Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/88/532/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:00:33+00:00

Document:
2. Where a record brought regularly to this Court on a writ of error and appeal bond which operate as a supersedeas shows a judgment quite intelligible and possible, and where a return to a certiorari issued, without prejudice, long after the transcript was filed here and not long before the case was heard, showed that that judgment had been set aside as improvidently entered and that one with alterations of a very material character had been substituted for it, this Court held "under the circumstances" that the first judgment was the one which it was called on to reexamine.
3. An assignment of error in the highest court of a state to the decision of an inferior state court that the latter had decided a particular state statute "valid and constitutional," and a judgment entry by the latter court that the statute was not "in any respect repugnant to the Constitution of the United States," is not specific enough to give jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of the United Staten under section 709 of the Revised Statutes, there being nothing else anywhere in the record to show to which provision of the Constitution of the United States the statute was alleged to be repugnant.
"that the contract for building the vessel in question was not a maritime contract, and that the remedy given by the lien law of the state did not conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States,"
the Court held that the latter statement, in view of the whole record, was sufficient to give this Court jurisdiction.
5. A maritime lien does not arise on a contract to furnish materials for the purpose of building a ship, and in respect to such contracts, it is competent for the states to create such liens as their legislatures may deem just and expedient, not amounting to a regulation of commerce, and to enact reasonable rules and regulations prescribing the mode of their enforcement if not inconsistent with the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty courts.
to every party the right to trial by jury where the amount in controversy exceeds $20 does not apply to trials in state courts.
7. Matters not presented to nor decided by the court below are not assignable for error here.
"The judicial power [of the United States] shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction."
"SECTION 9. That the district courts [of the United States] shall have 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."
upon the bond alleging their claims and averring them to be subsisting liens; and that if no such bond is given, proceedings may be taken as provided in the act for the sale of the vessel, or such part of her tackle &c., as shall be sufficient to pay the claims.
This statute of New Jersey being on its statute book, an article of agreement was made November 3, 1866, between Henry Jeroleman of the first part, and a certain Hasbrook, and several others of the second, for building a schooner of specified dimensions for the consideration of $54 per ton, the builder to furnish all labor and materials and deliver the vessel. The whole price, at the said rate per ton, was to be about $21,000, and the payments were to be made by Hasbrook and the others at stated times during the progress of the work, as $2,500 when the keel was laid, $3,000 when the frame was up, $3,500 when ceiled, and decks laid; $3500 when outside planks were on and squared off; $3,500 when the poop deck was on, $2,000 when ready for launching, and the balance when delivered according to contract. And it was agreed that as the said several installments were paid, the schooner, so far as then constructed, and the materials therein inserted, should be and become the property of Hasbrook and the others.
The schooner was built at East Newark, New Jersey. Two persons, one named Elliott and the other Ripley, furnished timber for the vessel, and on the 19th of June, 1867, alleging that they had not been paid for their timber, they caused her to be seized by the sheriff under the already quoted statute of New Jersey, the vessel, at the time of this seizure, being unfinished, on the stocks, and neither named, enrolled, licensed, or provided with a crew or master. Elliott had furnished his timber in November, 1866, and Ripley his between January 15 and May 10, 1867.
On the 24th of June, 1867 -- and therefore after Elliott and Ripley had furnished the timber to Jeroleman -- Jeroleman assigned the contract giving him the right to build the vessel to one Edwards, by whom the vessel was finished.
bond to Elliott and Ripley, in the manner prescribed by the New Jersey statute when a liberation of a vessel from seizure is desired, and the vessel was discharged from the seizure.
Jeroleman had been paid more than the original contract price, but the time when any payments had been made to him did not appear, nor any fact upon which an appropriation of payment could be founded.
The vessel being discharged from the seizures, Elliott and Ripley brought suit in the Supreme Court of New Jersey against Edwards on the bond, the declaration alleging that the debt was contracted in building the vessel, and that the lien was put upon her while she was yet on the stocks unfinished. The action was debt, and the declaration was in the usual form.
any new remedy which the legislature might provide -- the statute was pro tanto valid.
The counsel in this Court stated that after this opinion, the demurrer was withdrawn.
"2. Nil debet as to Elliott."
"3. Nil debet as to Ripley."
"4. Claim of Elliott not a subsisting lien."
"5. Claim of Ripley not a subsisting lien."
"6. That Jeroleman, who built the vessel, was not owner or agent."
"7. That the debts were not contracted by any owner, agent, or consignee."
And that on issues to these pleas the case was tried.
The facts of the case, as already given, were found by a special verdict.
