Does a ship owner who, during a violent storm, deliberately keeps its vessel moored to another's dock to preserve the ship, thereby causing damage to the dock, bear liability for the resulting injury even though its conduct was prudent and necessary?

The steamship Reynolds, owned by the defendant, was moored to the plaintiffs' dock in Duluth on November 27, 1905, to discharge cargo. As unloading finished at about ten o'clock p.m., a northeast storm had grown so violent that winds reached fifty miles per hour and continued to increase through the night. Navigation was practically suspended until the morning of the twenty-ninth, and no master would have been justified in attempting to navigate. The Reynolds signaled for a tug to tow her from the dock, but none was available because of the storm. Those in charge kept the lines fast, replacing each line that parted or chafed, sometimes with a larger one. The vessel lay on the outside of the dock with wind and waves striking her starboard quarter, so that she was constantly lifted and thrown against the dock. The jury found the dock damaged in the amount of $500. The dock was in a part of the Duluth harbor commonly used for mooring, and the storm surpassed in violence any that could reasonably have been anticipated.

The plaintiff dock owners sued the ship's owner in the trial court for damage to their dock. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs, finding damages of $500. The defendant appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, assigning error on the ground that its conduct was necessary and prudent and that the jury should have been instructed that it was not liable. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the order.

(O'Brien, J.)

Yes. A party who prudently and deliberately uses another's property to preserve its own more valuable property in an emergency is liable for the injury it causes, even though the use was justified and the emergency was beyond its control.

The master acted with ordinary prudence and good seamanship. Leaving the dock in the storm would have been imprudent, and the dock was a proper and safe mooring place until a storm of unforeseeable severity arose. The only question for the jury was therefore the amount of damages, and no complaint was made on that score.

The storm suspended the ordinary rules governing property rights, and an injury occurring without the direct intervention of the party sought to be held liable would be attributable to an act of God. Had the vessel entered the harbor during the storm, become disabled, and been thrown against the dock, or had her lines parted without negligence and carried her into another dock, there would be no liability. Here, however, those in charge deliberately and by their direct efforts held the ship in a position that caused the damage. Having preserved the ship at the expense of the dock, the owners must compensate the dock owners for the injury inflicted.

The court drew support from Depue v. Flatau, 100 Minn. 299 (1907), and Ploof v. Putnam, 71 Atl. 188 (Vt.), which suggest that a party may be privileged to use another's property in necessity but remains answerable for the harm. Analogies to the starving man who takes food and to the public taking of private property confirm that necessity justifies the act but does not excuse compensation. The court distinguished cases where the plaintiff's property itself threatened harm or where the injury was an unavoidable accident beyond the defendant's control. The defendant here prudently availed itself of the plaintiffs' property to save its own more valuable property, so the plaintiffs are entitled to compensation for the injury done.

Dissent (Lewis, J.) If the boat was lawfully in position under contract when the storm broke and the master could not, in the exercise of due care, have left without exposing the vessel to the storm's hazards, then the damage from the pounding was the result of inevitable accident, and the master, having exercised due care, was not at fault. In my view the majority's reasoning implies there would be no liability had the first lines held or had the stronger cables been used initially; the majority answered that the crew here deliberately held the ship against the dock, so the owner is liable. If the master could not reasonably anticipate the storm's severity and seek safety beforehand, he should not be required to anticipate it by using stronger cables at the outset. One who builds a dock and contracts to moor vessels takes the risk of damage from a boat caught by a storm in circumstances unavoidable with due care, and renewing cables to keep the boat from drifting at the mercy of the tempest does not change the parties' legal status.

Dissent (Jaggard, J.) Jaggard, J. concurs with Lewis, J.'s dissent and joins it.