Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/334

 ABBO V. BEOWN. 319 �Allen reached this side two of the libellees, alleged owners of the Allen, reached the place. These parties, with others, made various efforts to prevent further injury, and to get the Allen off, without avail. "Everything was done or attempted that could be done, or was suggested, except that the parties favorable to the wood-boat asked or suggested that the lines of the Allen should be loosed and so let her float down stream and sink by herself . Upon this last suggestion a difference of opinion was expressed. Some thought that such a course would save the wood-boat; others that the Allen was a protection to the wood-boat ; and there was still another opinion,- which was probably the better one, that the Allen could not be got out or floated out until the gale that blew her in had subsided. Anyhow, nothing was done at that time, and soon after Capt. Brown, the managing man, went away. Some time after this, and after the Allen sank, a Mr. Buck, under the direction of a lame man, cast off the bow-line, so as to let the Allen go clear of the wood-boat, and the Allen slid down stream; but her stern-line not being cast off she pulled out a check-post on the wood-boat, and that and the Allen together tore oft some of the planks of the wood-boat and set a lot of the wood adrift. This suit is brought by the libellant to make the owners of the Allen liable for his damages suffered to the wood and barge.

Under the facts of the case I am of the opinion that the owner; were not in fault, and that the damages suffered by the libellant were the result of inevitable accident. The Allen was safely moored for all ordinary and foreseen emergencies. The evidence shows that •when she broke away one check-post pulled up and was carried by the hawser across the river, and was a cypress stick of about 15 feet in length, that had been standing for years for the earth to settle and pack around it, and it was set some 10 feet in the ground. The hurricane was unusual, and could not have been foreseen. As counsel say, "that storm was historie;" it flattened cane crops, blew down and unroofed houses and sugar-houses; trees were blown up by the roots; wood-boats, steam-boats, and coal-boats were blown adrift and wrecked in this harbor. What took place on this side of the river was the inevitable result of the collision of the Allen with the wood- boat ; and, so far as I can see, there was no carelesness nor negligence on the part of the owners notified, on this side of the river. Everything seems to be done that would likely to be of any service in protecting property. What was asked by the libellant's friends, — the loosening of the new lines put out on the Allen, and the neglect and refusal of which is the gravamen of the libel, — seems to have been improper, because, when done later, the damage was increased.

Inevitable accident is that which the party charged with the offence could not possibly prevent by the exercise of ordinary care, caution, or nautical skill. See 2 Wall. 556; 14 Wall. 215; 2e How. 307.