Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/298

 28e FEDERAL REPORTER. �a limitation of his liability until some suit hasbeen eommenced for a loss, destruction, damage, or injury sustained by one or more of such sufferers, and then such petition must be filed in the district court of the district where such suit bas been eommenced. In other words, the position of these claimants is that inksmuch as this suit for collision with the Stockbridge, now pending in this courtris not for a damage aoeruing on the final or last voyage of the steamer, that that suit does not aid or confer, jurisdiction, and the petitiouer not showing that any libel had beeii filed in this court or suit brought in this district prior to the filing of the petition, this court has no juris- diction in the preruises. ., �It must be oonceded, I think, that if this court only has jurisdic- tion of this subject-matter and parties byvirtue of the rules in ques- tion, then there is much force in the position of these respondents. But it seems to me that it was not the intention of congress to sus- pend the right of the ship-owner to invoke the provisions of this law until suits or libels in personam should be actually instituted against him. The language of the statute is : �"And the ownerof the vessel * * * may take the appropriate proceed- ings in any court for the purpose of apportioning the: sum for wHieh the owner of the vessel may be, liable among the parties entitled thereto." �Here is no intimation that the owner muSt wait until he has been Bued before he can "take the appropriate proceedingS in any court;" while from the nature of the owner' s liability, and the scope of the relief furnished by this law, it would seem that proceedings should be taken while the testimony necessary to establish the facts which se- cure immunity to the owner is available. Eule 57 says : �" Thesaid libel or petition shall be filed, and the said proceedings had, in any district court of the United States in which said ship or vessel may be libelled to answer for any such embezzlement, loss, destruction, damage, or injury; or if such ship or vessel be not libelled, then in the district court for any district in which the said owner or owners may besued in that behalf." �There is an obvions convenience, if a libel has been filed or suit brought for any such loss, in requiring the owner to go into the same court to take the steps which shall limit his liability, because this brings all the claimants, both those whose who have sued and those who have not, together. But suppose libels filed or suits brought simultaneousiy in different courts against the same or different own- ers, which might often happen, which court, then, is to have juris- diction of the proceedings to limit liability? AU the authorities now, I think, eoncur in the conclusion that the measure of the ship^ ��� �