A contract for the woodwork involved in converting a car-float
into an amusement steamer by removing the car tracks, relaying the
decks as dancing floors and adding a superstructure, steering
apparatus, and steam propulsion plant is a maritime contract for
repairs, as opposed to original construction, within the Maritime
Lien Act of June 23, 1910, and within the admiralty jurisdiction of
the District Court. P.
258 U. S.
99.
266 F. 562 reversed.
Appeal from a decree of the district court dismissing a libel to
recover damages and enforce a lien for repairs.
Page 258 U. S. 98
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Claiming a lien under Act of Congress approved June 23, 1910, c.
373, 36 Stat. 604,
* and seeking to
recover for work done and supplies furnished in pursuance of a
contract with the owner of the
Jack-O-Lantern, appellant
libeled the vessel. The libel was dismissed for lack of
jurisdiction. If the agreement between the parties is maritime,
there was jurisdiction; otherwise there was none.
The facts are not in dispute. They were stated as follows by the
district court:
"The
Jack-O-Lantern was originally a car float of the
usual type, something over 200 feet long, with neither motive power
nor steering gear, and having two lines of track on her single
deck. The claimant bought her and proceeded to convert her into a
steamer to be used for amusement purposes. The tracks were removed,
the deck relaid to make a dancing floor, a large house, or
superstructure, was built, enclosing most of the deck and
containing a dance hall, rooms, balconies, etc. Steering apparatus
and a steam plant of the propeller type, for propulsion, were also
installed."
"For the purpose of carrying out these changes, the contract now
before the court was made between the claimant and the libelant. It
covers, generally speaking, all the woodwork involved in the
changes above outlined. The
Page 258 U. S. 99
libelant did not install the power plant, but it did prepare the
vessel for it. The scow was towed to the libelant's yard for the
work to be done. The engine and boilers were there installed. As
they were not yet in working condition when the vessel left the
libelant's yard, she was towed away."
Upon these facts, it held that the contract was not one for
repairs or supplies, but for original construction, and therefore
nonmaritime within the doctrine of
Thames Towboat Co. v. The
Francis McDonald, 254 U. S. 242:
"In rebuilding operations, the test is whether the identity of
the vessel has continued, or has been extinguished. . . . The
matter turns, as I view it, upon a question of fact, and, upon the
facts stated, I think it clear that the identity of the car float
which was delivered to the libelant was completely lost by the
conversion into an amusement steamer under the contract in suit. It
is true that the hull is substantially unchanged, but mere identity
of hull is not sufficient to preserve the identity of the vessel. .
. .
The Jack-O-Lantern, with her dance hall, rooms, and
power plant, self-propelled and able to maneuvre, is an essentially
different vessel from the car float which furnished the hull."
In support of this conclusion,
McMaster v. One Dredge,
95 F. 832, and
The Dredge A, 217 F. 617, 629, 630, were
cited.
It is not always easy to determine what constitutes repairs, as
opposed to original construction. A contract for the former is
maritime; if for the latter, it is not. We are not disposed to
enlarge the compass of the rule approved in
Thames Towboat Co.
v. The Francis McDonald, under which contracts for the
construction of entirely new ships are classed as nonmaritime, or
to apply it to agreements of uncertain intendment -- reasonable
doubts concerning the latter should be resolved in favor of the
admiralty jurisdiction. Nor do we think that, in
Page 258 U. S. 100
cases like the instant one, any refined distinction should be
made between reconstruction and repairs -- the latter word as used
in the statute has a broad meaning.
As pointed out in
Piedmont Coal Co. v. Seaboard Fisheries
Co., 254 U. S. 1,
254 U. S. 11-12,
the Act of June 23, 1910, makes "no change in the general
principles of the [present] law of maritime liens, but merely
substitutes a single statute for the conflicting state
statutes."
This Court has not undertaken and will not now essay to announce
rigid definitions of repairs and new construction, but we do not
accept the suggestion that the two things can be accurately
differentiated by consideration of the ultimate use to which the
vessel is to be devoted. The view expressed by Judge Hughes in
United States v. The Grace Meade, Fed.Cas. No. 15,243, is
both sound and helpful:
"And generally it may be held as a principle that, where the
keel, stem, and stern posts and ribs of an old vessel, without
being broken up and forming an intact frame, are built upon as a
skeleton, the case is one of an old vessel rebuilt, and not of a
new vessel. Indeed, without regard to the particular parts reused,
if any considerable part of the hull and skeleton of an old vessel
in its intact condition, without being broken up, is built upon,
the law holds that in such a case it is the old vessel rebuilt, and
not a new vessel. But where no piece of the timber of an old vessel
is used without being first dislocated and then replaced, where no
set of timbers are left together intact in their original
positions, but all the timbers are severally taken out, refitted,
and then reset, there we have a very different case. That is a case
of a vessel rebuilt."
There was jurisdiction in the court below to determine and
enforce the rights of the parties. Its judgment to the contrary
must be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in
conformity with this opinion.
*
"Section 1.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, that any person furnishing repairs, supplies, or
other necessaries, including the use of dry dock or marine railway,
to a vessel, whether foreign or domestic, upon the order of the
owner or owners of such vessel, or of a person by him or them
authorized, shall have a maritime lien on the vessel, which may be
enforced by a proceeding
in rem, and it shall not be
necessary to allege or prove that credit was given to the
vessel."