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Petition of Read

United States District Court, S.D. Florida
Dec 27, 1961
200 F. Supp. 504 (S.D. Fla. 1961)

Opinion

No. 2080-M.

December 27, 1961.

Sherouse, Corlett Ralph, Miami, Fla., for petitioner.

Nichols, Gaither, Beckham, Colson Spence, Miami, Fla., for Pennell.


This cause came on to be heard on claimant's motion to modify the injunction previously entered in this limitation proceeding, restraining the prosecution of claimant's claim in any court other than the limitation court. The motion presents a novel question for adjudication in that, although there is a single claimant, there are multiple owners over whom personal service cannot be obtained in a single jurisdiction. Claimant, of course, relies upon the two Green cases, Langnes v. Green, 282 U.S. 531, 51 S.Ct. 243, 75 L.Ed. 520; Ex parte Green, 286 U.S. 437, 440, 52 S.Ct. 602, 76 L.Ed. 1212; and Petition of Red Star Barge Line, Inc., 2 Cir., 160 F.2d 436, cert. den., 331 U.S. 850, 67 S.Ct. 1741, 91 L.Ed. 1859, which was a multiple owner case. However, in both the Langnes litigation and in the Red Star petition the basis of decision was that there could be only one claim against the fund. Here claimant can sue one owner in Florida and the other in Massachusetts, with the result that there may well be two judgments, either or both of which may exceed the limitation fund. As a practical matter the difficulty in apportioning the fund between two possibly widely disparate judgments would indicate the advisability of a concursus and actually takes the case out of the Langnes v. Green situation and places it among the multiple claim cases, where it is clearly the law that the injunction is not to be modified. The obvious purpose and intent of the limitation statute has often been commented upon in judicial decisions and it is not for this court to extend the exceptions created in the Langnes v. Green case. Therefore, it is upon consideration.

Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed that the motion to modify the injunction be and the same is hereby denied.


Summaries of

Petition of Read

United States District Court, S.D. Florida
Dec 27, 1961
200 F. Supp. 504 (S.D. Fla. 1961)
Case details for

Petition of Read

Case Details

Full title:Petition of L. Henry READ, Jr. and B. Devereux Barker, Jr., for…

Court:United States District Court, S.D. Florida

Date published: Dec 27, 1961

Citations

200 F. Supp. 504 (S.D. Fla. 1961)

Citing Cases

Pennell v. Read

The district court denied the motion to modify, and in an opinion noted that the question presented was novel…