Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Wherever in theory of law the technical possession may have been, we do not perceive why the charterer should be denied full damages upon the express contract when its liability over also was determined by contract exactly as was expected. The ground upon which bailees have been allowed to recover the full value of goods from wrongdoers has been stated for centuries to be their liability over. ”

“ On the proposition that the petitioner is entitled to limit his liability under the act of 1884 it is urged that the act is an absolute limit, irrespective of privity or knowledge, in regard to contracts as well as torts, and that this contract, if it bound the petitioner at all, did so only as an indirect result of its execution. ”

“ The petitioner signed the charter with the name Pendleton Brothers, which included himself, and apart from the fact that although described as agents the Pendleton brothers purport to be contracting parties, if we look only to the principals the petitioner was one of them as part owner of the vessel. The contract was between human beings and the petitioner by his own act knowingly made himself a party to an express undertaking for the seaworthiness of the ship. That the statute does not limit liability for the personal acts of the owners done with knowledge is established by Richardson v. ”