Crockett v. Dodge
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
This was an action of assumpsit, in which the plaintiff claimed contribution of the defendants, upon the ground of general average, alleging that he had a quantity of lime on board the defendant’s schooner Rambler, and that the same was sacrificed for the preservation of the vessel. The general issue was pleaded and joined.
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This was an action of assumpsit, in which the plaintiff claimed contribution of the defendants, upon the ground of general average, alleging that he had a quantity of lime on board the defendant’s schooner Rambler, and that the same was sacrificed for the preservation of the vessel. The general issue was pleaded and joined. It appeared in evidence, that in May, 1831, the defendants’ schooner Rambler, was lying at a wharf in East Thomaston, taking in a cargo of lime for the plaintiff, and before she was fully laden, the lime on board took fire. The vessel was thereupon closed up, according to…
1Opinion of the Court
Weston C. J.
A measure was in this case deliberately taken, by which the vessel was preserved. That measure was necessarily attended with the certain destruction of the plaintiff’s lime. It may then be assumed that the sacrifice of that, was the price of the safety of the vessel. Had the lime thus sacrificed any value ? If it had, the plaintiff is entitled to contribution, upon the principles of general average. Benecke on average, 110, Phillips’ edition, lays down the law to be, that if but for the voluntary destruction of part, the whole would certainly and unavoidably have been lost, no…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Bradhurst v. Columbian InsuranceNew York Supreme Court · 1812
- Nickerson v. TysonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1812