Case Citator › The Schooner Catharine v. Dickinson

The Schooner Catharine v. Dickinson

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
58 U.S. 170
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
13 of 13
Citing cases (total)
13
Treatment dates
1975
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. The Schooner Catharine v. Dickinson was overruled in part. The Supreme Court replaced its rule dividing property damage equally between vessels at fault with allocation according to comparative fault whenever that fault can fairly be measured.
More on how this was screened

The opinion's other rulings on repair costs and navigation were outside that change. All 13 flagged citations have been read, and the confirmed treatment is listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

13 later cases cite The Schooner Catharine v. Dickinson; 13 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

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Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The Supreme Court replaced Catharine's equal division rule for maritime collision damage with allocation according to comparative fault.

    United States v. Reliable Transfer Co. · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    The rule of divided damages in admiralty has continued to prevail in this country by sheer inertia rather than by reason of any intrinsic merit. The reasons that originally led to the Court’s adoption of the rule have long since disappeared. The rule has been repeatedly criticized by experienced federal judges who have correctly pointed out that the result it works has too often been precisely the opposite of what the Court sought to achieve in The Schooner Catharine — the “just and equitable” allocation of damages. And worldwide experience has taught that that goal can be more nearly realized by a standard that allocates liability for damages according to comparative fault whenever possible. We hold that when two or more parties have contributed by their fault to cause property damage in a maritime collision or stranding, liability for such damage is to be allocated among the parties proportionately to the comparative degree of their fault, and that liability for such damages is to be allocated equally only when the parties are equally at fault or when it is not possible fairly to measure the comparative degree of their fault.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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