Personal belongings of crew and passengers may be lost or injured in the collision and the measure of damages is the same as in the case of the cargo. If totally lost, the value at the time of the collision governs not what the articles originally cost when new. If only injured, then the difference between sound and damaged condition controls. Interest follows as in other cases.
Personal injuries and loss of life are also included in collision damage. The measure here is the same as in similar matters on land.
8. Contribution.—
The 59th Rule in Admiralty provides that the claimant of any vessel proceeded against, or any respondent proceeded against in personam may bring in a petition alleging fault in any other vessel contributing to the collision, and praying that such other vessel be made a party to the suit. The other parties to the suit are to answer the petition and the vessel or party newly brought in shall answer the libel. This brings in both vessels, provided the vessel so brought in is within the jurisdiction of the court and can be reached by its process, and makes it possible for the court to enforce appropriate contribution of damage by the parties in fault.
Since we have already seen that, in a case in which both vessels are in court in the first place, the court will decree contribution, there remains only the case in which a claimant of lost cargo has brought suit against one vessel or her owner, and the other vessel cannot be reached by process of the court. Suppose that in such a case the cargo-owner gets a decree against the vessel or party defendant and for his full damage, can the vessel or the party thus mulcted maintain an independent suit for contribution against the other offending ship? It can only be said that on this point the authorities are in direct conflict; however, in the modern case of Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. v. Cornell Steamboat Co., 218 U. S. 264, it seems to be clearly inferable that in the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States such an action is maintainable.
What has been said with respect to damage suffered by owners of lost cargo, applies equally to damages for personal injuries sustained as the result of a collision.
9. Division of Damages.—
Where both, or several, ships are in fault, the maritime law apportions the damage between them. When one of two vessels has suffered more than the other the decree is against the one least injured for one-half of the difference in their respective losses. In the North Star, 106 U. S. 17, where both vessels were adjudged in fault for a collision and one, the Ellis Warley, became a total loss, the owners of the Warley advanced the ingenious argument that, inasmuch as their vessel had been entirely lost, they were entitled to limit their liability and, by so doing, recover one-half their entire damage from the North Star, without any deduction for the damage suffered by her, notwithstanding the rule of division of damage in such cases. It will be noticed that the vessel claiming the right to limit liability, being the greater sufferer, would, in no event, have been required to pay anything to the other, and that the North Star, which had to do the paying, did not claim any right to limit liability. In rejecting this argument and holding that the time to apply the limitation-of-liability rule was after the amount of the liability had been ascertained, when the party decreed to pay might claim the benefit of the rule if entitled to it, the Court entered upon an instructive review of the entire history of the division of damage, and found that the theory is not that the owner of the one vessel is liable to the owner of the other for one-half of the damage sustained by the latter, and vice versa, that the owners of the latter are liable to those of the former for one-half of the damage sustained by her; but that the joint damage is equally divided between the parties; that it is a case of average and is to be computed by subtracting the lesser loss from the greater, dividing the difference by two and directing the vessel sustaining the smaller loss to pay the other the amount so found.
Where both vessels are in fault and only one is injured, the uninjured vessel must pay to the other one-half of the amount of her damage without deduction.
The cargo, being innocent, may sue both vessels or either, but if the result is that one is so compelled to pay more than its proper proportion of the total, a suit for contribution under the conditions set forth in the preceding section will lie in order to accomplish an ultimate equality. The admiralty does not recognize the common-law rule that contributory negligence prevents recovery and the same division or apportionment of damage is applied to cases of personal injury in collision as otherwise.