Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/177/638/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 18:44:06+00:00

Document:
A bill in equity in a state court to foreclose a common law lien upon a raft for towage services is not an invasion of the exclusive admiralty jurisdiction of the district courts, but is a proceeding to enforce a common law remedy, and within the saving clause of section 583 of a remedy which the common law is competent to give.
This was a bill in equity filed in the Circuit Court for the County of Mercer, Illinois, by the defendant in error, John McCaffrey, against the Knapp, Stout & Co. Company (hereinafter called the Knapp Company), and the Schulenburg & Boeckler Lumber Company (hereinafter called the Schulenburg Company), and its assignees, to enforce a lien for towage upon a half raft of lumber then lying at Boston Bay, in Mercer County.
McCaffrey divided the raft on October 20 at Boston Bay Harbor in Mercer County, leaving one-half there while the other half was towed to St. Louis and delivered to the lumber company on November 2. The company paid the clerk of the boat $1,250 without directions as to its application, and McCaffrey applied it on the amount due him for the towage of other rafts. The steamer returned to Boston Bay the morning of November 4, and laid up outside the raft for the winter.
On the next day, November 5, the Schulenburg Company sold the half raft in Boston Bay to the Knapp Company for $15,000, part in cash and the remainder in a note due in four months, which was paid at maturity. A bill of sale was given for the lumber, and a letter written to the watchman in charge of the raft informing him of the sale. On November 9, the Schulenburg Company made a voluntary assignment in St. Louis for the benefit of creditors. McCaffrey, hearing of the assignment, offered both companies to tow the half raft to St. Louis under his contract, but the Knapp Company informed him that they did not wish him to do so, saying that they did their own towing, whereupon McCaffrey, claiming to be still in possession of the half raft and believing that the company was about to take it from him by force, filed this bill to foreclose his lien for towage. The Knapp Company gave a bond for the amount of the claim and took the raft away.
The case came on for hearing in the circuit court upon pleadings and proofs, and resulted in a decree dismissing the bill without prejudice. McCaffrey appealed to the appellate court, which reversed the decree of the circuit court and remanded the cause with directions to enter a decree for the sum of $3,643.17, with interest thereon. The Knapp Company appealed to the supreme court of the state, which affirmed the judgment of the appellate court, 178 Ill. 107, whereupon defendant sued out a writ of error from this Court.
Defendants set up in their answers and insisted, both before the appellate court and the Supreme Court of Illinois, that if plaintiff had any lien upon the raft at all for his towage services, it was a maritime lien, enforceable only in the district court of the United States as a court of admiralty. This is the only federal question presented in the case.
"that the district courts shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several states, . . . exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, . . . saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common law remedy where the common law is competent to give it."
This language is substantially repeated in subdivision 8 of Rev.Stat. § 563, wherein it is expressly stated that "such jurisdiction shall be exclusive, except in the particular cases where jurisdiction of such causes and seizures is given to the circuit courts."
The scope of the admiralty jurisdiction under these clauses was considered in a number of cases, arising not long after the district courts were established, notably so in that of De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gall. 398, wherein Mr. Justice Story brought his great learning to bear upon an exhaustive examination of all the prior authorities upon the subject both in England and in America.
"The distinguishing and characteristic feature of such suit is that the vessel or thing proceeded against is itself seized and impleaded as the defendant, and is judged and sentenced accordingly. It is this dominion of the suit in admiralty over the vessel or thing itself which gives to the title made under its decrees validity against all the world. By the common law process, whether of mesne attachment or execution, property is reached only through a personal defendant, and then only to the extent of his title. Under a sale, therefore, upon a judgment in a common law proceeding, the title acquired can never be better than that possessed by the personal defendant. It is his title, and not the property itself, which is sold."
The Court also held that the statute of California, to the extent to which it authorized actions in rem against vessels for causes of action cognizable in admiralty, invested her courts with admiralty jurisdiction, and to that extent was void.
"But the remedy pursued in the Iowa courts in the case before us is in no sense a common law remedy. It is a remedy partaking of all the essential features of an admiralty proceeding in rem. The statute provides that the vessel may be sued and made defendant without proceeding against the owners or even mentioning their names. That a writ may be issued and the vessel seized, on filing a petition similar in substance to a libel. That after a notice in the nature of a monition, the vessel may be condemned and an order made for her sale if the liability is established for which she was sued. Such is the general character of the steamboat laws of the western states."
The same principle was applied in the case of The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, to a statute of Alabama under which contracts of affreightment were authorized to be enforced in rem in the state courts by proceedings the same in form as those used in the courts of admiralty. This was also held to be unconstitutional.
The principle of these cases was restated in The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 88 U. S. 579, although the question settled by that case was that materialmen furnishing repairs and supplies to a vessel in her home port do not acquire thereby a lien upon the vessel by the general maritime law. To the same effect is The J. E. Rumbell, 148 U. S. 1, in which a lien by a state law for such repairs and supplies was given precedence of a prior mortgage. Finally, in the case of The Glide, 167 U. S. 606, it was held that the enforcement of such a lien upon a vessel, created by a statute of Massachusetts, for repairs and supplies in her home port, for which a remedy in personam may be had in admiralty, was exclusively within the admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and that the statute of Massachusetts, to the extent that it provided for a proceeding in rem, and for a sale of the vessel, was unconstitutional and void. See also Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256.
in rem to enforce such lien are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty courts.
