A district court of the United States, in admiralty, has no
jurisdiction of a petition by the owner of a steam vessel for the
trial of the question of his liability for damage caused to
buildings on land by fire alleged to have been negligently
communicated to them by the vessel, through sparks proceeding from
her smoke stack, and for the limitation of such liability, if
existing, under §§ 4283 and 4284 Rev.Stat.
On the 14th of January, 1886, the Goodrich Transportation
Company, a Wisconsin corporation, filed in the District Court
Page 118 U. S. 611
of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin a
petition for a limitation of its liability as owner of the steamer
Oconto, claiming the benefit of the provisions of sections
4283 and 4284 of the Revised Statutes. The substantial matters set
forth in the petition are these:
The
Oconto was on a voyage from Chicago, Illinois,
through Lake Michigan and Green bay, to the City of Green Bay, in
Wisconsin, which she approached by entering the mouth of the Fox
River. While she was passing up the river opposite the city on the
20th of September, 1880, a fire broke out in a planing mill which
the steamer had passed, and it spread to other buildings, about
sixty-seven being destroyed or injured, causing a damage of not
less than $100,000 to the buildings and property in them. Such
damage exceeds the value of the steamer and of her freight pending
at the time of the fire, that value being about $12,400. There was
insurance against fire on some of the buildings and property. The
owners and insurers claimed that the fire was negligently
communicated to the planing mill from the steamer, and that the
corporation was liable for all the loss and damage occasioned by
the fire. Some of the owners sued it in state courts in Wisconsin
to recover damages, by six suits, in which the Phenix Insurance
Company, as insurer, was joined as a co-plaintiff. One of those
suits had been disposed of by a judgment in favor of the
corporation. In another, a judgment against the corporation for
$2,570 and costs was rendered in March, 1885. An appeal from it by
the corporation to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is pending. The
other four suits are pending. Other persons are threatening to sue
the corporation by like suits. It denies its liability for any loss
or damage occasioned by the fire, and insists that the fire did not
originate from, or was not negligently communicated from, the
Oconto, but says that if it is so liable, the fire
originated, and the losses and damages were occasioned, without the
privity or knowledge of the corporation, and that it desires as
well to contest its liability and the liability of the vessel for
such losses and damages, as also to claim the benefit of §§ 4283
and 4284 of the Revised Statutes, and to limit its liability to the
value of the vessel and her freight then pending. It offers to
Page 118 U. S. 612
enter into a stipulation, with sureties, to pay into court the
value of the vessel and the amount of her pending freight whenever
ordered so to do. The prayer of the petition is for a decree that
the corporation may have the benefit of such statutory provisions;
that the value of the vessel immediately after the fire, and the
amount of her freight then pending, be appraised; that the
corporation may enter into a stipulation to pay such value and
amount into court when required; that a monition issue for the
proof of claims; that a commissioner be designated before whom
claims shall be presented and before whom the corporation may
appear and contest said claims and its liability on account of any
loss or damage occasioned by the fire; that if it shall appear that
the corporation was not liable for any such loss or damage, it may
be so finally decreed, or otherwise that the moneys secured by the
stipulation be divided
pro rata among the claimants and
that the prosecution of all the suits be restrained.
