warrant comes into effect. The commission or warrant may authorize a vice-admiralty court or colonial court of admiralty to act as a prize court, or establish a vice-admiralty court for that purpose, and may be revoked or altered at any time. The court is authorized to act as a prize court during the war, and shall after its conclusion continue to act as such, and finally dispose of all matters and things arising during the war, including all penalties and forfeitures incurred therein. Rules of court may also be made by order in council for regulating, subject to the Naval Prize Act, the procedure and practice of prize courts under that act, the duties and conduct of their officers and practitioners, and the fees and costs therein (Prize Courts Act 1894, §§ 2, 3). This latter power has been exercised; and prize rules for the High Court of Justice and the vice-admiralty prize courts were framed in 1898 (Statutory Rules and Orders, 1898).
Authorities—Marsden, Select Pleas of the Court of Admiralty, Selden Society, London, 1892 and 1897; Zouch, Jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England asserted; Robinson, Collectanea Maritima; Brown, Admiralty; Edwardes, Admiralty; Phillimore, International Law, vol. i., vol. iii. part xi.; Pritchard, Admiralty Digest, tit. Jurisdiction. (W. G. F. P.)
United States
The source of admiralty jurisdiction in the United States is Article 3, § 2 of the United States Constitution:—“The judicial power shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.” The United States Supreme Court has declared that by virtue of these words the admiralty jurisdiction extends not only to the high seas but to the great lakes and the rivers connecting them, and to all public navigable waters in the United States (the “Genesee Chief ” v. Fitz-Hugh, 12 Howards U.S. Rep. 443), including even interstate canals (Ex. p. Boyer, 109 U.S. Rep. 629, the “Robert W. Parsons,” [1903] 191 U.S. 17), and is not confined to tide waters. The American colonies had vice-admiralty courts with an admiralty jurisdiction equal to the largest claimed by the English admiralty courts even under Edward III. When they became states they delegated to the federal government their several “admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,” using these words in the sense understood in every country in Europe, England excepted, and in the sense in which they had then been used in the colonies for a long time, and without reference to the very narrow jurisdiction of the English admiralty courts then existing (Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards U.S. Rep. 441).
It is settled as to the United States admiralty jurisdiction not that it is “co-equal with that of the original English, or that of continental European admiralty, but is rather that defined by the statutes of Richard II., under the construction given to them by contemporary or immediately subsequent courts of admiralty” (2 Parsons Adm. 176), and that it embraced all maritime contracts, torts, injuries or offences (De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gallisons Rep. 398; Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards U.S. Rep. 441), and that it has never been restricted by the action of the common law courts as in England under Lord Coke (2 Parsons Adm. 166 n.; Waring v. Clark; De Lovio v. Boit.)
Original admiralty jurisdiction was by the Judiciary Act of 1789 (U.S. Rev. Stats. § 563) granted to the United States district courts exclusively, except that concurrent original jurisdiction was given to United States circuit courts over seizures for slave trading, and condemnations of property used by persons in insurrection (§ 629; § 5309), and in the coolie trade (§ 2159), and by the act of the 3rd of March 1901; the supreme court of the District of Columbia is given the same jurisdiction as the district and circuit courts. The Supreme Court of the United States has no original jurisdiction in admiralty. All suits are brought in the first instance in the district court. Appeals lie, both on the law and on the facts, from a final decree of that court to the circuit court of appeals only, except in cases involving the jurisdiction of the court, the constitutionality of a law of any state or of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty of the United States, and except cases of prize and capital or infamous crime, in which cases of appeal lies directly to the supreme court. In cases of gravity and importance the Supreme Court may by certiorari review the judgment of the circuit court of appeals, but such cases are rare (re Lau Ow Bew, 141 U.S. Rep 587; Benedict’s The American Admiralty, § 607). Formerly the Judiciary Act authorized an appeal from the district court to the circuit court, and thence to the Supreme Court. But the act of the 3rd of March 1891 (Ch. 517) abolished this and created the circuit court of appeals, making it the final appellate court in admiralty, except as above stated. In any case where the district judge is unable to perform his duties or is disqualified by reason of interest or of relationship, or has acted as counsel for one of the parties to the action, it may be removed to the circuit court in that district (U.S. Rev. Stats. §§ 587, 589 and 601). These are now the only cases in which admiralty suits can come before the circuit court (Benedict’s Adm. § 321).
