The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 1,010

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250 FEDERAL REPORTER

THE VANADIB.
(District Court, S. D. New York. April 8, 1918.)
L. COLLISION 8=136-DAMAGES--DEMURRAGE.
Where a pleasure yacht was injured in a collision, so that it had to be
drydocked for repairs, and at that time there was a demand for such
vessels, and it could have readily been chartered, the owner is entitled, as
damages for detention, to recover the charter value of the vessel, even
though he had no intention of chartering it, and intended to use it for his
recreation.
2. CoLLIIo N ;~136.-DAMoAEs-ELEMENTS.
In such case the award may include the cost of finding the crew during
the detention; that being a burden which the putative charterer would
have had to bear, and the owner not being obliged to dismiss his crew
during the period of detention in minimization of damages.
In Admiralty. Libel by the owner of the yacht Vanadis. On excep-
tions to the master's report, ruling that the libelant was not entitled
to damages for detention of the vessel while in dry dock for repairs
after the collision. Exceptions sustained.
Exceptions to a commissioner's report in admiralty, awarding damages
for a collision in which the libelant's yacht, Vanadis, was injured off Glen
Cove, in Long Island Sound, on June 13, 1915. The only point raised by the
exceptions is the commissioner's ruling that the libelant was not entitled to
damages for detention (demurrage, so called), while in dry dock for repairs
after the collision. It was proved that $13,000 a month had been offered for
the yacht for the seasons of 1914 and 1915, that such vessels were scarce and
in demand At the time, and that her charter value was $11,000, assuming any
damages for detention were properly allowable at all. The period of the
detention was, roughly speaking, the month of July, 1915, which was part of
the season in which vessels of her class were used.
Robert S. Erskine, of New York City, for libelant.
John W. Griffin, of New York City, for claimant.
LEARNED HAND, District Judge. [1] The Circuit Court of Ap-
peals has just decided in The Eros, 251 Fed. 45, - C. C. A. -,
that the charterer of a yacht is entitled to damages for withdrawal by
the owner during the season. In that case the charterer had chartered
a substitute for the period of the charter, and the added cost of the
substitute was allowed as the measure of damages. Obviously the
loss to the charterer was the use of the yacht withdrawn, and only that.
It appeared clearly enough that he had not intended any commercial
use of her, and that the act of withdrawal injured him merely by taking
away the opportunity of recreation which she afforded. His chartering
of the substitute could under no aspect go further than to establish
the value of that recreation in money. Indeed, even as a measure of
damages it was improper, if a different market value for the yacht had
been established. In any view, it was immaterial upon the question
whether the law should recognize his loss of recreation at all. That
question, which the decision necessarily involved, this case also presents.
On principle it seems to me impossible that we should draw any
4For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes

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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/1025/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

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