On this petition, an order to show cause, returnable February 1,
1886, was made. The Phenix Insurance Company and the other
plaintiffs in the five pending suits filed an answer setting forth
that, with the exception of the insurance company, they all were
and had been from before the fire citizens of Wisconsin; that the
amount of the insurance the company had made on the property
covered by the five suits was $9,700, and that the value of the
property so insured and uninsured, belonging to the respondents and
partly insured in the insurance company, amounted to $28,000, with
interest from the date of the loss. The answer also contains these
statements:
The property burned was situated on the shore of Fox River,
wholly in the body of the City of Green Bay and at a great distance
from any navigable stream or other waters within the jurisdiction
of the United States. The negligence of the owner of the steamer in
not having on her a contrivance to prevent the escape of sparks and
fire from her smoke stack, and in starting her from her wharf with
the exhaust on the inside of her smoke stack within the City of
Green Bay caused the fire, the shore being covered with dry wooden
buildings and a heavy wind blowing across the course of the vessel
toward the shore,
Page 118 U. S. 613
and her smoke stack throwing out large quantities of sparks
which were carried by the wind onto the shore and set fire to the
planing mill, from which the flames spread to the other buildings
and property. The suits were all of them brought in the fall of
1880. The answer alleges that the court ought not to take
jurisdiction of the petition, because the liability, if any,
accrued by reason of a tort committed on the land to real estate in
the body of a county and a state, and not on any navigable waters
of the United States, and that the matters complained of are purely
of common law cognizance, and of right triable by a jury, and not
by a commissioner appointed under the admiralty rules applicable to
such proceedings.
The respondents moved to dismiss the petition for want of
jurisdiction, which motion was denied, and the court, on March 15,
1886, made an order appointing appraisers to appraise the value of
the steamer as it was on September 20, 1880, with the value of her
freight earned on the voyage she was on.
The Phenix Insurance Company and the other plaintiffs in the
five suits now present to this Court a petition for a writ of
prohibition to the judge of the district court prohibiting him from
proceeding to give the relief prayed for in the petition of the
owner of the vessel.
Page 118 U. S. 616
MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD, after stating the case as above
reported, delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is provided by § 688 of the Revised Statutes that this Court
"shall have power to issue writs of prohibition to the district
courts when proceeding as courts of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction." This provision is taken from § 13 of the Act of
September 24, 1879. 1 Stat. 80. The question to be determined is
therefore whether the district court has jurisdiction to entertain
the proceeding in this case for the limitation of liability.
Sections 4283, 4284, and 4285 of the Revised Statutes provide as
follows:
"SEC. 4283. The liability of the owner of any vessel for any
embezzlement, loss, or destruction by any person, of any property,
goods, or merchandise shipped or put on board of such vessel or for
any loss, damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter,
or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture done, occasioned,
Page 118 U. S. 617
or incurred without the privity or knowledge of such owner or
owners, shall in no case exceed the amount or value of the interest
of such owner in such vessel, and her freight then pending."
"SEC. 4284. Whenever any such embezzlement, loss, or destruction
is suffered by several freighters or owners of goods, wares,
merchandise, or any property whatever on the same voyage, and the
whole value of the vessel, and her freight for the voyage is not
sufficient to make compensation to each of them, they shall receive
compensation from the owner of the vessel in proportion to their
respective losses, and for that purpose, the freighters and owners
of the property and the owner of the vessel, or any of them, may
take the appropriate proceedings in any court for the purpose of
apportioning the sum for which the owner of the vessel may be
liable among the parties entitled thereto."
"SEC. 4285. It shall be deemed a sufficient compliance on the
part of such owner with the requirements of this title relating to
his liability for any embezzlement, loss, or destruction of any
property, goods, or merchandise if he shall transfer his interest
in such vessel and freight, for the benefit of such claimants, to a
trustee, to be appointed by any court of competent jurisdiction to
act as such trustee for the person who may prove to be legally
entitled thereto, from and after which transfer all claims and
proceedings against the owner shall cease."
The claim to a limitation of liability in the present case is
made under the clause of § 4283 which provides that
"The liability of the owner of any vessel . . . for any act,
matter, or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture done, occasioned, or
incurred, without the privity or knowledge of such owner or owners,
shall in no case exceed the amount or value of the interest of such
owner in such vessel, and her freight then pending."
That section does not purport to confer any jurisdiction upon a
district court. Section 4285, in providing for the transfer to a
trustee of the interest of the owner in the vessel and freight,
provides only that the trustee may "be appointed by any court of
competent jurisdiction," leaving the question of such competency to
depend on other provisions of law.
