SS La Bourgogne was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) ocean liner and mail ship that was launched in France in 1886 and sank in the North Atlantic in 1898, killing 562 of the 725 people aboard.

Claims continued until 1908, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that although La Bourgogne's excessive speed caused the collision, CGT was not at fault.

In 1885 and 1886 the CGT took delivery of a class of four new ocean liners.They were for its transatlantic route between Le Havre and New York, which the French Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs subsidised to provide a mail service.

[4] La Bourgogne's notable passengers included St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in 1889, Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Corrigan in 1890, organist Alexandre Guilmant and writer Aleko Konstantinov in 1893, and actress Georgia Cayvan in 1894.

[10][11][12] In 1889 the ship brought Jean-François Millet's oil painting The Angelus across the Atlantic for the American Art Association to exhibit throughout the USA.

[14] On a westbound crossing in January 1890 La Bourgogne collided in a gale in the English Channel with the British cargo steamship Torridon.

[15] On an eastbound crossing on 10 February 1896 La Bourgogne collided with the French steamship Tigre in Havre Roads in heavy fog.

[17] Atlas had left her pier in the North River at noon, but ran into fog, so at about 13:00 hrs she anchored off Fort Wadsworth to wait for it to clear.

[21] On 21 August a commercial maritime court at Cherbourg, France exonerated La Bourgogne's Master, finding that the collision was a "peril of the sea".

[32] Two days later La Bourgogne ran into dense fog off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, reducing visibility to about 20 yards (18 metres), but maintained high speed.

Early on the morning of 4 July she was sailing through fog, about 60 nautical miles (110 km) off Cape Sable Island, Newfoundland, sounding her foghorn every minute.

[35] Captain Deloncle set course for Cape Sable Island, but La Bourgogne lost steam, rendering her unable to work her main pumps.

La Bourgogne's starboard lifeboats and some liferafts were launched, but survivors alleged that the liner's officers were ineffective, and the ratings sought to save themselves rather than the passengers.

CGT claimed that the Chief Officer commanded starboard boat number 7, which was full of women and children, and was successfully launched, but was then crushed by one of the ship's two funnels falling upon it.

Nyffeler alleged that as the ship listed, and passengers and crew made for the lifeboats, Deloncle "had evidently lost his head, and was walking up and down the bridge screaming and swearing".

[35] Two clergy were also killed:[35] the Roman Catholic Father Anthony Kesseler of New York,[42] and the Armenian Apostolic Church priest Stepan Der Stepanian with his wife and three children.

Louis Deloncle... used to boast of his skill in manoeuvring a ship, which, to judge from the accounts of his own friends and his surviving brother, principally consisted in threatening to run down any vessel that came in his way.

In other words, "I mean to pass or I will fire," was the remark he made when navigating the Normandie through the crush of vessels at the great naval review held last year at Portsmouth in honor of the Queen's jubilee.

[46] On 22 August the Master of the Hamburg America Line steamship Christiania reported passing two bloated bodies floating face down at position 43°N 60°W / 43°N 60°W / 43; -60.

They found that La Bourgogne was not following the sea lane indicated on the nautical chart for that part of the North Atlantic, and was steaming at great speed.

Further, the panel reported that "many of the principal steamship companies do not follow the routes laid down and assented to by all the parties in interest and apparent good faith.

On 9 August 1898 Francis Jeune, President of the Admiralty Division, ruled that the English court has jurisdiction, and he rejected CGT's plea.

[55] On 28 June 1899 a court in Paris awarded FF 100,000 damages to a Madame Resal for the death of her husband aboard La Bourgogne.

[57] On 22 March 1900, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago dismissed the lawsuit of Charles Rundell against CGT.

Judges Woods, Allen, and Bunn found that it was not shown that Rundell had died on La Bourgogne, and that a US District Court cannot enforce the law of France.

[60] In April 1901, claimants asked the District Court to order CGT to provide as evidence La Bourgogne's logbooks for the two years prior to the sinking, and of any other log books from that period for ships on the same route of which Deloncle was Master at the time.

Townsend found that CGT had provided the correct regulations for its ships to reduce speed in fog, and it was not the company's fault that La Bourgogne had failed to do so.

On 29 March 1901 his German relatives in Stalluponen, East Prussia (now Nesterov in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia), retained counsel to claim his estate.

[69] The Supreme Court considered whether, despite its published regulations, CGT in fact encouraged or tolerated its ships steaming at excessive speed in fog.

The Supreme Court considered at length whether the contract encouraged masters and officers to maintain excessive speed in fog, and if so, whether CGT knew about it, and was therefore liable.