Shipowners & Merchants Tugboat Co. v. United States

This is an appeal in admiralty from a decree awarding damages in the amount of $1,500 to the United States for injury to its Steamship Golden Gate in a collision with one of appellant’s tugs in San Francisco Bay.

The parties are agreed (1) that the tug was solely in fault; (2) that the cost of repairing the Golden Gate’s injuries is $5,650; (3) that if the appellant’s contention does not prevail the decree for $1,500 is' a proper determination of the tug owner’s liability after limitation; and (4) that if the tug owner’s contention prevails, the amount we should decree is $250.00.

After the collision $250 was spent on temporary repairs. The permanent repairs were never made. The Steamship was sold eighteen months after the collision in a damaged condition to the Chilean Line, pursuant to 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 1736, enacted some eight months after the collision, for the minimum statutory price of $957,818 with no reduction for her damaged condition.

The appellant claims that because • the United States eight months after the collision through its Congress enacted a law by which its vessel was to be sold “as is” at a fixed' price, it lost its right of recovery against the tug…