Page 118 U. S. 618
Nothing is clearer than that, by the express adjudication of
this Court, the district court, as a court of admiralty, would have
no jurisdiction of a suit, either
in rem or
in
personam, by any one of the sufferers by the fire to recover
damages from the vessel or her owner. It was so held in
The Plymouth, 3
Wall. 20. In that case, a steam vessel anchored beside a wharf in
the Chicago River in navigable water took fire through the
negligence of those in charge of her. The flames spread to the
wharf and buildings upon it. Their owners sued the owners of the
steam vessel
in personam in the District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, in admiralty, for the damage. That
court dismissed the libel for want of jurisdiction and the circuit
court affirmed the decree. On appeal by the libellant this Court
affirmed the decree of the circuit court. The argument in favor of
the jurisdiction is very fully given in the report. It was urged
that the vessel was a maritime thing; that the locality was
maritime, because the vessel was moored in navigable water; that
the principal thing drew after it the incident, although the damage
was suffered on land, and that, under the "rule of locality," "that
in cases of tort the jurisdiction depends on the locality of the
act done, and that it must be done on navigable water," the
locality of the act "embraced the entire space occupied by the
agent and the object, and the spatial distance passed over by the
causal influence in accomplishing the effect." But Mr. Justice
Nelson, delivering the unanimous opinion of this Court, said that
the true meaning of the rule of locality in cases of marine torts
was that the wrong must have been committed wholly on navigable
waters, or at least the substance and consummation of the same must
have taken place upon those waters, to be within the admiralty
jurisdiction. In answer to the argument that the vessel which
communicated the fire was a maritime instrument, the Court said
that the jurisdiction did not depend on the wrong's having been
committed on board the vessel, but on its having been committed on
navigable waters, and that the substantial cause of action arising
out of the wrong must be complete within the locality on which the
jurisdiction depended. It added, "The remedy for the injury belongs
to the courts of common law."
Page 118 U. S. 619
Under this authoritative decision, as the owners of the burned
property could not sue originally in the admiralty for their
damages, it is impossible to see how, by the present form of
proceeding, the owner of the steamer can give to the admiralty
court jurisdiction to entertain the suits for the damage by a
practical removal of them into the admiralty court, for the
petition of the owner of the vessel says that it desires as well to
contest its liability for the damage as to claim the benefit of a
limitation of liability, and it prays that it may be allowed to
contest in the admiralty courts its liability for the damage, and
that, if it is not liable, there may be a decree to that
effect.
As there is no foundation in the general admiralty jurisdiction
of the district court for its assumption of jurisdiction in this
case, and none in the special provisions of the statute for the
imitation of liability, it is sought to uphold the jurisdiction
under the rules in admiralty promulgated by this Court in reference
to the limitation of liability. The provisions of the Revised
Statutes on the subject of the limitation of liability were taken
from the Act of March 3, 1851, 9 Stat. 635. There is nothing in
that act, nor in the corresponding enactments in the Revised
Statutes, in regard to the promulgation of any rules by this Court
for procedure in the matter. The rules it has made, Rules 54-57,
are rules in admiralty, promulgated May 6, 1872. 13 Wall. xii. They
were announced as
"Supplementary rules of practice in admiralty under the Act of
March 3, 1851, entitled 'An act to limit the liability of ship
owners, and for other purposes.'"
They are authoritatively embodied in, and numbered as part of,
the
"Rules of practice for the courts of the United States in
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, on the instance side of the
court, in pursuance of the Act of the 23d of August, 1842, chapter
188."
The authority given to this Court by the act of 1842 was in § 6,
5 Stat. 518, and was in these words:
"The Supreme Court shall have full power and authority, from
time to time, to prescribe and regulate and alter the forms of
writs and other process to be used and issued in the district and
circuit courts of the United States, and the forms and modes of
framing
Page 118 U. S. 620
and filing libels, bills, answers, and other proceedings and
pleadings in suits at common law or in admiralty and equity pending
in the said courts, and also the forms and modes of taking and
obtaining evidence, and of obtaining discovery, and generally the
forms and modes of proceeding to obtain relief, and the forms and
modes of drawing up, entering, and enrolling decrees, and the forms
and modes of proceeding before trustees appointed by the court, and
generally to regulate the whole practice of the said courts, so as
to prevent delays and to promote brevity and succinctness in all
pleadings and proceedings therein, and to abolish all unnecessary
costs and expenses in any suit therein."