One question in the case obviously was the question, much agitated in England and here -- namely whether in the case of an executory contract to build a vessel to be paid for by installments as the work progresses, the title remains in the builder until the work is completed and delivered, or whether the title passes to the person for whom the vessel is to be built; in other words, whether in such a case the contract is one for work and materials or one for sale.
were furnished, and, therefore, was not competent to charge it with liens; and consequently the defendants were not liable on their bond, which took the vessel's place.
The Supreme Court was of the opinion that the builder was, on general principles, to be regarded as owner; that the final clause divested his title, on the payments of the money; that the burden lay upon the claimants of the vessel -- who were the obligors in the bond -- to show the time of these payments or some fact upon which an appropriation of payment could be founded, and as they had not shown either, that therefore, in law, the builder (Jeroleman) was to be regarded as the owner when the materials were delivered, and accordingly that debts contracted by him did become liens.
Judgment accordingly went for the plaintiffs, and the case was taken by the defendants from the Supreme Court of New Jersey to what in that state is a still higher court, the Court of Errors and Appeals.
"1. That the Supreme Court held the Act of March 20, 1857, valid and constitutional."
"2. That the said court decided that Jeroleman, the builder of said vessel, was the owner thereof and competent to charge it with liens."
"3. That the said court adjudged that the respective claims of the plaintiffs were subsisting liens, under the laws of the State of New Jersey, on the vessel, at the time of exhibiting the same."
"This case coming on to be heard in the Court of Errors and Appeals, and the said court being of opinion:"
steamboats, and other vessels,' approved March 20, 1857, is not in any respect repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States, as contended for by the plaintiffs in error, but is in every respect valid and constitutional, and,"
"That Henry Jeroleman, the builder of the said vessel, was the owner thereof and competent to charge it with liens, and,"
"That the respective claims of the defendants in error were subsisting liens under the laws of the State of New Jersey on the said vessel, and"
"That the contract for building said vessel is not a maritime contract, and the statutory remedy thereon, to-wit, the aforementioned act, does not conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States, and,"
"That the said act does not violate the right of trial by jury, nor conflict with the Constitution of the State of New Jersey in that behalf, and that there is no error in the proceedings of the Supreme Court herein, and their judgment in the same,"
"It is thereupon, on this 20th day of August, A.D. 1872, adjudged by the Court here that the said act of the Legislature of the State of New Jersey is not in any respect repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States, and that the judgment of the Supreme Court be in all things affirmed."
A writ of error was immediately taken to this Court, and within ten days an appeal bond with good, sufficient security given that the plaintiff in error should prosecute his writ to effect and answer all damages and costs if he failed to make his plea good. Due service was also made within ten days of the writ in the mode prescribed by the Judiciary Act in order to make the writ a supersedeas. The transcript was filed here, December 6, 1872.
Court of Errors and Appeals, and an amended "rule" substituted therefor since the filing of said transcript, and a certiorari was issued, without prejudice, on the 25th of May, 1874, to bring up any rule entered by the Court of Errors and Appeals in the suit subsequent to the entering of the "rule to affirm," by which the said rule to affirm had been corrected or vacated, and to bring up also any rule which has been substituted for the said rule to affirm.
A return to the certiorari filed in this Court August 6, 1874, showed that it appearing to that Court that the "rule to affirm" had been erroneously entered by the attorney of the plaintiffs in error, and did not correctly express the judgment of this Court as set forth in the opinion of the court delivered in the cause, it was ordered, on the 1st day of April, 1874, that the said rule to affirm be annulled and stricken from the minutes, and that a rule to affirm the said judgment of the Supreme Court be entered in conformity with the decision of the court on the questions before it.
"This cause coming on to be heard &c., and the court being of opinion that Henry Jeroleman, the builder of the vessel in the declaration of the plaintiffs below mentioned, was the owner of the said vessel at the time when the materials were furnished by said plaintiffs within the meaning of the Act of the Legislature of New Jersey entitled, 'An act for the collection of demands against ships, steamboats, and other vessels,' and as such owners were competent to charge it with liens for such materials, and that the respective claims of the defendants in error were subsisting liens upon said vessel under the said act, and that the said act does not conflict with the Constitution of the State of New Jersey by violating the right of trial by jury. It is thereupon, on this 20th day of August, 1872, ordered, adjudged, and determined by the court here that the judgment of the Supreme Court be affirmed and that the defendants in error do recover their costs in this Court to be taxed."
The case came on for argument, November 24, 1874.
Nothing appears in the record to warrant the conclusion that any question reexaminable here was presented in the court of original jurisdiction, whether the proposition is tested by the declaration, the pleas filed by the defendant, the special verdict, or by the judgment, as all alike tend to show that the questions presented, examined, and decided were questions of local law. Every suggestion of that kind therefore may be dismissed without further remark, as they are utterly destitute of support.
