Suffice it to say that it was an agent only, and no liability attaches. The source of the obligation sought to be charged by the plaintiff against Matrad Corporation, doubling as agent for the shipper and Sparti Shipping Company, is not clear. As an alternative, Teseo also claims reimbursement for any damages decreed against it from the third-party defendant, Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc., the owner and unloader of the bauxite at Port Comfort, Texas.Īlcoa Steamship Company, Inc., which had voyage chartered the M/V ADONIS for the carriage of the bauxite from Jamaica to Port Comfort, where it was discharged August 10, 1969, contends that its duty, if any, sounds in contract with Teseo, and that it owes no other duty to any of these parties that whatever minor damage which may have occurred to the fuel oil sounding tube was reported to it by the Adonis, was repaired and these repairs were accepted by the M/V ADONIS.

Further, it claims that the alleged injury to the sounding tube at Port Comfort was unknown to Teseo, and that repairs satisfactory to the M/V ADONIS were accomplished and accepted by the M/V ADONIS.

It seeks complete indemnity from Adonis for any liability, if any, found against Teseo, on grounds that Adonis owed it the duty, under express warranty, to furnish a staunch, tight, seaworthy vessel, and this the M/V ADONIS was not. Teseo Steamship denies negligence or any warranty due Southern Block. Secondly, it would lay the liability on Teseo Steamship Corporation, time charterer of the vessel at the time the errant sounding tube was damaged during unloading of a cargo of bauxite at Port Comfort, Texas, several months earlier. First, it says that Southern Block failed to mitigate its damages and cites the manner in which it unloaded the damaged cargo. The M/V ADONIS' owner, Adonia Compania Naviera, S.A., seeks refuge in two claims. Southern Block sues to recover for the damaged pumice, for the cost of special handling and disposal, for the production and disposition of the spoiled blocks and for the costs of segregating the contaminated material. Additionally, it was found that many blocks had been inadvertently manufactured from the contaminated pumice and could not be sold on the regular market. Three days later it was discovered that other adulterated pumice had been unloaded onto the reserve stockpile, spreading the contamination there. This damaged pumice was off-loaded into trucks and disposed of. 5 hold had leaked and a considerable part of the cargo had been damaged and was unusable. In consequence of certain contracts, M/V ADONIS, owned by Adonis Compania Naviera, S.A., delivered crushed pumice to Southern Block and Pipe Corporation, at Norfolk, Virginia.Īs the unloading process was being concluded, it was found that a fractured fuel oil tank sounding tube in the No.

Winston, Norfolk, Va., for Sparti Shipping Company and Matrad Corporation, defendants. Furr, Norfolk, Va., for Teseo Steamship Corporation, defendant. *880 Braden Vandeventer, Norfolk, Va., for M/V Adonis, etc., and Adonis Compania Naviera, S. M/V ADONIS, her engines, boilers, etc., et al., Defendants,ĪLCOA STEAMSHIP COMPANY, Inc., Third-Party Defendant. SOUTHERN BLOCK AND PIPE CORPORATION, Plaintiff,

Southern block