Court Opinion

ID: 9444564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:21.975642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:54.960220
License: Public Domain

DIMOCK, District Judge
(concurring).
*620The admiralty jurisdiction clause in its present form is embodied in title 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) as follows:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of:
“(1) Any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.’ '
There is no doubt that the “saving to suitors” clause is intended to save common law remedies and, since these are referred to as “other” remedies in the present form of the statute it is inescapable, under the letter of the present form, that common law remedies are not included in the grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. That is as far as we go in the court’s opinion.
I think, however, that we ought, in addition, to consider the effect of the admiralty clause in its original form since the Reviser’s Note, hereinafter quoted, shows .that Congress, in adopting the present form, thought that it was expressing the original intent of Congress. If we should find that the intent of Congress as expressed in the original form •differed from its intent as expressed in the present form, we would be faced with the problem of deciding which expression to adopt. It seems to me important, therefore, to record a demonstration'that the intent as presently expressed coincides with that as originally ■expressed. Since, therefore, we are contributing our mite to the solution of the prob.em, I venture to add my mote.
The admiralty clause in its original form is contained in section 9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 *. By that section Congress declared:
“That the district courts shall have, exclusively of the courts of the severa!.’ States, cognizance of all •crimes and offenses that shall be •cognizable under the authority of the United States * * * and shall also 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”.
These words “civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” undoubtedly had the same meaning as the words in Article III, section 2 of the Constitution, “all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction”. The effect of the decision in Panama R. R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 44 S.Ct. 391, 68 L.Ed. 748, is that those words embrace not only maritime remedies to enforce maritime substantive law but common law remedies to enforce maritime substantive law. Thus when Congress in the Judiciary Act vested the district courts with jurisdiction of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, those words without more would have vested them with power to enforce maritime substantive law by common law remedies. The question is whether, by the addition of the “saving to suitors” clause, Congress evidenced an intention to withhold that power. My conclusion is that it did.
The “saving to suitors” clause may be interpreted in either one of two ways. First, it might be said to save common law cases from the exclusiveness of the grant. Second, it might be said to save them from the grant itself.
If the “saving to suitors” clause merely saves common law cases from the exclusiveness of the grant, it would mean that jurisdiction had been conferred upon the district courts to enforce maritime substantive law by both maritime and common law remedies but that this jurisdiction was not exclusive of the state courts in the ease of enforcement by common law remedies. If the “saving to suitors” clause saves common law cases from the grant itself, it would mean that the district courts had no jurisdiction whatever to enforce maritime substantive law by common law remedies.
*621The choice between these interpretations is dictated by a further provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Section 9 of that Act which contains the grant of jurisdiction of “civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” ends with this sentence: “And the trial of issues in fact, in the district courts, in all causes except civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, shall be by jury.”
I cannot escape the conclusion that the Congress which made that provision felt that the district courts to which it applied had been given no jurisdiction to enforce the maritime civil law by a common law remedy. There is room for the technical argument that the sentence does not say that causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction may not be prosecuted under the course and practice of common law remedies. It is true that all that it says is that there shall not be trial by jury in such cases. Nevertheless, the other incidents of common law procedure are so relatively unimportant that I cannot conceive of Congress thinking it worth while, after taking away trial by jury, to preserve the other incidents. The provision seems to me to indicate the intention of Congress that the district courts should have jurisdiction to enforce substantive maritime law only by maritime remedies. In other words, it indicates that the “saving to suitors” clause saves common law remedies from the grant itself so that the only courts left with jurisdiction to afford them are the state courts.
This conclusion accords with the view of the Reviser’s Note to section 1333(1) of title 28 U.S.C., which reads in part:
“The ‘saving to suitors’ clause in said sections 41(3) and 371(3) [of title 28, U.S.C., 1940 ed.] was changed by substituting the words ‘any other remedy to which he is otherwise entitled’ for the words ‘the right of a common-law remedy where the common law is competent to give it.’ The substituted language is simpler and more expressive of the original intent of Congress and is in conformity with rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure abolishing the distinction between law and equity.”
The view of Congress when it adopted the Revision must have been that the intention of Congress when the provision was originally adopted was that the grant itself did not embrace common law remedies. This appears from the description in the Revision of what had formerly been called “common law” remedies by the term “ ‘any other remedy’ ” i. e. any remedy other than the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction which had been conferred upon the district courts.

 1 Stat. 76