These provisions, as applied to suits in admiralty in the
district courts, are to be found now, with some variations, in §§
862 and 917 of the Revised Statutes. In § 862, it is enacted
that
"The mode of process in causes . . . of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction shall be according to rules now or hereafter
prescribed by the Supreme Court except as herein specially
provided."
In § 917 the enactment is that
"The supreme court shall have power to prescribe, from time to
time, and in any manner not inconsistent with any law of the United
States, the forms of writs and other process, the modes of framing
and filing proceedings and pleadings, of taking and obtaining
evidence, of obtaining discovery, of proceeding to obtain relief,
of drawing up, entering, and enrolling decrees, and of proceeding
before trustees appointed by the court, and generally to regulate
the whole practice to be used, in suits in equity or admiralty, by
the circuit and district courts."
The addition in § 917 of the words "in any manner not
inconsistent with any law of the United States," not found in § 6
of the act of 1842, is worthy of note as bearing on the
construction of that section and of rules to be sustained under its
provisions, though not implying that any power existed, under the
act of 1842, to make rules inconsistent with a law of the United
States. So too, by § 913 of Rev.Stat. it is enacted that
"The forms of mesne process, and the forms and modes of
proceeding in suits of equity and of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction in the circuit and district courts shall be according
to the principles, rules, and usages which belong to courts of
Page 118 U. S. 621
equity and admiralty, respectively, except when it is otherwise
provided by statute or by rules of court made in pursuance thereof,
but the same shall be subject to alteration and addition by the
said courts, respectively, and to regulation by the Supreme Court,
by rules prescribed from time to time to any circuit or district
court not inconsistent with the laws of the United States."
These words "not inconsistent with the laws of the United
States" are not found in the original statutory provisions from
which § 913 was taken.
See Providence & New York Steamship
Co. v. Hill Manufacturing Co., 109 U.
S. 578,
109 U. S.
591-594.
In view of the decision made by this Court at December term,
1865, in the case of
The Plymouth, it is not to be
presumed that the six of the judges upon the bench when it was made
who were also upon the bench when the Rules of May 6, 1872, were
promulgated intended that those rules should contain anything in
conflict with the decision in the case of
The Plymouth;
nor are those rules capable of any such construction. They are in
these words:
"
Supplementary Rules of Practice in Admiralty, under the Act
of March 3, 1851, entitled 'An Act to Limit the Liability of
Shipowners, and for Other Purposes.'"
"54. When any ship or vessel shall be libeled or the owner or
owners thereof shall be sued for any embezzlement, loss, or
destruction by the master, officers, mariners, passengers, or any
other person or persons of any property, goods, or merchandise
shipped or put on board of such ship or vessel or for any loss,
damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing,
loss, damage, or forfeiture done, occasioned, or incurred, without
the privity or knowledge of such owner or owners, and he or they
shall desire to claim the benefit of limitation of liability
provided for in the third and fourth sections of the said act above
recited, the said owner or owners shall and may file a libel or
petition in the proper district court of the United States, as
hereinafter specified, setting forth the facts and circumstances on
which such limitation of liability is claimed and praying proper
relief in that behalf, and thereupon said court, having caused due
appraisement to be
Page 118 U. S. 622
had of the amount or value of the interest of said owner or
owners, respectively, in such ship or vessel and her freight for
the voyage, shall make an order for the payment of the same into
court, or for the giving of a stipulation, with sureties, for
payment thereof into court whenever the same shall be ordered, or,
if the said owner or owners shall so elect, the said court shall,
without such appraisement, make an order for the transfer, by him
or them, of his or their interest in such vessel and freight to a
trustee to be appointed by the court under the fourth section of
said act, and upon compliance with such order, the said court shall
issue a monition against all persons claiming damages for any such
embezzlement, loss, destruction, damage, or injury, citing them to
appear before the said court, and make due proof of their
respective claims at or before a certain time to be named in said
writ, not less than three months from the issuing of the same, and
public notice of such monition shall be given as in other cases,
and such further notice served through the post office or otherwise
as the court in its discretion may direct, and the said court shall
also, on the application of the said owner or owners, make an order
to restrain the further prosecution of all and any suit or suits
against said owner or owners in respect of any such claim or
claims."
