Longview Tugboat Company, a Corporation v. George S. Jameson, as United Stastes Collector of Customs

The appellant Tugboat Company filed a complaint in the court below alleging that it was the owner of a so-called “scow” known as the Sea Horse of approximately 500 tons burden; that it had made application to the defendant Collector of Customs for a license or other appropriate documentation to use the scow in coastwise trade; that defendant had refused to issue the license on the ground that the commandant of the Coast Guard holds that this scow is subject to inspection under the provisions of the Act of May 28, 1908, Title 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 395-398 . It further alleged that the Sea Horse is not a “sea going barge" within the meaning of those sections; and that it would require an expense of more than $5000 to install on the scow the equipment required by those sections and the Coast Guard regulations. The prayer asked that judgment be entered “declaring that the provisions of Sections 895 to 398, inclusive, Title 46, Code of the Laws of the United States, have no application to plaintiff’s scow Sea Horse and that inspection thereof by the United States Coast Guard is not required as a prerequisite to the documentation thereof for the coastwise trade and that the defendant as…