Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/83/522/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:43:33+00:00

Document:
A statute of a state giving to the next of kin of a person crossing upon one of its public highways with reasonable care, and killed by a common carrier by means of steamboats an action on the case for damages for the injury caused by the death of such person does not interfere with the admiralty jurisdiction of the district courts of the United States, as conferred by the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, and this is so even though no such remedy enforceable through the admiralty existed when the said act was passed, or has existed since.
"SECTION 16. If the life of any person crossing upon a public highway with reasonable care, shall be lost by reason of the negligence or carelessness of such common carriers, or by the unfitness or negligence or carelessness of their servants or agents in this state, such common carriers shall be liable to damages for the injury caused by the loss of life of such person, to be recovered by action on the case, for the benefit of the husband or widow and next of kin of the deceased person."
action on the case for the use of his or her husband, widow, children, or next of kin,"
"The judicial power of the United States shall extend to ALL cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,"
"The district courts 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 when the common law is adequate to give it,"
The court, however, sustained the jurisdiction, and verdict and judgment having been given for the plaintiff in $12,000, and the supreme court of the state having affirmed that judgment, the cause was removed to this Court.
Remedies for marine torts, it is conceded, may be prosecuted in the admiralty courts even though the wrongful act was committed on navigable waters within the body of a county, as the exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction is conferred upon the district courts by the ninth section of the Judiciary Act. Repeated attempts were made in our early judicial history to induce the court to hold otherwise, but the court refused to adopt any other theory, and held that the entire admiralty power of the Constitution was lodged in the federal courts; that Congress intended by the ninth section of the Judiciary Act to invest the district courts with that entire power, as courts of original jurisdiction, employing the phrase "exclusive original cognizance" to express that purpose, and that it was intended that the power should be exclusive of the state courts as well as the other federal courts.
Provision is also made by another section of the same statute that in all cases in which the death of any person ensues from injury inflicted by the wrongful act of another, and in which an action for damages might have been maintained at the common law had death not ensued, the person inflicting such injury shall be liable to an action for damages for the injury caused by the death of such person, to be recovered by an action on the case for the use of his or her husband, widow, children, or next of kin.
Undisputed as the facts are in this case, it is not necessary to refer to them with much particularity. By the pleadings it appears that the defendants are common carriers of passengers over the waters of the Narraganset Bay, one of the public highways within the state, between the ports of Newport and Providence in the same state, and that the plaintiff is the administrator of the estate of George Cook, late of Portsmouth in that state, deceased. He was passing over the waters of the bay in a sailboat and lost his life on the 29th of June, 1869, by means of a collision between the steamboat of the defendants and the sailboat in which he was passing, and which was caused, as the plaintiff alleges, while the decedent was in the exercise of due care and wholly through the unfitness, negligence, and carelessness of the master of the steamboat. Damages are claimed by the plaintiff for the benefit of the widow and children of the deceased. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiff in the supreme court of the state in the sum of $12,000, and the defendants sued out a writ of error and removed the cause into this Court.
(1) That the common law courts cannot exercise jurisdiction and give a remedy for a consequential injury, growing out of a marine tort, where no remedy for such an injury exists in the admiralty courts.
(2) That a suitor cannot have a remedy in such a case in a common law court, even if the admiralty courts have jurisdiction, as the right of action was created by a state statute enacted subsequent to the passage of the Judiciary Act.
it is suggested that the action may be maintained in this case without any departure from that principle, as the only practical effect allowed to the state statute is to take the case out of the operation of the common law maxim that personal actions die with the person. Most of the common law cases deny that the action is maintainable in the name of the legal representatives, and several text writers have expressed the same opinion. [Footnote 6] Judge Sprague also applied the same rule in the case of Crapo v. Allen, [Footnote 7] but in a later case [Footnote 8] he left the question open, with the remark that it cannot be regarded as settled law that an action cannot be maintained in such a case.
Difficulties, it must be conceded, will attend the solution of the question, but it is not necessary to decide it in the present case, as the jurisdiction of the state court may be supported, whether such a suit may or may not be maintained in the admiralty courts.
Suitors may have a common law remedy in all cases where the common law is competent to give it, but the defendants insist that a suitor cannot have redress in a common law court in such a case, even if the admiralty courts have jurisdiction, as the right of action was created by a state statute enacted subsequent to the passage of the Judiciary Act.
Different systems of pleading and modes of proceeding and different rules of evidence prevail in the two jurisdictions, but whether the party elects to go into one or the other, he must conform to the system of pleading and to the rules of practice and of evidence which prevail in the chosen forum. State statutes, if applicable to the case, constitute the rules of decision in common law actions in the circuit courts as well as in the state courts, but the rules of pleading, practice, and of evidence in the admiralty courts are regulated by the admiralty law as ultimately expounded by the decisions of this Court. state legislatures may regulate the practice, proceedings, and rules of evidence in their own courts, and those rules, under the 34th section of the Judiciary Act, become, in suits at common law, the rules of decision, where they apply, in the circuit courts.
All these are familiar principles, and they are sufficient to dispose of the case and to show that there is no error in the record.
Revised Statutes, chapter 176. Of Actions.
The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; The Hine, 4 Wall. 555; The Belfast, 7 Wall. 642.
United States v. Bevans, 3 Wheat. 387.
The Commerce, 1 Black 578; The Belfast, 7 Wall. 640; 2 Story on the Constitution § 1669; The Genesee Chief, 12 How. 452.
Carey v. Railroad Co., 1 Cushing 475; Baker v. Bolton, 1 Campbell 493; Dunlap's Practice 87; Hall's Admiralty Practice 22; 2 Parsons on Shipping 351; Benedict's Admiralty, 2d ed., § 309.
Cutting v. Seabury, 1 Sprague 522.
Ford v. Monroe, 20 Wendell 210; James v. Christy, 18 Mo. 162.
Leon v. Galceran, 11 Wall. 188.
1 Stat. at Large 76; The Belfast, 7 Wall. 644; The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; The Hine, 4 id. 555.
Railroad v. Barron, 5 Wall. 90.

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