ADMIRALTY-SEAWORTHINESS-THE HARTER ACT

Authors

Abstract

A vessel strands through negligent navigation and cargo in the forward hold is damaged as a result of a leak due to the tearing on a rock of plates at the forward end of the vessel. This is the typical case of a fault and error in navigation under section 3 of the Harter Act, as to which the vessel owner is exempted from liability. "That if the owner of any vessel transporting merchandise or property to or from any port in the United States of America shall exercise due diligence to make the said vessel in all respects seaworthy and properly manned, equipped, and supplied, neither the vessel, her owner or owners, agent, or charterers shall become or be held responsible for damage or loss resulting from faults or errors in navigation or in the management of said vessel nor shall the vessel, her owner or owners, charterers, agent, or master be held liable for losses arising from dangers of the sea or other navigable waters, acts of God, or public enemies, or the inherent defect, quality, or vice of the thing carried, or from insufficiency of package or seizure under legal process, or for loss resulting from any act or omission of the shipper or owner of the goods, his agent or representative, or from saving or attempting to save life or property at sea, or from any deviation in rendering such service." 27 U. S. Stat. 445, sec. 3 The Etona (C. C. A. 2nd Circ., 1896) 71 Fed. 895. See in general upon this act, Evans, 8 MICH. L. Rev. 637; Everett P. Wheeler, 33 AM. L. Rev. 801 ; Frederick Green, 16 HARV. L. REV. 157. Let us suppose that the vessel shortly afterwards reaches her destination, that the marine surveyor employed by the cargo owner chances to notice an open port in the after end of the vessel, that, further, the failure to close this port was such a failure as amounts to a lack of due diligence to make the vessel seaworthy, e.g., the open port in International Navigation Co. v. Farr & Bailey Mfg. Co., 181 U. S. 218 (1901) ; see also The Tenedos, (Dist. Ct., S. D. N. Y. 1905) 137 Fed. 443; (C. C. A. 2nd Circ., 1907) 151 Fed. 1022, but that owing to serene weather during the voyage no damage resulted from it, that except under extraordinary circumstances which did not occur no damage whatsoever could result from it to the cargo which was actually damaged at the other end of the vessel, and that in every other respect due diligence to make the vessel seaworthy has been demonstrably exercised by the owner and his employees. Does the fact of the open port deprive him of the exemption which he would otherwise have under section 3?

Recommended Citation

ADMIRALTY-SEAWORTHINESS-THE HARTER ACT, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 157 (1924).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol23/iss2/6