Lie v. San Francisco & Portland Steamship Co.

Background

On November 22, 1910, a Norwegian freight steamer called the Selja, arriving from Yokohama, collided in heavy fog near Point Reyes with the American steamer Beaver, which was bound from San Francisco to Portland. The Selja sank within fifteen minutes. The Selja’s captain, Olaf Lie, and the ship’s owners sued for the loss; the cargo owners and the charterers also sued. Both masters gave different accounts, but both agreed the Beaver had been moving too fast in the fog and that the Selja heard repeated fog whistles before the crash.

Reasoning

The Court focused on conduct in the sixteen minutes after the Selja first heard the Beaver’s whistle. An international collision rule adopted into U.S. law required a steamship hearing a fog signal apparently forward of the beam to stop engines and proceed with caution. The Selja’s captain admitted he reduced speed slowly and did not stop immediately, keeping his engines moving until shortly before the collision. The Court found the Beaver culpably negligent for excessive speed, but it also held that the Selja’s failure to obey the statutory stop rule was an operating cause of the crash. When a ship is in clear violation of a statute meant to prevent collisions, the burden is on that ship to show its breach could not have caused the accident.

Real world impact

The decision affirms that masters must follow the mandatory fog-stop rule and that violating such a statutory safety rule can bar recovery for a ship’s owners and captain. It reinforces command responsibility for navigation in reduced visibility and makes it harder for a vessel to recover loss if its own statutory fault contributed to a collision. The Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment denying recovery to the Selja’s owner and master.