NOTES OF RECENT CASES
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NOTES OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT CASES COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM AND ANNOTATED BY SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Pub lishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well at the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)
ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION. (Torts — Struc ture Affixed to Land.) TJ. S. S. C. — The Fed eral Supreme Court is now committed unani mously to a holding which practically overrules the holding in The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, which case, as remarked by Mr. Justice Brown has been accepted by the profession and the ad miralty courts as establishing the principle that the jurisdiction of the admiralty does not extend to injuries received by any structure affixed to the land, though such injury were caused by a ship or other floating body. In U. S. v. Evans, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 46, it is held that the admiralty juris diction of the federal courts extends to a libel in rent against a vessel for negligently colliding with and destroying a beacon standing some fifteen or twenty feet from the channel in water twelve or fifteen feet deep, although the beacon is built upon piles driven firmly into the bottom. One reason for the decision, which commends itself to the ordinary judgment, is that advanced by Mr. Justice Brown in his special concurring opinion, where he says that the distinction between dam age done to fixed and floating structures is a some what artificial one, founded upon no sound prin ciple, and that the fact that Congress, under the Constitution, cannot extend the admiralty juris diction of the Supreme Court affords an argu ment for a broad interpretation of that juris diction commensurate with the needs of modern commerce. The concluding sentence of the special concurring opinion may throw some little light on the view which will be taken of cases arising in the future. It is as follows: "To attempt to draw the line of jurisdiction between different kinds of fixed structures, as, for instance, between beacons and wharves, would lead to great confusion and much further litigation." The ground of the main opinion in this case is that even under the narrow limits imposed upon Admiralty by the English common law, its juris diction was undoubted over the sea. The beacon was surrounded by navigable water and was there fore in the sea, even though attached to the bot tom. In this respect it differed from a wharf or
bridge which would be attached to the shore and therefore a part of the shore. The opinion does not overrule the Plymouth case, but distinguishes it on this very ground. The distinction is clear and can hardly lead to confusion or further litiga tion as predicted by Mr. Justice Brown. The decision, however, is epoch-making in the growth of the American Admiralty. See the official reference sub. nom. the Blackheath, 195 U. S. 361. Robert M. Hughes.
CARRIERS. (Reasonableness of Charges.) TJ. S. C. C. for W. D. of Ga. — Tift v. Southern Rail way Company, 138 Federal Reporter was a suc cessful effort by a number of manufacturers of lumber in various southern states to resist at tempted extortion through an arbitrary increase of freight rates. It was shown that shipments of lumber had enormously .increased within the last decade, and in spite of this increased ton nage there had been a steady increase of rates, culminating in an advance of two cents per hundred pounds. This last advance was the concerted action of a number of railroads acting under articles of organization, and it is held that this aspect of the case is not altered by the fact that the railroads had a stipulation in the articles of organization that each and all members might at will, and at any time, withdraw from the agreement. In considering the questions involved the statement of the interstate commerce com mission that the general rule is that the greater the tonnage of the commodity transported the lower should be the rate of freight charges for such transportation, is expressly approved. M. & St. Paul Railroad Company v. Minne sota, 10 Supreme Court Reporter. 702, is cited to the point that the reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation is eminently a question for judicial investigation, and Chicago & N. W. Railroad Company v. Osborn, 52 Federal Re porter, 914, and Smyth v. Ames, 18 Supreme Court Reporter, 418, are quoted as authority for the proposition that reasonable compensation for the
