Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc. v. United States

Facts

The Coast Guard vessel Tamaroa was being overhauled in a floating drydock owned by Bushey in Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal. The ship went into drydock on February 28, 1963. Under Bushey's contract with the Government, the Coast Guard personnel assigned to the ship had to have access to it at all times. Crew reached the ship from shore by a route through the yard, up a ladder to the top of one drydock wall, and along the wall to a gangway. Seaman Lane, whose prior record was unblemished, came back from shore leave a little after midnight on March 14. He had been drinking heavily, and the quartermaster noted that he was "loose." For reasons the court could not explain, Lane turned each of three large wheels on the drydock wall some twenty times. The wheels controlled the water intake valves for the tanks on one side of the drydock. Lane mentioned the valves to two crewmen, but neither acted. Water was soon discovered coming into the drydock. The ship began to list, slid off the blocks and fell against the drydock wall. Parts of the drydock sank and the ship partly did. No one was killed or hurt. No one suggested how Lane could have thought that turning the wheels served the Government.

Issues

1. Was this an action in admiralty, so that the court of appeals could hear an appeal from a judgment on liability before damages were fixed?
2. Is the Government vicariously liable for damage to the drydock caused by a drunken seaman who turned the valve wheels, even though he had no purpose of serving his employer?

Holding

The Government was liable for the damage Lane caused by turning the valve wheels, though he had no purpose to serve it, because the risk that seamen coming and going from the ship might damage the drydock made it fair for the enterprise to bear the loss. The court also held that this was an admiralty case, so it had jurisdiction.