellant is entitled to recover his wages to that period. Admitting that the maritime law applies to vessels moored at a wharf in a home port, and that seamen so situated are subject to all its penalties, I do not regard this as a case for the forfeiture of wages, under the principles of that law; and it is not attempted to bring the case within the provisions of the fifth section of the act of July 20,1790 (1
A decree must be entered, that the libellant recover $5.50 for his wages, and his costs, and that he pay to the respondent his costs to be taxed, and that the libellant’s wages and costs be set off against the respondent’s costs, and that the party to whom the balance, if any, is due, have process against the other party for the recovery of such balance.
This rule was as follows: “No claim or answer shall be filed unless it shall be sworn to; and, in case of bailable process in personam, unless the party arrested appear, or put in bail according to the rules of the court, his claim or answer shall not be received by the court, but shall be treated as a nullity, and his defaults entered.”
By the eighty-eighth rule, the libellant now has “four days from the time the answer is perfected, or from the expiration of the time allowed for excepting thereto,” within which to file his replication.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- THOMAS v. GRAY
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- Published