Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/181

 17e FEDSBAL BZFOBTEB. �obtaîned a decree before ïhe filing of other libels of a higher class. �The third exception is to the effect that claims for towage, whicb are maritime liens, are preferred to claims for supplies and repairs f amished in the home port, which are liens solely under the state law. I believe the practice is nearly if not quite universal to pay maritime liens in preference to those under the state law. It bas long prevailed in this district. I believe it to be founded upon substantial considerations, and I am not disposed to interfere with it. The learned judge of the western district bas recently adopted the same rule in the case of The Alice Getty. �The fourth exception is to this effect, that claims for the second class, for which libels were filed after the sale of the schooner, are preferred to the claim of the dry dock company. There are, undoubtedly, some cases holding that claima filed after the sale of a vessel sbould be postponed, but I think they ail proceed upon the theory that the sale does not take place until after a final decree has been rendered. In a large number, and perhaps I might say a majority, of cases in this district the vessel is sold pendente Ute, frequently before any decree is rendered, for the purposes of preventing the accu- mulation of costs, expenses of keeping, and deterioration while lying at the dock. I have encouraged this practice where no objection is made by the owner, and no stipulation is given to pay the claims after a f air opportunity to do so. To postpone claims of an equal or superior rank filed after Buch a sale, made, perhaps, without any actual notice to the lien holder, might in many cases resuit in great injustice. My own impression is that the rule is unsound even as applied to claims of equal rank, and still more objectionable wbere a libellant of an inferior rank seeks to obtain priority over a more meritorious claim. The exceptions of the dry dock Company are therefore overruled. �The exception of John Bloom to the libel of John Horn proceeds upon the theory that claims which were not in decree o4i the time of making the report classifying claims shoùld be ����