Opinion
January 10, 1957
Appeal from the Municipal Court of the City of New York, Borough of Manhattan, THOMAS C. CHIMERA, J.
Richard Gyory for appellants.
Francis I. Fallon for respondent.
The finding of the court below that the causes of action arose in California at the time of the discharge of the plaintiffs when they left the vessel and applying the four-year California Statute of Limitations, pursuant to section 13 of the Civil Practice Act, was error. The combination of circumstances giving rise to the right to sue and where the crucial combination of events transpired or where they arose would be the ports of New York, New York, Boston, Massachusetts and Mobile, Alabama, which are the ports of sign-on and beginning and termination of the voyages and set the rights of the parties. It is therefore the limitation of six years applicable in New York, Alabama and Massachusetts which governs and not that of California ( Cope v. Anderson, 331 U.S. 461).
The judgments should be reversed, with $30 costs as of one appeal, and judgments directed in favor of plaintiffs-appellants in the amounts specified in the stipulation of facts between the parties, dated May 4, 1955, with costs.
HOFSTADTER, AURELIO and TILZER, JJ., concur.
Judgments reversed, etc.