The O. M. Arnold

New England Fish Company of Oregon owned a vessel which it chartered to New England Fish Company, a Maine corporation. During a voyage from one point in Alaska to another, the vessel sank, and three members of the crew drowned. Personal representatives of the three men were appointed by a proper Oregon court, and suit was filed in the court below against the owner and charterer, of the vessel, to recover for the deaths. The owner and charterer then filed in the court below a petition to limit its liability. The personal representatives then filed answers and claims in the limitation proceedings. Exceptions were filed, by the owner and charterer of the vessel, to the answers and claims, on the ground among others, that the personal representatives appointed in Oregon had no right to file answers and claims in Washington.

Apparently a brief was filed in support of such exception by proctors for the corporations on April 28, 1941. On May 2, 1941, the court below wrote proctors for claimants but the letter is not contained in the record. On July 24, 1941, the court below again wrote proctors for claimants stating that it had received no reply to the letter of May ,2, 1941, from which…