City of Long Beach v. American President Lines, Ltd.

This is an admiralty appeal.

On April 19, 1950, the President Van Burén, 1 a C-3 cargo steam vessel, collided with a finger pier at Forster’s shipyard in Los Angeles Harbor, doing consequent damage to the piers of Forster and a small fishing boat and a barge of a fishing company.

Pertinent facts follow. On the date mentioned the President Van Burén was being shifted from Berth 145, Wilmington, Los Angeles Harbor, to the Procter & Gamble dock in Long Beach Harbor. The course of the shift begins in a channel of the west basin of Los Angeles Harbor, proceeds thence southerly to a turning basin, thence through the turning basin into the east basin channel and thence through east basin channel and on beyond to Long Beach. The three sectors of the waters in the course of the ship (the west basin channel, the turn *855 ing basin and the east basin channel) with which we are concerned together may be roughly described as “U” shaped. The turning basin would be in the bottom of the “U.” The area between the inner sides of the “U” is occupied by a tip of Mormon Island.

The ship’s master on the day in question was Ralph George Wilson, employed by American President Lines, owner of the Van…