Greenwood et al. v. Town of Westport.

United States." In Edgerton v. The Mayor, 27 Fed. Rep., 230, Judge BROWN, upon a careful consideration of the same question, held the city of New York liable for negligence in operating a draw in a bridge across the Harlem river. He held, citing several cases, that, by undertaking to manage the draw, the state and city had recognized the right of vessels to pass through without any appeal to the national authorities to protect that right, and that the city was, therefore, responsible for negligence therein. And, in Hill v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of Essex County, 45 Fed. Rep., 260, Judge GREEN, sustaining the jurisdiction of admiralty over a claim for damages for negligence in the management of a drawbridge, declares that the action therefor is based upon a maritime tort, of which courts of admiralty have plenary jurisdiction. The same general rule of obligation and liability, is laid down, in Weisenberg v. Winneconne, supra, by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Where municipal corporations control drawbridges, they must furnish a reasonably safe passageway for vessels, and are responsible for damages coming from a neglect of this duty. Jones on Negligence of Municipal Corporations, § 123. The duty of maintaining a drawbridge over navigable waters, includes the obligation to properly provide for the safe passage of vessels through the draw. 2 Amer. & Eng. Encyc. Law, 594. In the case of Wiggins v. Boddington, 3 Car. & Payne, 544, cited by the Circuit Court of Appeals, in Pa. R. R. Co. v. Cent. R. R. Co., supra, the bridge was erected in pursuance of the acts of Parliament, and the corporation was established for the express purpose of improving the port of London, but the rule of liability for negligence was the same as that applied by the Circuit Court of Appeals in the above case, and which, it seems to me, should be applied herein.

It is finally to be borne in mind that, in actions for torts arising from negligence, courts of admiralty have not circumscribed themselves within the positive boundaries of mere municipal law, but have proceeded in regard to questions of damages, upon enlarged principles of equity and justice. Thus, in cases of mutual fault, the damages may

Greenwood et al. v. Town of Westport.

be divided. And this amelioration of the common law rule is no longer limited to cases of collision, but is applicable to all cases of marine torts founded upon negligence, and prosecuted in admiralty. The Max Morris, 137 U. S., 1. When a party elects to bring his suit in the admiralty court, he is bound by the rules and course of proceedings, and is entitled to the remedies applied in that forum, including its rules for estimating damages. Atlee v. Packet Co., 21 Wall., 339; The Max Morris, supra. If a court of admiralty can thus enforce its rules of damages so as to authorize a recovery when justice requires it, although no such right of recovery exists at common law, I see no reason why it should not enforce its rule of liability in accordance with enlarged principles of justice, in a case like the present.

In view of the foregoing considerations, it seems to me that the town is liable. The libel may be amended in conformity with the facts herein found. Let the case be referred to a commissioner to find the damages and report, in accordance with the ordinary rules in such cases.

APPENDIX.

OBITUARY SKETCH OF DWIGHT W. PARDEE.

DWIGHT WHITEFIELD PARDEE, Ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of this state, died at Hartford, where he resided, on the sixth day of October, 1893, in the seventy-second year of his age.

He was born in Bristol in this state in 1822, and was the son of Jared W. Pardee, a prominent physician in that part of the state. At the age of fourteen he entered Trinity College at Hartford, graduating in 1840. After graduation he pursued a course of legal study, in part with Hon. Isaac Toucey, afterwards Attorney-General of the United States, and in part at the Yale Law School, and on being admitted to the bar settled in the city of Hartford, being for a while in partnership with Mr. Toucey. In 1863 he was elected a judge of the Superior Court, and in 1873 of the Supreme Court. In the latter court he served two terms of eight years each, retiring at the end of his second term in the sixty-eighth year of his age. While at the bar he was elected for two successive years to the state senate from the Hartford District. In 1878 Trinity College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Judge Pardee had in a high degree the judicial faculty. He was never embarrassed by the complicated facts that overweight so many of the cases that go to our higher courts. He was able to precipitate, as by the touch of an alchemist, the questions of law which they held in solution. With a quickness of apprehension, often thought incompatible with a proper judicial deliberativeness, he had a remarkable soundness of practical judgment and a great sense of justice. Though never led astray by any fondness for speculation, he had a rare faculty of dealing with novel questions and exploring new regions of legal inquiry. He had less book-learning than some less able judges, but had a clear comprehension of legal principles and a thorough mastery of the law as a science. His opinions are written in language of great condensation and vigor, often epigrammatic and quaint in its incisiveness and point, always clear, always freighted with meaning, and, without being in the slightest degree ambitious or inclined to be ornate, yet of a high literary quality. No verbiage ever burdened anything which he wrote or uttered; no weak word or thought ever came from his lips or his pen.

