[Download] "Edmond Weil Inc. v. American West African Line Inc." by Second Circuit Circuit Court Of Appeals # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

📘 Read Now     📥 Download

eBook details

• Title: Edmond Weil Inc. v. American West African Line Inc.
• Author : Second Circuit Circuit Court Of Appeals
• Release Date : January 12, 1945
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 68 KB

Description

The respondents appeal from a decree in the admiralty, holding the ship, "West Kebar," liable for damage to a cargo, lifted in African ports in December, 1940, and discharged at Boston and New York in the following January. The judge held the ship for a part of the damage and excused her for the rest. Edmond Weil, Inc., v. SS "West Kebar," D.C., 53 F.Supp. 763. Since the libellants filed assignments of error, Rule 38(c), both parties have in effect appealed. The "West Kebar" was 427 feet long, of the "three well" type, with five holds: Nos. 1 and 2 - tween-decks and holds - forward of the engine-room; No. 3 over the engine-room; Nos. 4 and 5 - tween-decks and holds - aft of the engine-room. All the sea water damage in suit was in Nos. 4 and 5 - tween-decks and holds - and in a "port bunker," to be later described. When on December 26, 1940, the ship cleared at her last port of call in Africa - Freetown, Sierra Leone - there were stowed on her after well deck 200 empty ammonia cylinders, weighing about 200 pounds each, and mahogany "curls" (the root of the tree), weighing from 200 to 1,000 pounds each. The stow was on both sides of the No. 5 hatch, the cylinders forward and the "curls" aft. The cylinders were stacked in pyramids about five feet high, lashed together by chains, taken up by turnbuckles; net slings were placed over them, and other chains were then stretched over the top and made fast at each side of the stow. The "curls," irregular in size, were fitted together as well as could be, and stowed to a height of about three and a half feet. They, too, were covered with net slings and secured by six chains on each side. The ship, although an oil burner, had port and starboard coal bunkers forward of the No. 4 tween-deck. A water-tight door with a ten-inch sill led from the tween-deck to the port bunker, but it was left open and was blocked by cargo when the ship broke ground at Freetown.Originally the electric wiring had been carried in conduit pipes; but the wiring had been removed, and the stumps of the old conduit pipes, called "kick tubes," which had not been removed, protruded about six inches above the after well deck. These were about one and a half inches in diameter, and had been capped so as to be water tight; there were eleven of them scattered about the deck. Some time before noon on January 11, during either a "strong" or a "whole" gale (No. 9 or 10 on the Beaufort Scale), while the vessel was taking seas over her starboard quarter, one of the ammonia cylinders in the starboard pack began to slip out, and not long afterwards a large part of the stow was adrift, followed by the "curls." The cylinders plunged about the deck, struck a number of "kick-tubes," and broke them off. These openings let sea water into the tween-decks in Nos. 4 and 5, whence it flowed over the hatch coamings into the lower holds, and over the sill of the open doorway into the port bunker.

Download Books "Edmond Weil Inc. v. American West African Line Inc." PDF ePub Kindle