Compagnie Générale Transatlantique v. United States

This is an appeal from a decree awarding damages for injury to a telephone cable. Except in one particular, there is little or no controversy over the facts. For some years last past the United States has maintained a submarine telephone cable between the westerly end of Pier 41 in the bay of San Francisco and Alcatraz Island. At the time of the injury complained of there was no monument or sign at the pier, or elsewhere, to indicate the location of the cable, nor was its location indicated on any of the charts of the bay. A cable of the Great Western Power Company left the opposite corner of the same pier, and that company maintained a sign on the pier indicating the location of the cable. This sign was doubtless maintained to satisfy the requirements of the Civil Code of California, which provides that any person who injures or destroys, through want of proper care, any necessary or useful fixture of any telegraph or telephone corporation, is liable to the corporation for all damages sustained thereby, and any vessel which, by dragging its anchor, or otherwise, breaks, injures, or destroys the subaqueous cable of a telegraph or telephone corporation, subjects its owner to the…