The Grace Girdler

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

This was a motion made by Mr. Donohue to dismiss an appeal from the Circuit Court of the Northern District of New York.

Lockwood, the appellant, with several others, had filed a joint libel against the schooner Grace Girdler, claiming damages occasioned by her collision with the schoonr Ariel. The aggregate damages sustained by the libellants amounted, according to the libel, to $2754. The libel was dismissed in the District Court, and the dismissal was affirmed on appeal in the Circuit Court. None of the libellants appealed to this court except Lockwood; and while it was apparently obvious that as owner of the vessel much the greater part of the loss had fallen upon him, the record did not aver that the damage which he had suffered exceeded $2000; as a statute requires that it should be, in order to give the court jurisdiction.

It was stated, however, in a brief filed by the appellant, on the motion to dismiss, and stated also by the appellant's counsel at this bar, Mr. Carlisle, that while it had been supposed by the appellant that the fact that his damage did exceed $2000 might be sufficiently inferred by comparison of different parts of the record, yet that the fact would clearly appear by affidavits; and he therefore opposed the motion to dismiss.

The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.