6. Rules of Diligence.—
There are no hard and fast rules defining diligence or the limit after which a lien becomes stale. Under the general maritime law, the voyage was the test; liens which accrued on one voyage were required to be enforced before another voyage was made or they became stale as to those of the latter. In deep-sea navigation, where the voyages are prolonged, this rule still obtains. On the Great Lakes, where the trips or voyages are comparatively short, and navigation is closed by the winters, the season of navigation is the rule. Liens not enforced during the season or the following winter will be postponed to those of the later season. In New York harbor, the local conditions have resulted in a forty-day rule; in Virginia, under somewhat different conditions, a one-year rule has appeared. The safe method is to be prompt and diligent in collecting liens against a ship; delay is always dangerous and there may be no other financial responsibility. This course is also for the best interests of the shipowner; interest and costs accumulate rapidly where the liens are enforced by the courts.
In the case of the Marjorie, 151 Fed. 183, above cited, a private yacht was libeled in Baltimore on account of coal furnished her in Norfolk nearly a year previously. She spent that time voyaging up and down the coast, putting in at various ports and when libeled had been laid up for the winter. She had not been in Norfolk subsequent to the occasion on which the coal was furnished. About six months after the coal was furnished she was sold to a new owner, who, finding no lien on record against her, paid the full purchase price. The Court held:
As commercial enterprise would be vexatiously incommoded and the free circulation and disposal of vessels prevented if such liens, which are not required by law to be made manifest by public registration, were allowed to lie dormant for an indefinite period, the courts have uniformly held, where the rights of bona fide purchasers will be injuriously affected if it is allowed to prevail, that the lien is lost if there has been long delay, and there has been reasonable opportunity to enforce it. The diligence required is usually measured by the opportunity of enforcement. In nearly all of the cases where the courts have held the lien to be lost and where there has been change of possession, there has been unreasonable delay on the part of the creditor in availing himself of the opportunities of enforcing his lien.
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In the case under consideration the libel was filed within less than a year. The yacht had been sailing from port to port, and never came within the jurisdiction of the port where the supplies were furnished. The claim was a small one and hardly justified the employment of a detective to follow her wanderings. The lien was asserted as soon as the yacht was found.... The law is well settled that liens of this nature must be sustained if there has been reasonable diligence in asserting them. A long line of decisions shows that a delay of a year in circumstances such as are disclosed by the testimony is not unreasonable, and to lay down any other rule would tend to unsettle the law and to disturb the credit which in the interest of commerce must be extended to ships for supplies when away from their home ports to enable them to continue their voyages, a credit only given upon the faith that they have a lien upon the ship.