La Bourgogne

Citations

• 210 U.S. 95
• 28 S. Ct. 664
• 52 L. Ed. 973
• 1908 U.S. LEXIS 1497

Syllabus

<p>The decree of the District Court in a proceeding for limitation of liability adjudging that the petitioner is entitled to the limitation and declaring that one class of claims cannot be proved against the fund and remitting all questions concerning other claims for proof prior to final decree is interlocutory and an appeal to the Circuit Court does not lie therefrom, but from the subsequent decree adjudicating all the claims filed against the fund.</p> <p>This court will not disturb the concurrent findings of fact of both the courts below unless so -unwarranted by the evidence as to be clearly erroneous, and a finding that the rate of speed of a vessel on the high seas during a fog was immoderate under the international rules, will not be disturbed because based on the conceptions of immoderate speed prevailing in the United States courts and not On those prevailing in the courts of the country to which the vessel belonged.</p> <p>In a proceeding to limit liability instituted by the owners of a foreign vessel lost on the high seas the right to exemption must be determined by the law as administered in the courts of the United States.</p> <p>In a proceeding for limitation of liability the remedy of claimants against the fund for the failure of the petitioners to produce log books ordered to be produced by the court is to offer secondary evidence or ask for dismissal of the proceeding; they cannot proceed and ask the court to decide the case, not according to the proof but on presumption of wrongdoing and suppression of evidence.</p> <p>Under the circumstances of this case the fault of the officers and crew of the steamship La Bourgogne resulting in collision and loss of the vessel and its passengers, crew and cargo was not committed with the fault and privity of its owner, so as to deprive it of the right to a limitation of liability under §§ 4282, 4289, Rev. Stat.</p> <p>Mere negligence of the officers and crew óf a vessel, pure and simple and of itself, does not