Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ A statute of that state, after enacting that actions for injuries to the person shall not abate by reason of the plaintiff's death, provides that, 'whenever death shall be occasioned by unlawful violence or negligence, and no suit be brought by the party injured to recover damages during his or her life, the widow or widower of any such deceased person, or, if there be no widow or widower, the personal representatives, may maintain an action for and recover damages for the death and loss thus occasioned.' Act of January 26, 1886, as amended by act of March 9, 1901. ”

“ In short, the bare fact of the parties being outside the territory, in a place belonging to no other sovereign, would not limit the authority of the state, as accepted by civilized theory. No one doubts the power of England or France to govern their own ships upon the high seas. ”

“ We pass to the other branch of the first question,-whether the state law, being valid, will be applied in the admiralty. Being valid, it created an obligatio,-a personal liability of the owner of the Hamilton to the claimants. Slater v. Mexican Nat. R. Co. 194 U.S. 120, 126, 48 L. ed. 900, 902, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 581. This, of course, the admiralty would not disregard, but would respect the right when brought before it in any legitimate way. Ex parte McNiel, 13 Wall. 236, 243, 20 L. ed. 624, 626. It might not give a proceeding in rem, since the statute does not purport to create a lien. ”

“ If it gave the latter, the result would not be, as suggested, to create different laws for different districts. The liability would be recognized in all. Nor would there be produced any lamentable lack of uniformity. ”