Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Henderson v. United States


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to William Bell, No. 24. Consensus here is to redirect this page to another article. Liz Read! Talk! 20:54, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Joseph Henderson v. United States

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Article is almost entirely written based of court transcriptions and appears to be a run of the mill court case. Articles should be based on secondary sources. I see no indication this case was of precedential value or influential as I am not finding it cited in other cases or reviews. Graywalls (talk) 01:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC) Keep! The Significance of this article is in a secondary source cited in the article itself. Professor Hardin Craig, Jr., praised the decision of the Alabama Claims to compensate the pilots in his article, The William Bell, A New York Pilot Boat, saying that: "Her owners later filed claims for compensation on the strength of the Alabama Claims award; of concern to this study, however, it is not so much the recovery of damages as the information about New York pilotage in general, and of one typical boat in particular, which was brought out in the course of the testimony." He goes on to say that "To make good their claims, the owners had to show in detail what they had paid for their vessel and for the replacement, as well as a statement about their earnings." Greg Henderson (talk) 05:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Law, Military, Transportation, United Kingdom,  and United States of America. Graywalls (talk) 01:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to William Bell, No. 24. It looks like the case hasn't received much coverage outside of a short mention in Craig's article about the William Bell, so it doesn't seem to meet the GNG. That said, since it's already briefly discussed in the William Bell article, redirecting there seems like a fine alternative to deletion. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Extraordinary Writ. Despite Craig's article, I'm not getting why this case is significant.  As Graywalls pointed out, it set no precedent and influenced nothing.  It's a regular wartime compensation claim, of which there must have been thousands.  The quote from Craig puts significance on the case, not for the case per se, but because it gives him information on pilot boats of the era.  In other words, it is adding to the notability of pilot boat, not to the notability of the court case. SpinningSpark 19:25, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Rebuttal The court case is significant in that it (a) explains how certain Sandy Hook Pilots attempted to receive compensation for their Pilot boat that was captured and burned by a famous Confederate raiding steamer the CSS Tallahassee during the American Civil War; and (b) how Henderson and Callahan petitioned the United States, via the Alabama Claims award, for compensation of their loss and won what would be today $543,807, a significant amount of money in those days; (c) in the case, Callahan was asked to recount the capture of the William Bell and the Confederate officer John Taylor Wood, captain of the CSS Tallahassee; (d) an ecylopedia should provide historical information, with primary and seconday sources, that links this case with the William Bell, Sandy Hook Pilots, and the Civil War. Greg Henderson (talk) 23:02, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Objection "significant amount of money in those days" is not a ground for notability. There is no monetary amount (either in dollar amount or inflation adjusted money amount) which qualifies a mundane event into a notable event. If $500,000 in compensable loss was notable, Wikipedia would be absolutely littered with articles about personal injury and death claims and property loss claims citing only court documents, local papers and obituaries. The existence of a stand-alone article for a mundane case like this is absurd. Also, a simple listing of town's happenings, death rosters, court filing rosters, marriage rosters do not become "secondary" just by the virtue of being printed in the paper. Graywalls (talk) 20:36, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  01:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Merge/redirect The above rebuttal is an explanation of the case but it doesn't really show why the case was significant or notable. Plenty of individual court cases involve large sums of money, but I see no reason this can't be covered in the main article(s). Reywas92Talk 01:25, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect as discussed. If this was mentioned in law journals, I'd be more inclined to keep it. Appears just another routine court case. Oaktree b (talk) 02:43, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to William Bell, No. 24, per Graywalls, Extraordinary Writ, Reywas92, and Oaktree b. A standalone page is unwarranted, fails WP:SIGCOV. Sal2100 (talk) 23:54, 22 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.