Court Opinion

ID: 8122308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 14:59:20.712751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:39:03.777920
License: Public Domain

Hughes, D. J.
This is not an action brought upon an ordinary contract by non-residents against a resident in a United States court on its law or equity side. It is a proceeding in rein in admiralty, brought in the United States district court as a court of admiralty. Such a proceeding will only lie upon a contract which is maritime. If the claims preferred in this proceeding be maritime, the court has jurisdiction. If they are not maritime, the proceeding is coram non judice, and will have to be dismissed. The owners, defendants, contend that the several claims represented by the respective libellants and petitioners here were for the original construction of the dredge Pacific; that such claims are not enforceable in admiralty; and that the court cannot entertain or enforce them in this proceeding, however meritorious in their nature, and however valid in equity and good conscience against the original owners of the dredge, Pardessus & Anthony, who procured the materials to be furnished and the work to be done which constitute the basis of these claims. The propositions of law relied upon by the owners or claimants are correct.
In People's Ferry Co. v. Beers, 20 How. 393, the United States supreme court, which gives us the admiralty law, decided, against the then generally prevalent opinion of the district judges, that a contract to build and complete a vessel is not within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States courts, though the intention should be to employ the vessel in navigating the ocean; and that such material-man or builder, if he has a lien at all, has only the common-law possessory lien, or such statutory lien as local legislation may have created; neither of which, of itself, confers the admiralty jurisdiction. It held that this admiralty jurisdiction, in cases of contract, depends primarily upon the nature of the contract, and is limited to contracts, claims, and services purely maritime, touching rights and duties appertaining to commerce and navigation. It said
“It would be a strange doctrine to hold a ship bound in a case where the-owner made a contract in writing, charging himself to pay by instalments for building the vessel at a time when she was neither registered nor licensed as. a sea-going ship.”
It declared that the wages of shipwrights have no reference to a voyage to be performed. The court noticed the fact that district courts had recognized the lien of builders and furnishers of material *125when the local law gave a lien upon the vessel where it was built; but it said that no such case had been sanctioned by the supreme court. Under this decision a contract, in order to be enforceable in admiralty at all, must be maritime. If it be not maritime no state law can help the jurisdiction of the court, and contracts for building and furnishing material to a vessel in the original construction of it are not maritime contracts.
In the case of Roach v. Chapman, 22 How. 129, where the steamer under libel was built in Louisville, Kentucky, and the persons who furnished the boilers and engines libelled in admiralty in Louisiana, the court held that there was no jurisdiction. It so held on the express ground that “a contract for building a ship or supplying engines, timber, or other materials for her construction is clearly not a maritime contract.”
In that case it was insisted, for the libellants, that the local law of Kentucky, by giving a lien, supplied the defect of jurisdiction arising from the non-maritime character of the contract; but the supreme court replied that “local laws can never confer jurisdiction on the courts of the United States.” In fact, it is well settled that local laws can neither enlarge nor diminish the admiralty jurisdiction, either by declaring those contracts to be maritime which are not, or those not maritime which are so by the admiralty law.
I think that the foregoing propositions settle all the claims in this case. They are all for materials, engines, machinery, work, or supplies furnished the original owners of the dredge in its original construction and equipment. As such, they come within the ruling of the supreme court in the case of Roach v. Chapman. The claims are not maritime, because they are for original construction and equipment. Not being maritime, the question of home or foreign vessel does not arise, and we have no need to examine the effect of the vessel law of New York. Not being maritime, the comprehensive law of Virginia, (chapter 235, p. 217, Acts of the Assembly, 1877-8,,) giving liens and power of attachment against vessels' foreign and domestic, can avail nothing in this court. In order to the existence of the admiralty jurisdiction in this court two things must concur — First, the claim must be maritime in its essential character; and, second, the lien must exist, either under the admiralty or the local law; a mere lien under a local law will not suffice of itself. I will sign a decree of dismissal as to the libel, and as to all the petitions in the nature of co-libels.