John Pitman
How Judge Pitman rules, drawn from 1 signed order. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Pitman decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Pitman placed the initial burden on a party asserting that an apparently abandoned vessel's crew intended to return.
“those who set up the intention of returning in eases of abandonment, prima facie, are bound to give some evidence of this intention.”
He accepted destruction of part of a wreck when the evidence showed that the salvors acted to preserve the more valuable property for everyone with an interest in it.
“The sacrifice of the less to the greater was the part of prudence and propriety.”
Procedural preferences
After setting the salvage percentage and distribution formula, Pitman referred the arithmetic to the clerk for a report and decree.
“I shall refer it to the clerk of this court, to ascertain and report the amount of salvage due to each party as above stated, and the decree will be drawn up accordingly.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Considering, however, the small amount of property saved, compared with the labor and services rendered, I have felt constrained to exceed the maximum usually allowed in cases of derelict, so far as to allow three-fifths, after deducting the duties, being a little more than a moiety of the gross amount.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
No case-level electronic docket record survives in the reviewed archive for Pitman's tenure, so no caseload mix, duration, or motion-timing summary is available.
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