The courts of the United States, as courts of admiralty, have
not exclusive jurisdiction of suits
in personam growing
out of collisions between vessels while navigating the Ohio
River.
This was an action on the case brought in the Court of Common
Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, by Gilmore against
Schoonmaker & Brown, owners of the steam tug
Jos.
Bigley. The declaration avers in substance that, by reason of
the negligence of the defendants, the tug, when descending the Ohio
River, a few miles below Pittsburgh, collided with and damaged
certain barges belonging to the plaintiff.
Page 102 U. S. 119
The point was made by the defendants that the courts of the
United States have exclusive jurisdiction in cases of collision on
navigable waters.
There was a judgment for the plaintiff, on the affirmance of
which by the Supreme Court the defendants sued out this writ.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The single question in this case is whether the courts of the
United States, as courts of admiralty, have exclusive jurisdiction
of suits
in personam growing out of collisions between
vessels while navigating the Ohio River. This is a federal
question, and gives us jurisdiction, but we cannot consider it as
any longer open to argument, as it was decided substantially in
The Moses
Taylor, 4 Wall. 411;
The Hine
v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555;
The
Belfast, 7 Wall. 624;
Leon v.
Galceran, 11 Wall. 185; and
Steamboat
Company v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522. The Judiciary Act
of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, sec. 9, reproduced in sec. 563, Rev.Stat.,
par. 8, which confers admiralty jurisdiction on the courts of the
United States, expressly saves to suitors, in all cases, the right
of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give
it. That there always has been a remedy at common law for damages
by collision at sea cannot be denied.
The motion to dismiss is overruled, and that to affirm
granted.
Judgment affirmed.
NOTE --
Brown v. Davidson, error to the Supreme Court
of the State of Pennsylvania, involved the same question as the
preceding case. It was submitted by the same counsel and determined
in the same manner.
