The Somers N. Smith

Citations

• 120 F. 569
• 1903 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 370

Syllabus

<p>1. Towage — Care Required of Tug — Dangerous Locality.</p> <p>The reasonable care a tug is required to exercise in the performance-of a towage service is relative, depending upon the dangers of the service. If the locality is more than ordinarily dangerous, she is held to a proportionately higher degree of care and skill.</p> <p>3. Same — Stranding of Tow.</p> <p>Evidence considered, and JielA to show that the stranding of a schooner-on a reef while being towed through a narrow and dangerous channel was due to a want of accurate knowledge of the channel on the part of the master of the tug, and to a want of care in failing to ascertain whether a buoy used to mark the position of the ledge on which the-schooner stranded was in its proper place.</p> <p>8. Same — Contract Limiting Liability.</p> <p>The burden rests upon a tug to prove an alleged contract that a vessel was to be towed at the risk of her owners; nor will such contract, if proved, relieve the tug from liability for the consequences of a failure of those in charge to exercise reasonable care and shill in the performance of the service.</p>