Atlee v. Packet Co.

Citations

• 88 U.S. 389
• 22 L. Ed. 619
• 21 Wall. 389
• 1874 U.S. LEXIS 1380

Syllabus

<p>1. A pier erected in the navigable water of the Mississippi River for the sole use of the riparian owner, as part of a boom for saw-logs, without license or authority of any kind, except such as may arise from his ownership of the adjacent shore, is an unlawful structure, and the owner is liable for the sinking of a barge run against it in the night.</p> <p>2. Such a structure differs .very materially from wharves, piers, and others of like character, made to facilitate and aid navigation, and generally regulated by city or town ordinances, or by statutes of the State, or other competent authority.</p> <p>3. They also have a very different standing in the courts from piers built for railroad bridges across navigable streams, which arc authorized by acts of Congress or statutes of the States.</p> <p>4. A structure such as that above described, in the first paragraph of the syllabus, and which was under consideration in the present case, held not to be sustained by any of these considerations.</p> <p>5. A constant and familiar acquaintance with the towns, banks, trees, &c., and the relation of the channel to them, and of the snags, sand-bars, sunken barges, and other dangers of the river as they may arise, is essential to the character of a pilot on the navigable rivers of the interior ; this class of pilots being selected, examined, and licensed for their knowledge of the topography of the streams on which they are employed, and not like ocean pilots, chiefly for their knowledge of navigation and of charts, and for their capacity to understand and follow the compass, take reckonings, make observations, &c.</p> <p>6. Heneo a pilot who, though engaged for many years in navigating a part of the Mississippi, had not made a trip over that part for fifteen months previously to one which he was now making, and from ignorance of its existence ran his vessel against a pier which had been built in the river since he had last gone up or down it — was held to he in fault for