The admiralty does not have jurisdiction of a claim for damages
caused by a vessel to a bridge or dock which, although in navigable
waters, is so connected with the shore that it immediately concerns
commerce upon land.
The Plymouth, 3
Wall. 20, followed, and
The Blackheath, 195 U.
S. 361, distinguished.
This is an appeal from a final decree of the United States
District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division,
in admiralty, dismissing appellants' libel on the appellee's
exception thereto on the ground that the court had not jurisdiction
of the subject matter. It comes here directly, on a certificate as
to the jurisdiction, under § 5 of the act of 1891.
The libel was
in rem against the steam propeller
William E. Reis, owned by appellee, and was based on
injuries inflicted to the center pier of the swinging or drawbridge
spanning the Cuyahoga River, a navigable stream at Cleveland, Ohio,
to the protecting piling work surrounding such center pier and one
of the shore abutments of such bridge, and to a dock or wharf next
below such bridge, all caused as described in the libel in
substance as follows:
The steamer Reis, during a heavy flood, broke from her
Page 208 U. S. 317
winter moorings and, drifting down the river, struck the
merchant propeller
Moore at her moorings, forcing her
against the steamer
Eads, putting her adrift, the three
being carried down with the current. The Cleveland Terminal &
Valley Railroad Company owned and operated a bridge across the
Cuyahoga River below the mooring point of the above-named vessels,
the bridge being equipped with a swinging span, supported by a
center abutment or pier in the navigable channel. Surrounding the
center abutment was piling intended to protect vessels from damage.
The railroad company and the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation
Company jointly owned a dock below, constructed on piles driven in
the bed of the stream and on the shore. It was floored over, but
open underneath. As the vessels drifted down, the
Moore
struck and damaged this dock, for which claim is made. The
Eads' stern brought up against a pier below the bridge.
The
Moore brought up against the dock abreast the
Eads, and the
Reis, drifting stern first, entered
between the
Eads and the
Moore, and, it is said,
in so doing, forced the
Eads into collision with the
center pier of the railroad company's bridge, thereby damaging the
protection piling about the same, for which damages were claimed.
It was also averred that, as the three vessels were wedged together
at the bridge, the stream was partially dammed, causing the water
to rise, increasing the velocity of the current underneath the
keels of the
Eads and the
Reis, so that the
current undermined the center pier and shore abutment and carried
away some of the protection piling, and for restoring that piling
and the support under the center pier and the pier damages were
claimed. And it was further claimed that, by reason of the
disaster, the railroad company was deprived of the use of its
bridge for a period of ten days, and necessarily incurred expense
to a large amount.
The usual process issued, the vessel was arrested, and later
claimed and bonded by appellee, which subsequently filed its
exception to the libel. On the hearing, the district court
sustained the exception and dismissed the libel
"on the ground
Page 208 U. S. 318
that, although the property injured by said disaster, said dock,
said center pier, and said protection piling work, stood in the
navigable water of said river, yet it does not appear from the
allegations of the libel that any part of said property so injured
was either an instrument of or an aid to navigation, for which
reason there is no authority for sustaining the jurisdiction of a
court of admiralty over the wrong complained of and the cause of
action set forth in the libel. "
Page 208 U. S. 319
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The certificate below included the libel in full and certified
four questions, but we are not called upon to answer them
seriatim, and must determine the case on our conclusion as
to whether the record discloses a maritime tort justifying the
exercise of admiralty jurisdiction.
In
The Plymouth, 3
Wall. 20, Mr. Justice Nelson, delivering the opinion of the Court,
said that the true meaning of the rule of locality in cases of
maritime 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. A substantial cause of action arising out
of the wrong must be complete within the locality on which the
jurisdiction depended.
Ex Parte Phenix Insurance Company,
118 U. S. 610.
In
Johnson v. Chicago & Pacific Elevated Company,
119 U. S. 388, the
jib boom of a vessel towed by a steam tug in the Chicago River at
Chicago struck a building on land through the negligence of the
tug, and caused damage to it, and it was held that the cause of
action was not a maritime tort of which the admiralty court of the
United States would have jurisdiction. And Mr. Justice Blatchford
said:
"Under the decisions of this Court in
The
Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, and in
Ex Parte Phenix
Insurance Company, 118 U. S. 610, at the
Page 208 U. S. 320
present term, it must be held that the cause of action in this
case was not a maritime tort of which a district court of the
United States, as a court of admiralty, would have jurisdiction,
and that the remedy belonged wholly to a court of common law, the
substance and consummation of the wrong having taken place on land,
and not on navigable water and the cause of action not having been
complete on such water."
It is unnecessary to cite the numerous cases to the same effect
to be found in the books. The rule stated has been accepted
generally by bench and bar, and has never been overruled, though
counsel express the hope that it may be because of our decision in
The Blackheath, 195 U. S. 361. In
that case, Mr. Justice Brown, in concurring, announced the view
that the effect of the decision was to overrule what had previously
been laid down in the cases we have cited. But the Court held that
the opinion was not opposed to the prior adjudications, and,
without entering into the elements of distinction between that case
and
The Plymouth, said:
"It is enough to say that we now are dealing with an injury to a
government aid to navigation from ancient times subject to the
admiralty -- a beacon emerging from the water, injured by the
motion of the vessel, by a continuous act beginning and consummated
upon navigable water, and giving character to the effects upon a
point which is only technically land, through a connection at the
bottom of the sea."
The case was a libel
in rem against a British vessel
for the destruction of a beacon, number 7, Mobile ship channel
lights, caused by the alleged negligent running into the beacon by
the vessel. The beacon stood 15 or 20 feet from the channel of
Mobile River, or bay, in water 12 or 15 feet deep, and was built on
piles driven firmly into the bottom. The damage was to property
located in navigable waters, solely an aid to navigation, and
maritime in nature, and having no other purpose or function.
In the present case, damage to shore dock, and to bridge,
protection piling, and pier, by a vessel being forced against
Page 208 U. S. 321
each of them by the vessel proceeded against, as well as damage
to shore dock, abutment, protection piling, pier and dock
foundation by a wash said to be due to the increased current
arising from partial damming of the stream by the three vessels,
brought into such position by the alleged fault of the vessel
proceeded against, was sought to be recovered. But the bridges,
shore docks, protection piling, piers, etc., pertained to the land.
They were structures connected with the shore and immediately
concerned commerce upon land. None of these structures were aids to
navigation in the maritime sense, but extensions of the shore, and
aids to commerce on land as such.
The proposition contended for is that the jurisdiction of the
admiralty court should be extended to "any claim for damages by any
ship," according to the English statute; but we are not inclined to
disturb the rule that has been settled for so many years, because
of some supposed convenience.
Unless we do that, this decree must be affirmed, and
It is so ordered.