Opposed to that statement is the suggestion in argument that the presiding justice overruled the demurrer to the declaration, but it is a sufficient answer to that suggestion to say that this Court cannot go out of the record to reexamine any question under a writ of error to a state court.
(1) That the lien law of the state is not in any respect repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, as contended by the original defendants.
(2) That the contract for building the vessel in question is not a maritime contract, and that the remedy given by the lien law of the state does not conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States.
(3) That the said lien law does not violate the right of trial by jury nor conflict with the Constitution of the state.
Like every other pleading, an assignment of error is subject to a reasonable construction. Reasonably constructed it cannot be held that the first proposition of the judgment of affirmance involves a comparison of the state lien law with every separate provision of the federal Constitution, and if not with everyone, it is impossible to determine with which one, as there is nothing in the judgment or any other part of the record pointing to any particular part of the Constitution, except what is contained in the second proposition of the judgment, which, in view of the whole record, must be regarded as a more complete specification of what is meant by the first proposition.
of the schooner was not a maritime contract, and that the law of the state giving the remedy which was pursued by the plaintiffs does not conflict with the federal Constitution or with federal laws. Such an allegation in the judgment of the state court is sufficient to give this Court jurisdiction under the writ of error to reexamine that question. Well-founded doubt upon that subject cannot be entertained, unless it be assumed, as contended by the plaintiffs, that the copy of the judgment embodied in the transcript is not correct.
Due entry of the writ of error to the state court was made here the sixth of December, 1872, and on the first of April, 1874, the Court of Errors decided that the judgment of affirmance, entered there in the case under date of the twentieth of August, 1872, did not correctly express the judgment of the court; and after hearing argument the court ordered that it be wholly annulled, and that it be stricken from the minutes, and that the judgment exhibited in the supplemental record be entered nunc pro tunc in lieu thereof.
Alterations of a very material character are made in the substituted judgment, as compared with the judgment originally entered, and which remained unchallenged at the time the writ of error was sued out and when the supersedeas bond was filed. Such alterations, it is insisted by the defendants, could not properly be made at that stage of the litigation, as the writ of error from this Court to the Court of Errors brought up the judgment first mentioned as a part of the transcript annexed to the return made, to the writ of error, by the Court of Errors, to which it was addressed.
Materials were furnished by the plaintiffs to the persons who contracted to build the schooner, during the progress of the work. Payment for the materials being refused, they instituted the described proceedings to enforce the lien given them by the state law, in such a case, against the vessel for which the materials had been contracted.
When the proceedings were commenced the schooner was only partially constructed and was resting on her original stocks, having never been launched into the water. She was without a name and had never been registered or enrolled, nor had she ever been licensed or surveyed, and she was without a master or crew, and the record shows she had never had a commander.
power of the United States shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. They admit, in effect, that to maintain that proposition it is necessary to show that a contract to furnish materials for the construction of a ship is a maritime contract, and they accordingly submit the affirmative of that proposition and insist that all such contracts are maritime, if it appears that the vessel to be constructed is designed for use upon navigable waters.
Maritime contracts are such as relate to commerce and navigation, and unless a contract to build a ship is to be regarded as a maritime contract, it will hardly be contended that a contract to furnish the materials to be used in accomplishing that object can fall within that category, as the latter is more strictly a contract made on land, and to be performed on land, than the former, and is certainly one stage further removed from any immediate and direct relation to commerce and navigation.
Building materials for such a purpose come very largely from the forest and mines, but if it be admitted that a contract to build a ship is a maritime contract it is difficult to affirm that a contract to furnish the materials for the same is not of the same character, although its breach and even its performance may involve judicial inquiries into the business transactions of men, as well in the forests and mines as in the manufactories and workshops of the whole civilized world. Wherever the question, therefore, involved in the present assignment of error, has been considered, the decision has uniformly turned upon the solution of the inquiry whether a contract for building a ship is or is not a maritime contract. Unless the contract to build a ship is a maritime contract, no one, it is presumed, would contend that the furnishers of the materials for such a purpose can successfully support such a claim; and if it be admitted that the builders of a ship may enforce the payment of the contract price in the admiralty, it would be difficult to maintain that the furnishers of the materials for the purpose are not entitled to pursue their remedy to enforce payment in the same jurisdiction.
Shipbuilding is an occupation requiring experience and skill, and, as ordinarily conducted, is an employment on land, as much as any other mechanical employment, and men engage in the business for a livelihood just as they do in other mechanical pursuits and for the same purpose. Shipwrights, unlike the seamen, have their homes on the land, and not on the seas, and they are seldom shipowners, and not more frequently interested in commerce and navigation than other mechanics. Ships are bought and sold in the market just as ship timber, engines, anchors, or chronometers are bought and sold, even before they are fully constructed and before they are equipped for navigation, and no reason is perceived why a contract to build a ship, any more than a contract for the materials of which a ship is composed, or for the instruments or appurtenances to manage or propel the ship, should be regarded as maritime.