"55. Proof of all claims which shall be presented in pursuance
of said monition shall be made before a commissioner to be
designated by the court, subject to the right of any person
interested to question or controvert the same, and, upon the
completion of said proofs, the commissioner shall make report of
the claims so proven, and upon confirmation of said report, after
hearing any exceptions thereto, the moneys paid or secured to be
paid into court as aforesaid, or the proceeds of said ship or
vessel and freight (after payment of costs and expense) shall be
divided
pro rata among the several claimants in proportion
to the amount of their respective claims, duly proved and confirmed
as aforesaid, saving, however, to all parties any priority to which
they may be legally entitled."
"56. In the proceedings aforesaid the said owner or owners shall
be at liberty to contest his or their liability, or the
liability
Page 118 U. S. 623
of said ship or vessel for said embezzlement, loss, destruction,
damage, or injury (independently of the limitation of liability
claimed under said act), provided that, in his or their libel or
petition, he or they shall state the facts and circumstances by
reason of which exemption from liability is claimed, and any person
or persons claiming damages as aforesaid, and who shall have
presented his or their claim to the commissioner under oath, shall
and may answer such libel or petition, and contest the right of the
owner or owners of said ship or vessel either to an exemption from
liability, or to a limitation of liability under the said act of
Congress, or both."
"57. The said libel or petition shall be filed, and the said
proceedings had, in any district court of the United States in
which said ship or vessel may be libeled to answer for any such
embezzlement, loss, destruction, damage, or injury, or, if the said
ship or vessel be not libeled, then in the district court for any
district in which the said owner or owners may be sued in that
behalf. If the ship have already been libeled and sold, the
proceeds shall represent the same for the purposes of these
rules."
There is nothing in any of these rules which purports to enlarge
the jurisdiction of the district courts of the United States as to
subject matter. On the contrary, they exclude any such
construction, and leave that jurisdiction in admiralty within the
bounds set for it by the Constitution and statutes and the judicial
decisions under them. Rule 54 provides that when a vessel is
libeled or her owner is sued, he may file a libel or petition for a
limitation of liability "in the proper district court of the United
States, as hereinafter specified." Rule 56 provides that in the
proceeding, the owner may contest his liability or that of the
vessel independently of the limitation of liability claimed, and
that the opposing party may contest the right of the owner either
to an exemption from liability or to a limitation of liability.
What is the "proper district court" referred to in Rule 54 and
contemplated by rule 56? It is the court, and only the court,
mentioned in Rule 57 -- namely the district court in which the
vessel is libeled, or, if she is not libeled, then the district
court for
Page 118 U. S. 624
any district in which the owner "may be sued in that behalf."
There is nothing in these rules which sanctions the taking of
jurisdiction by a district court on a petition under the rules,
where that court could not have had original cognizance in
admiralty of a suit
in rem or
in personam to
recover for the loss or damage involved.
Nor do we find anything in any of the decisions of this Court on
the subject of the limitation of liability which supports the view
that district court can take jurisdiction in admiralty of a
petition for a limitation of liability where it would not have had
cognizance in admiralty originally of the cause of action involved.
In
Norwich Co. v.
Wright, 13 Wall. 104, the case which furnished the
occasion for the making of the rules and which came before this
Court again in
The City of Norwich, 118 U.