The subject matter in cases of contract determines the jurisdiction (the “General Smith,” 4 Wheaton U.S. Rep. 438), and not the presence or absence of tide, salt water, current, nor that the water be an inland basin or land-locked, or a river, nor by its being a harbour, or a port within the body of the county, nor that a remedy exists at common law. The admiralty courts have jurisdiction over all matters that concern owners and proprietors of ships as such; possessory actions and petitory actions to try title of a ship; cases of mariners’ wages, wharfage, dockage, lighterage, stevedores, contracts of affreightment, charter parties, rights of passengers as such (the “Moses Taylor,” 71 U.S. Rep. 411), pilotage, towage, maritime liens and loans, bottomry, respondentia and hypothecation of ship and cargo, marine insurance, average, jettison, demurrage, collisions, consortship, bounties, survey and sale of vessel, salvage; seizures under the laws of impost navigation or trade, cases of prize, ransom, condemnation, restitution and damages; assaults, batteries, damages and trespasses on the high seas and navigable waters of the United States; but not suits in rem for duties (Benedict’s Adm. § 303a).
The U.S. Supreme Court has held in Peoples Ferry Co. v. Beers, 20 Howards U.S. Rep. 393, and in a series of subsequent cases that a contract to build a vessel is not a maritime contract (the “Robert W. Parsons”). Contracts to furnish cargo for ships and to furnish ships to carry the cargoes are maritime contracts (Graham v. Oregon R. & N. Co., [1905] 135 Fed. Rep. 608).
Whenever there is a maritime lien, even though created by state statute as to a ship in her home port, it may be enforced by suit in rem in admiralty in the federal courts (the “General Smith”; the “Lottawanna,” 21 Wallace Rep. 558, Benedict’s Adm. § 270). In all suits by material men for supplies and repairs or other necessaries for a foreign ship, the libellant may proceed against the ship and freight in rem or against the master or owner in personam (12th Admiralty Rule; Benedict’s Adm. § 268; the “General Smith”). Actions in rem and in personam may be joined in the same libel (Newell v. Norton, 3 Wallace 257; the “Normandie,” 40 Fed. Rep. 590). But a contract to furnish fishermen with clothing, tobacco and other personal effects for use on a voyage is not a maritime contract, and a court of admiralty has no jurisdiction to enforce it in rem (the “May F. Chisholm,” 1904; 129 Fed. Rep. 814). The state courts have no jurisdiction in rem over any maritime contract or tort (the “Lottawanna,” the “Belfast,” 7 Wallace Rep. 624). Admiralty jurisdiction in tort depends on locality; it must have occurred on the high seas or other navigable waters within admiralty cognizance (2 Parsons Adm. 347; the “Plymouth,” 3 Wallace Rep. 20; the “Genesee Chief ” v. Fitz-Hugh, the “Blackheath,” [1903] 122 Fed. Rep. 112).
The U.S. Supreme Court in the “Harrisburg” (119 U.S. 199) and the “Alaska” (130 U.S. 207), after some conflict of opinion, held that the admiralty courts have no jurisdiction under the general admiralty law to try an action for damages for negligence on the high seas, causing death of a human being, while there was no act of Congress and no statute of the state to which the vessel belonged giving such right of action (Benedict’s Adm. §§ 275-309a), nor where such statute is that of a foreign country (Rundell v. Compagnie Générale, [1899] 94 Fed. Rep. 366).
Admiralty has jurisdiction in cases of spoliation and piracy,
