Warning
Info
- - tl;dr
- - ICRA
- - Facts & Holding
- - DeepDive
0 0
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 159 F.2d 169
Tags: Torts, Learned Hand Formula, BPL Formula
tl;dr:
Plaintiff's barge sank due to Defendant's negligence, but if Plaintiff had had a bargee on board, it could have prevented injury. Court holds that Plaintiff can be held liable for its failure to have a bargee on board.Video Summary
Case Summary
In the 1947 case United States v. Carroll Towing Co., the Second Circuit Court of Appeals dealt with a negligence claim. After a barge filled with U.S. owned flour sank when it crashed into a tanker, the barge owner sued the tug company responsible for adjusting the moorings. The tug company claimed the barge owner was partially responsible since there was no attendant on board to stop the accident.
Judge Learned Hand proposed a negligence test, considering: 1) probability of harm, 2) gravity of harm, and 3) precaution burden. The formula (B < PL) means negligence occurs if the burden of taking precautions is less than the expected harm. Using this test, the court found both parties partly liable for the incident.
The barge owner should have had an attendant on board since the burden was low compared to the potential damage, and the tug company was negligent in its moorings adjustments. This case introduced a cost-benefit analysis for determining negligence and liability in tort law, known as the Hand test. While widely used and influential, it has limitations and criticisms, such as measuring and quantifying factors, relying on hindsight, and potentially neglecting other moral or social considerations.
DeepDiveHighlight a legal term to see the definition
The case concerns the liability of the Grace Line for damages caused by the sinking of the barge "Anna C." The court found that the "harbormaster" had the authority to pass on the sufficiency of the fasts of the barge, and both the deckhand and "harbormaster" were jointly deputed by the master of the "Carroll" to do so. Therefore, both should be held equally liable for the damages. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the Conners Company seek to affirm the decrees. The liability of the Grace Line is stronger in this case than in a previous case due to the "harbormaster" being allowed to use his own judgment.
LSD+ Case Briefs
Features
- DeepDive for detailed case analysis
- Over 50,000 existing case briefs
- Instant briefs for another 6,000,000 cases
- Highlight dictionary for legal term definitions
- Social learning with chat and high points
Over 50,000 Cases Briefed
LSD+ gives you access to over 50,000 case briefs, more than anyone else. Be the first to email us the website of a case brief product that offers you more case briefs and we'll give you a free year of LSD+.
14-Day Free Trial
Unlimited access. Read as much content as you want during your trial with no device limitations. Cancel any time during your trial and keep access for the full 14 days.
Integrated Legal Dictionary
Lawyers and judges love to use big words. And Latin, for some reason.
Highlight a legal term in LSD Briefs and get an instant, plain English definition. Try highlighting contract or specific performance. No need to search or read through a list of definitions, simply highlight the words you don’t know and our LSDefine integration will instantly give you a definition to any of over 30,000 legal terms.
DeepDive
DeepDive allows you to explore legal cases like never before. DeepDive offers multiple levels of case summaries, which empowers you to quickly and easily find the information you need to stay on top of readings. Easily navigate through summary levels and click on any text to get more detail, all the way down to the original legal case text.
Brief anything. Instantly.
Our proprietary state-of-the-art system can instantly brief over 6,000,000 US cases. That means we can probably brief that case that your professor assigned last night when she sent you a poorly scanned pdf and told you to read every third paragraph. Or maybe she uploaded it to Canvas and didn’t really tell you to read it, but you know you probably should. Tenure does wild things to good people.
Social Learning with Chat and High Points
Study groups are a great way to learn and explore a case. LSD has chat rooms for each case to let you ask questions across the community and hear what other students struggled with and how they put it all together. Learn the key points of every case from other LSD+ users and share your knowledge with LSD High Points.
Real-Time Brief Feedback
Don’t settle for mistakes in briefs that have been there for 10 years and never fixed. Find an issue or something missing from a brief? Down vote and we will make improvements. All of our case brief editors graduated from from T14 law schools.