He was a very modest man and of a retiring disposition. He rarely appeared upon a public platform or took an active part in public meetings. This was true of his early years at the bar as well as of his later

Obituary Sketch of Dwight W. Pardee.

on the bench. He was quiet in his demeanor, not at all self-assertive or demonstrative, positive in his views but never aggressive in declaring them, a shrewd and intelligent observer of public men and public affairs, but keeping his comments, sometimes caustic, always keen and racy, for private conversation. He had a fine sense of humor and was often a witty contributor to the entertainment of a dinner party or a circle of friends, but it was generally by way of reply to the remarks of others and upon the suggestion of the moment. He was never a talker in the ordinary sense of the word.

Judge Pardee was a man of the highest moral tone. No one ever imputed to him an unworthy motive. He was a man of absolute and most scrupulous integrity and had the unlimited confidence of the public as such. He was a liberal giver to worthy charities; his gifts, often large, being made where practicable in a way to avoid public observation. No man could be more free from ostentation or pretense; none of plainer or simpler habits.

He was tall and slender, and in the later years of his life his abundant hair and beard, whitened by age, gave him a striking appearance upon the bench and in the street. His dark eye was one of remarkable richness and depth.

He was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church, and a faithful and devout attendant upon its religious services. At the time of his death he was senior warden of St. John's Parish in Hartford. He took great interest in Trinity College and was for many years one of its trustees, and made it the ultimate legatee of a large part of his estate.

Judge Pardee was married in 1847 to Miss Henrietta Porter, daughter of Solomon Porter, for many years one of the prominent citizens of Hartford. She died in 1863. Their only child had died a short time before. He never married again. His family consisted for the rest of his life of his two unmarried sisters, with later a sister who was a widow. The three sisters survive him and in his death have sustained an overwhelming affliction.

The death of Judge Pardee gave to the whole community a sense of loss, but to the writer of this imperfect sketch of him it brought a great personal bereavement and sorrow. We had been pleasantly acquainted from our early manhood as brethren at the Hartford bar, with a high esteem for him on my part, but during the sixteen years that he was a member of the Supreme Court, I being then its reporter, there grew up between us a very fond friendship. To no one, outside of my own family, did I look for companionship in my declining years so much as to him. It is with a sense almost of desolation that I think of his returnless absence. And it is among my pleasantest thoughts that we shall soon meet in a renewed and abiding companionship. J. H.

Obituary Sketch of Edward I. Sanford.

OBITUARY SKETCH OF EDWARD I. SANFORD.*

EDWARD ISAAC SANFORD was born in New Haven on the 4th day of July, 1826.

He came of the original stock of Connecticut. On the side of his father, a much esteemed and successful merchant of New Haven, he was lineally descended from Thomas Sanford, one of the early settlers of Milford. On the side of his mother, Susan Howell Sanford, he was one of the Howells, a very old and respectable family of New Haven. His personal characteristics were such as might naturally have been inherited from such an ancestry.

His preliminary education was obtained chiefly in the Fairfield Academy at Fairfield and in the Hopkins Grammer School of New Haven where he was fitted for college. He entered Yale College in 1843, and graduated there in 1847. He then immediately joined the Yale Law School where, after studying law for two years, he graduated with the degree of LL. B. in 1849. After spending some time in the office of Henry White, Esq., in further study under his direction, he opened an office for himself in New Haven and entered upon the practice of law. Meanwhile on the 19th of June, 1849, he had married Miss Sarah Jane Lyon, daughter of Hanford Lyon, Esq., of Bridgeport. With one son and one daughter she has survived her husband.

Although he devoted himself assiduously to his profession without aiming at distinctions outside of it he soon attracted, and steadily thereafter maintained and increased, the favorable regard of his fellow citizens who from time to time called him to the discharge of public duties. In 1853 he was elected member of the Common Council of New Haven. From 1858 to 1860, and again from 1863 to 1866, he was Judge (then styled Recorder) of the City Court of that City. The dignity and ability with which he administered his office-especially in the exercise of the limited, but still considerable, criminal jurisdiction which was conferred upon his Court during the latter part of his term-are still remembered with great respect by those lawyers of the present day who then practiced before him.

In 1864, and again in 1865, he was elected as member of the Senate of this state from the district (then the 4th District) including New Haven.

In the latter part of 1868 and the early part of 1869 he was an instructor in the Yale Law School, and rendered valuable service in securing that reorganization of the school which led to its present great and growing prosperity.

* Prepared at the request of the Reporter by Hon. Henry B. Harrison, of the New Haven bar.

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