Attempt is made in vain to point out any distinction in principle between a contract to build a ship and a contract for the materials, as the latter are included in the former, and both fall within the same category under the rules of the civil law. Every one who had built, repaired, or fitted out a ship, whether at home or abroad, or lent money to be employed in those services, had by the civil law a privilege or right of payment, in preference to other creditors, upon the ship itself, without any instrument of hypothecation, or any express contract or agreement subjecting the ship to any such claim, and that privilege still exists in all those countries which have adopted the civil law as the basis of their jurisprudence.
Catron. By the statement of the case it appears that it was a libel filed by the assignees of the builders against a new steam ferryboat for a balance due to the builders on account of work done and materials furnished in constructing the hull of the ferry boat. They claimed a lien for the unpaid balance of the price, and the decree was in their favor in the circuit court, but the claimants appealed to this Court. When the cause came up for argument the first point made for the claimants was that a contract to build a ship is not one within the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts, even though it be intended to employ the vessel in ocean navigation. Sufficient appears in the report of the case to show that the libellants took direct issue upon that proposition, and the court said, in disposing of it, that the only matter in controversy is whether the district courts have jurisdiction in admiralty to enforce liens for labor and materials furnished in constructing vessels to be employed in the navigation of waters to which the admiralty jurisdiction extends.
"So far from the contract being purely maritime and touching rights and duties appertaining to navigation, it is a contract made on land to be performed on land."
which the opinion of the Court was given by Mr. Justice Grier.
Objection is also taken to the validity of the state law upon the ground that it is in conflict with the provision of the federal Constitution which secures to every party, where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury.
the Court of Errors, and that the question was not presented to, nor was it decided by, the Court of Errors.
5 Vroom 96; 7 id. 449; 6 id. 265. The counsel also exhibited a certified copy of the opinion of the court in the cases from the proper repository.
Messenger v. Mason, 10 id. 509; Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 16; Furman v. Nicholl, 8 Wall. 44; Maxwell v. Newbold, 18 How. 516.
Farney v. Towle, 1 Black 351; Hoyt v. Shelden, 1 Black 521; Railroad Co. v. Rock, 4 Wall. 180.
Generes v. Bonnemer, 7 Wall. 564; Avendano v. Gay, 8 Wall. 376; Flanders v. Tweed, 9 Wall. 431; Hozey v. Buchanan, 16 Pet. 215; Albers v. Whitney, 1 Story 310; Brush v. Robbins, 3 McLean 486; Medford v. Dorsey, 2 Washington's Circuit Court 433; Kanouse v. Martin, 15 How. 210; Cheang-Kee v. United States, 3 Wall. 326; Noonan v. Bradley, 12 Wall. 129.
Elliott v. Edwards, 6 Vroom 266; Edwards v. Elliott, 5 id. 96.
87 U. S. 20 How. 393.
63 U. S. 22 How. 129.
The Jefferson, 20 How. 400.
Morewood v. Enequist, 23 How. 494.
The Belfast, 7 Wall. 644; The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555.
Brookman v. Hamill, 43 N.Y. 554; The Josephine, 39 id. 19.
The Belfast, 7 Wall. 645; Sheppard v. Steele, 43 N.Y. 55; Ferran v. Hosford, 54 Barbour 208.
Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 247; Twitchell v. Commonwealth, 7 Wall. 326; Livingston v. Moore, 7 Pet. 551; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 434; Smith v. Maryland, 18 How. 76; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, 2d ed. 19.
Crowell v. Randell, 10 Pet. 392; Suydam v. Williamson, 20 How. 440.
SECTION 709 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (in its main provisions, the same as the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the second section of the act of 1867, much similar to it) being referred to in the body of this book more than once, is here given below. The section, for convenience of reference, is broken up by the reporter into paragraphs.
"SECTION 709. A final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of a state in which a decision in the suit could be had,"
"Where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of or an authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against their validity,"
"OR where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of or an authority exercised under any state on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity,"
"OR where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under the Constitution or any treaty or statute of or commission held or authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or immunity specially set up or claimed by either party under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission, or authority,"
"May be reexamined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon a writ of error. The writ shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree complained of had been rendered or passed in a court of the United States, and the proceeding upon the reversal shall be the same, except that the Supreme Court may, at their discretion, proceed to a final decision of the case and award execution or remand the same to the court from which it was so removed."

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