Pacific Steam Whaling Co. v. Grismore

Citations

• 117 F. 68
• 54 C.C.A. 454
• 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 4406

Syllabus

<p>1. Carriers—Steamship—Overcrowding Passengers.</p> <p>A steamship is liable in damages to passengers who, although they were sold second-class tickets, were given only the accommodations of steerage passengers, and who suffered great discomfort from lack of proper food and water and from being overcrowded in unclean and badly ventilated quarters. While the obtaining of an inspector’s certificate permitting the vessel to take more passengers than she actually carried may relieve her from prosecution for the statutory penalty for carrying an excessive number, it does not relieve her from liability to passengers for a violation of her implied agreement to furnish them with reasonable accommodations.</p> <p>2. Admiralty Practice—Taking Testimony on Appeal.</p> <p>The parties to a suit in admiralty should make reasonable effort to obtain all testimony material to the issues in the trial court, and the practice of taking further testimony after an adverse decision, to be used in the appellate court, is one not to be encouraged.</p> <p>8. Carriers—Steamship—Delay in Landing Passengers’ Effects.</p> <p>Libelants contracted for the carriage of themselves and their baggage, and effects, by a steamship from San Francisco to Nome in the spring of 1900. There was no landing place at Nome, and, all landing bad to be done by means of lighters. The tickets provided that the voyage should end at the place of anchorage, and that the landing was no part of the contract. After- they were put on shore libelante were compelled to wait in some cases 10 days, and until the sbi®; bad been to other .ports and returned, before receiving their baggage, effects, and freight,, by reason of which they suffered exposure, expense, and loss qji a.ccount of the delay, which was due, to soine extent at least, to, the fact that the ship was unnecessarily overloaded. Held, that the stipulation in the contracts did not exonerate the ship from liability in damages under the circumstances shown, even if