S. 468, the damage was occasioned by a collision on
navigable water between two vessels and a fire resulting from it on
board of one of them. In all the other cases in which this Court
has upheld proceedings for limitation in a district court, there
was original admiralty jurisdiction of the cause of action. In
The Benefactor, 103 U. S. 239, the
cause of damage was a collision on the high seas, and the petition
for limitation was filed in the same district court in which the
offending vessel was libeled. In
The Scotland,
105 U. S. 25,
there was a like cause of action, and the limitation was claimed by
an answer to a libel
in personam in a district court. In
Ex Parte Slayton, 105 U. S. 451, the
petition for limitation was filed in a district court, by the owner
of a vessel which had foundered, to limit his liability for the
loss of goods carried and for damage to another vessel by a prior
collision, he not having been first sued. He transferred to a
trustee appointed by the court his interest in the vessel and in
the freight pending.
See The Alpena, 10 Bissell 436. This
Court, being applied to for a writ of prohibition, refused to grant
it. It held that the owner of a vessel may, before he is sued,
institute appropriate proceedings in a court of competent
jurisdiction to obtain a limitation of liability; that the words
"any court" in § 4284 mean "any court of competent jurisdiction,"
and that as the transfer had been made
Page 118 U. S. 625
and the freight money paid over to the trustee, the district
court had jurisdiction to apportion the fund. But it is to be noted
that the causes of action were in fact of admiralty jurisdiction.
In
Providence & New York Steamship Co. v. Hill
Manufacturing Company, 109 U. S. 578, the
cause of action was a loss, by the burning of a vessel, of goods
carried by her, and the petition for limitation was filed in the
district court of the district where the fire occurred and where
the remnants of the vessel remained, and the contract of
affreightment was of admiralty cognizance. In
The Great
Western, 118 U. S. 520, the
cause of damage was a collision on the high seas, and the claim of
limitation was made in the answer in a suit
in personam in
a district court in admiralty to recover for the damage.
We are brought, therefore, to the conclusion that there is
nothing in the admiralty rules prescribed by this Court which
warrants the jurisdiction of the district court in the present
case.
Our decision against the jurisdiction of the district court is
made without deciding whether or not the statutory limitation of
liability extends to the damages sustained by the fire in question
so as to be enforceable in an appropriate court of competent
jurisdiction. The decision of that question is unnecessary for the
disposition of this case.
It is contended that the mistake of the district court must be
corrected by appeal, and that the case is not one for a writ of
prohibition. Where the case is within admiralty cognizance, the
district court may decide whether the party is entitled to the
benefit of the statute, and a writ of prohibition will not lie. But
where, as here, the tort is not a maritime tort, there can be no
jurisdiction in the admiralty to determine the issue of liability
or that of limitation of liability. This Court refused a writ of
prohibition where a suit
in rem was brought against a
vessel in admiralty in a district court to enforce an alleged lien
for wharfage on the ground that a contract for the use of a wharf
by a vessel was a maritime contract, and cognizable in the
admiralty, and that, as a lien arose in certain cases, the
admiralty court was competent to decide in the given case whether
there was a lien.
Ex Parte
Easton,
Page 118 U. S. 626
95 U. S. 68. So also
a writ of prohibition was refused where a suit in admiralty was
brought in a district court to recover damages for the loss of life
by a collision between two vessels on the ground that damages from
collision were within admiralty jurisdiction, and the admiralty
court could therefore lawfully decide whether such damages embraced
damages for the loss of life.
Ex Parte Gordon,
104 U. S. 515. But
in the present case, the district court is called upon by the
petition of the owner of the vessel to first determine the question
of any liability when it has no jurisdiction of the cause of
action, and then to determine whether the statute covers the
case.
The case is clearly one for a writ of prohibition, as the want
of jurisdiction appears on the face of the proceedings.
United States v.
Peters, 3 Dall. 121.
A writ of prohibition will issue.