But the converse of this proposition is equally true -- that if a lien upon a vessel be created for a claim over which a court of admiralty has no jurisdiction in any form, such lien may be enforced in the courts of the state. Thus, as the admiralty jurisdiction does not extend to a contract for building a vessel or to work done or materials furnished in its construction -- 61 U. S. v. Beers), 20 How. 393; 63 U. S. Chapman), 22 How. 129 -- we held in Edwards v. Elliott, 21 Wall. 532, that, in respect to such contracts, it was competent for the states to enact such laws as their legislatures might deem just and expedient, and to provide for their enforcement in rem. The same principle was applied in Johnson v. Chicago &c. Elevator Co., 119 U. S. 388, to a statute of Illinois giving a lien upon a vessel for damage done to a building abutting on the water, upon the ground that the court had previously held that there was no jurisdiction in admiralty for damage done by a ship to a structure affixed to the land. The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20; Ex Parte Phenix Ins. Co., 118 U. S. 610. There was really another sound reason for the decision in the fact that the suit was in personam, with an attachment given upon the property of the defendant, which, as we shall see hereafter, is quite a different case from a proceeding in rem.
To establish the proposition that the proceeding in this case was an invasion of the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty courts, defendants are bound to show, first, that the contract to tow a raft is a maritime contract; second, that the proceeding taken was a suit in rem within the cases above cited, and not within the exception of a common law remedy, which section 563 was never designed to forestall.
but for the purposes of this case, we may admit that such lien exists. But, if existing, it would not oust or supplant the common law lien dependent upon possession.
The real question is whether the proceeding taken is within the exception of "saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common law remedy where the common law is competent to give it." It was certainly not a common law action, but a suit in equity. But it will be noticed that the reservation is not of an action at common law, but of a common law remedy, and a remedy does not necessarily imply an action. A remedy is defined by Bouvier as "the means employed to enforce a right, or redress an injury." While, as stated by him, remedies for nonfulfillment of contracts are generally by action, they are by no means universally so. Thus a landlord has at common law a remedy by distress for his rent -- a right also given to him for the purpose of exacting compensation for damages resulting from the trespass of cattle. A bailee of property has a remedy for work done upon such property, or for expenses incurred in keeping it, by detention of possession. An innkeeper has a similar remedy upon the goods of his guests to the amount of his charges for their entertainment, and a carrier has a like lien upon the thing carried. There is also a common law remedy for nuisances by abatement; a right upon the part of a person assaulted to resist the assailant, even to his death; a right of recaption of goods stolen or unlawfully taken, and a public right against disturbers of the peace by compelling them to give sureties for their good behavior. All these remedies are independent of an action.
Some of the cases already cited recognize the distinction between a common law action and a common law remedy. Thus, in The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, 71 U. S. 431, it is said of the saving clause of the Judiciary Act: "It is not a remedy in the common law courts which is saved, but a common law remedy." To same effect is Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256, 154 U. S. 276.
paid is too clear for argument. We know of no reason why this principle is not applicabble to property towed as well as to property carried. While the duties of a tug to its tow are not the duties of a common carrier, it would seem that his remedy for his charges is the same, provided that the property towed be of a nature admitting of the retention of possession by the owner of the tug. But whatever might be our own opinion upon the subject, the Supreme Court of Illinois, having held that, under the laws of that state, the plaintiff had a possessory lien upon this raft, that such lien extended to so much of the raft as was retained in his possession, for the entire bill, and that, under the facts of this case, plaintiff did have possession of the half raft until he surrendered it under order of the court for its release upon bond given, we should defer to the opinion of that court in these particulars, as they are local questions dependent upon the law of the particular state.
defendant disputed McCaffrey's lien and right of possession to the raft, and announced its intention of towing it to St. Louis itself. It was in a position where it might have been taken away by a superior force unless the plaintiff incurred the expense of employing a gang of men to watch it. Under such circumstances, it was not only natural but just that he should have applied to a court of equity for relief in the enforcement of his common law remedy.
"They brought their suits in the state courts against the owner of the schooner, as they had a right to do, and, having obtained judgment against the defendant, they might levy their execution upon any property belonging to him, not exempted from taxes or execution, which was situated in that jurisdiction."
held to be unsound. So also in Schoonmaker v. Gilmore, 102 U. S. 118, it was held that courts of admiralty had no exclusive jurisdiction of suits in personam growing out of collisions.
"There being no lien on the tug by the maritime law for the injury on land inflicted in this case, the state could create such a lien therefor as it deemed expedient, and could enact reasonable rules for its enforcement not amounting to a regulation of commerce."
It would seem that even if the suit had been in rem against the vessel, it would have been sustained, as the injury was not one for which an action would have lain in admiralty.
amount. It resembles a decree in rem only in the fact that the property covered by the lien was ordered to be sold. Such sale, however, would pass the property subject to prior liens, while a sale in rem in admiralty is a complete divestiture of such liens, and carries a free and unencumbered title to the property, the holders of such liens being remitted to the funds in the registry which are substituted for the vessel. The Helena, 4 C.Rob.Ad. 3.
The true distinction between such proceedings as are and such as are not invasions of the exclusive admiralty jurisdiction is this: if the cause of action be one cognizable in admiralty, and the suit be in rem against the thing itself, though a monition be also issued to the owner, the proceeding is essentially one in admiralty. If, upon the other hand, the cause of action be not one of which a court of admiralty has jurisdiction, or if the suit be in personam against an individual defendant, with an auxiliary attachment against a particular thing or against the property of the defendant in general, it is essentially a proceeding according to the course of the common law, and within the saving clause of the statute (sec. 563) of a common law remedy. The suit in this case being one in equity to enforce a common law remedy, the state courts were correct in assuming jurisdiction.

References: § 563
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