Edward Douglass White

“ This must be the inevitable consequence of admitting the proposition which assumes that the maritime law disregards the rights of individuals to be protected in their persons and property from wrongful injury, by recognizing that those who are amenable to the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty are nevertheless endowed with a supposed governmental attribute by which they can inflict injury upon the person or property of another, and yet escape all responsibility therefor. ”

“ It is clearly deducible from the record that the courts below concurred in dismissing the libel as against the fire department of the city of New York, upon the contention made in the answer of the department that under the provisions of a named statute of the state of New York, the fire department of the city of New York was neither a corporation nor a quasi corporation, but was merely a department of the city. As no controversy is made respecting the correctness of the decree in this particular, we dismiss this subject from view. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that the greater part, if not the whole, of the maritime commerce of the country is either initiated or terminated in ports where municipal corporations exist. All the vessels, whether domestic or foreign, in which this vast commerce is carried, under the rule referred to, could be subjected to injury and wrong without power to obtain redress, since every municipality would be hedged about with the attributes of supreme sovereignty. ”

“ Thus, if the local law may control the maritime law, it must also govern in the decision of cases arising under the patent, copyright, and commerce clauses of the Constitution. It would result that a municipal corporation, in the exercise of administrative powers which the state law determines to be governmental, could with impunity violate the patent and copyright laws of the United States or the regulations enacted by Congress under the commerce clause of the Constitution, such as those concerning the enrollment and licensing of vessels. ”

“ True it is, that under the general law, growing out of the public nature of their duties, where judgments or decrees are entered against municipal corporations, such judgments or decrees may not, as a matter of public policy, be enforced by the levy on property held by the corporation for public uses. ”

“ But such cases afford no foundation for the proposition that state laws or decisions can deprive an individual of a right of recovery for a maritime wrong which, under the general principles of the admiralty law, he undoubtedly possessed, and can destroy the symmetry and efficiency of that law by engrafting therein a principle which violates the imperative command of such law that admiralty courts must administer redress for every maritime wrong in every case where they have jurisdictional power over the person by whom the wrong has been committed. ”

“ Upon this principle it has uniformly been decided by the courts that municipal corporations are not liable for the negligence or wrongful acts of the officers of the police or health departments committed in the course of their ordinary employment. Unless the duties of the officers of the fire department are of a different complexion, and they are the servants of the municipality because they are engaged in performing one of its corporate functions, the same principle must extend immunity to the municipality for the negligent acts of these officers and their subordinates. ”

“ As a result of the general principle by which a municipal corporation has the capacity to sue and be sued, it follows that there is no limitation taking such corporations out of the reach of the process of a court of admiralty, as such courts, within the limit of their jurisdiction, may reach persons having a general capacity to stand in judgment. ”

“ Although by the maritime law the duty rests upon courts of admiralty to afford redress for every injury jury to person or property where the subject-matter is within the cognizance of such courts, and when the wrongdoer is amenable to process, nevertheless the admiralty courts must deny all relief whenever redress for a wrong would not be afforded by the local law of a particular state or the course of decisions therein. ”

“ In considering the power of the court to adjudicate the controversy, the court said (p. 155, L. ed. p. 131) :
'For the damages occasioned by collision of vessels at sea a claim is created against the vessel in fault, in favor of the injured party. This claim may be enforced in the admiralty by a proceeding in rem, except where the vessel is the property of the United States. In such case the claim exists equally as if the vessel belonged to a private citizen, but for reasons of public policy, already stated, cannot be enforced by direct proceedings against the vessel. ”

“ There it was asserted that by the universal principles of the common law, as well as of the local laws of the states, no right to recover for a wrong committed could be enforced in favor of one who had himself contributed to the producing cause of the injury. ”

“ It is not gainsaid that, as a general rule, municipal corporations, like individuals, may be sued; in other words, that they are amenable to judicial process for the purpose of compelling performance of their obligations. ”

“ A liability of the owners in personam, however, is not dependent upon ability to maintain a proceeding in rem because of the maritime tort. A maritime lien may not exist in a cause of collision, for instance, when the thing occasioning the tort was not the subject of a maritime lien (The Rock Island Bridge (1867) 6 Wall. ”