DocketNumber： 34
Citation Numbers： 195 U.S. 361, 25 S. Ct. 46, 49 L. Ed. 236, 1904 U.S. LEXIS 725
Judges： Brown, Holmes
Filed Date： 11/28/1904
Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 10/19/2024
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an appeal from the District Court on the question of jurisdiction, which is certified. The case is a libel in rem against a British .vessel for the destruction of a beacon, Number 7, Mobile ship-channel lights, caused by the alleged negligent running into the beacon by the vessel. The beacon stood fifteen or twenty feet from the channel of Mobile river, or bay, in water twelve or fifteen feet- deep, and was built on piles driven firmly into the bottom. There is no question that it was attached to the realty and that it was a part of it by the ordinary criteria of the common law. On this ground the District Court declined jurisdiction and dismissed the libel. The Blackheath, 122 Fed. Rep. 112.
In .The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, where a libel was brought by the owners of a wharf burned by a fire negligently started on a vessel, the jurisdiction was denied by this court. See also Ex parte Phœnix Ins. Co., 118 U. S. 610. In two later cases there-are dicta denying the jurisdiction equally when a building on shore is damaged by a vessel running into it. Johnson v. Chicago and Pacific Elevator Co., 119 U. S. 388; Homer Ramsdell Transportation Co. v. La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, 182 U. S. 406, 411. And there are a number of decisions of District and other courts since The Plymouth, which more or less accord with the conclusion of the court below. 62 C. C. A. 287, 290. It would be simple, if simplicity were the only thing to be considered, to confine the admiralty jurisdiction, in respect of damage to property, to damage done to property afloat. That distinction sounds like a logical-consequence of the rule determining the admiralty cognizance of torts by place.
On the other hand, it would'be a strong thing to say that Congress has no constitutional power to give the admiralty
The precise scope of admiralty jurisdiction is not a matter of obvious principle or of vely'accurate history. As to principle, it is clear that if the beacon had been in fault and had hurt the ship a libel could have been maintained against a private owner, although not in rem. Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore R. R. v. Philadelphia & Havre de Grace Steam Towboat Co., 23 How. 209; Atlee v. Packet Co., 21 Wall. 389; Panama Railroad v. Napier Shipping Co., 166 U. S. 280. Compare The Rock Island Bridge, 6 Wall. 213. But, as has been suggested, there seems to be no reason why the fact that the injured property was afloat should have more weight in determining the jurisdiction thaiy the fact that the cause of the injury was. The Arkansas, 17 Fed. Rep. 383, 387; The F. & P. M. No. 2, 33 Fed. Rep. 511, 515; Hughes, Adm. 183. And again it seems more arbitrary than rational to treat attachment to the soil as a peremptory bar outweighing the considerations that the injured thing was an instrument of navigation and no part of the shore, but surrounded on every side by water, a mere point projecting from the sea.
As to history, while as is well known the admiralty jurisdiction of this country has not been limited by the local traditions of England, The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 574, et seq., the traditions of England favor it in a case like this. The admiral’s authority was not excluded by attachment even to the main shore. From before the time of Rowghton’s Articles he could hold inquest over nuisances there to naviga
What the early law seems most to have looked to as fixing the liability of the ship was the motion of the vessel, which was treated as giving it the character of a responsible cause,. Bracton recognizes this as an extravagance, but admits the fact, for the commdn law. 122a, 136b. 1 Select Pleas of the Crown, 1 Seld. Soc. Pub. 84. The same was true in the admiralty. Rowghton, ubi sup. art. 50; 2 Rot. Parl. 345, 346, 372a, b; 3 Rot. Parl. 94a, 120b, 121a; 4 Rot Parl. 12a, b, 492b, 493. The responsibility of the moving cause took the form of deodand when it occasioned death, like the steam engine in Regina v. Eastern Counties Ry., 10 M. & W. 58, and innum
The foregoing references seem to us enough to ..show that to maintain jurisdiction in this case is no innovation even upon the old English- law. But a very little history is sufficient to justify the conclusion that the Constitution does not prohibit what convenience and reason demand.
In the case of The Plymouth there was nothing maritime in the nature of the tort for which the vessel was attached. The fact that the fire originated on a vessel gave no character to the result, and that circumstance is.mentioned in the judgment of the court, and is contrasted with collision, although the consideration is not adhered to as the sole ground for the decree. It has' been given weight in other cases. Campbell v. H. Hackfeld & Co., 62 C. C. A. 274; The Queen v. Judge of City of London Court, [1892] 1 Q. B. 273, 294; Benedict, Admiralty, 3d ed. § 308. Moreover, the .damage was done wholly upon the mainland. It never has been decided that every fixture in the midst of the sea was governed by the same rule. The contrary has been supposed in some American cases, The Arkansas, 17 Fed. Rep. 383, 387; The F. & P. M. No. 2, 33 Fed. Rep. 511, 515, and is indicated by the English books cited above. It is unnecessary to determine the relative weight of the different elements of distinction between The Plymouth arid the ease at bar. It is enough to say that we now are dealing with an injury to a government aid to navigation from ancient times subject to the admiralty, a beacon emerging from the water, injured by the motion of the vessel, by a continuous act beginning and consummated rnpon navigable water, and giving character to the effects upon a point which is only technically land, through a connection at the bottom of the sea. In such a case jurisdiction may be taken without transcending the limits of the Constitution or en
Decree reversed.