Court Opinion

ID: 9532498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:21:52.161774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:46.338639
License: Public Domain

Foster, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent because of the court’s failure to heed the admonition of the United States supreme court in Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255, 66 L. Ed. 927, 42 S. Ct. 475, that the common law cannot be applied to a maritime tort.2
The accident in question occurred aboard a vessel navigating the Columbia river, a navigable water of the United States.3 Articles III, § 2, of the Federal constitution extends the judicial power of the United States “to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” and but for the saving clause,4 jurisdiction in this case would be exclusively in the United States district court,5 and this is not dependent upon interstate or foreign commerce.6
The complete bar of the common-law doctrine of contributory negligence is hostile to every concept of the maritime law,7 but contributory negligence may diminish the amount of recovery as justice may require. The many cases of purely local concern, which do not impair the uniformity at which the constitution aims in admiralty matters, were reviewed in Davis v. Department of Labor & Industries, 317 U. S. 249, 87 L. Ed. 246, 63 S. Ct. 225, but this case deals directly with navigation and commerce and is not of purely *77local concern. Northern Coal & Dock Co. v. Strand, 278 U. S. 142, 73 L. Ed. 232, 49 S. Ct. 88.8
Prior to January 2, 1951, the effective date of Superior Court Rule 17, 34A Wn. (2d) 118, and related Rules on Appeal, this court on appeal was required by Rem. Rev. Stat. § 1736 (cf. RCW 4.88.180)9 to retry any factual dispute tried below to the court without a jury; but that statute was completely abrogated by Rule on Appeal 65, 34A Wn. (2d) (Sup. No. 6) 20, as amended, effective January 3,1956, so that this court’s jurisdiction is now purely appellate. The retrial of factual disputes here will swell the volume of appealed cases to the point of frustrating the true appellate function.
I would remand the case with instructions to decide it on the admiralty law.

 112 Wash. 480, 192 Pac. 1005.

Opinions of the Attorney General, 1929-30, p. 254-258.

 28 U. S. C. A. 575, § 1333 (1).

See article entitled “Uniform Maritime Law in ‘Saving Clause’ Cases,” 34 Boston University Law Review 365.

London Guarantee & Accident Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission of California, 279 U. S. 109, 73 L. Ed. 632, 49 S. Ct. 296; Robinson on Admiralty 34, § 7.

Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, 98 L. Ed. 143, 74 S. Ct. 202; Wilburn Boat Co. v. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., 348 U. S. 310, 99 L. Ed. 337, 75 S. Ct. 368.

For an analysis of the “local concern doctrine” see Robinson on Admiralty 101, § 14.

Allen v. Swerdfiger, 14 Wash. 461, 44 Pac. 894.