Hugo Black

“ Congress says to the shipowner: 'In certain respects you shall not be relieved from the responsibilities incident to your public occupation as a common carrier, although the cargo owners agree that you shall be relieved; in certain other respects (provided you fulfil conditions specified) you shall be relieved from responsibility even without a stipulation from the owners of cargo. ”

“ No more unrestrained justification warrants courts to strike down private business agreements. Jedged by such a standard, the agreements before us should be enforced.
Before 1893, when the Harter Act [11] was passed, the obligations of seagoing carriers with respect to passengers and cargo were defined by this Court in the exercise of its admiralty and maritime jurisdiction from case to case. Toward cargo the ocean carrier stood in the relation of an insurer, liable for any damage save that caused by act of God; and to passengers it owed the duty of highest care. ”

“ Certainly a decision affirming the continued applicability of these cases as to baggage, goods for which Congress has not withdrawn carrier liability for negligence, and in any event not for negligent stowage, is totally inapposite to the question whether pre-existing case law should be applied to cargo, where Congress has granted the carrier immunity from such liability.↑ But even if it did not, the argument appears to be drawn from the blue. ”

“ By the Harter Act, Congress supplanted the judicial view of public policy with its own ideas. The legislation, as is so often the case, represents a compromise among competing interests. The carriers were relieved of their judicially imposed insurers' liability. In return they were required to forego the possibility of avoiding by contract certain specified obligations. Finally, if those obligations were in fact performed, [13] recovery against the carrier for damages to cargo due to faulty navigation was altogether disallowed. ”

“ This refusal to make our private views of right into the legal standards for the activities of men of affairs has increasingly characterized our decisions in the vague and shifting area of agreements challenged as unenforceable because offensive to what must be deemed to be legally controlling policy. ”

“ That was a case in which recovery was sought for damage to a passenger's baggage, although the ticket contained a stipulation against the carrier's liability. The Court noted that the Harter Act immunity from liability for negligence applied only to vessels 'when engaged in the classes of carriage coming within the terms of the statute'. ”

“ Act, neglect, or default of the master, mariner, pilot, or the servants of the carrier in the navigation or in the management of the ship; * * *.'↑ The shipowners have stipulated that in this case the Esso Belgium is to bear two-thirds and the Nathaniel Bacon one-third of the total damages, although the normal admiralty rule requires an equal division of damages. Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 284, 72 S.Ct. 277, 279.↑ The clause reads as follows:↑ See, e.g., Liverpool & Great Western Steam Co. v. Phenix Ins. ”

“ Botany Worsted Mills, 1900, 179 U.S. 69, 71, 21 S.Ct. 30, 45 L.Ed. 90; New York Central R. Co. v. Lockwood, 1873, 17 Wall. 357, 21 L.Ed. 627; Boston & Maine R.R. v. Piper, 1918, 246 U.S. 439, 445, 38 S.Ct. 354, 355, 62 L.Ed. 820; The Ansaldo San Giorgio I. v. Rheinstrom Bros. ”