Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ 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. In such a case jurisdiction may be taken without transcending the limits of the Constitution or encountering The Plymouth or any other authority binding on this court. ”

“ But Congress cannot enlarge the constitutional grant of power, and therefore if it could permit a libel to be maintained, one can be maintained now. We are called on by the appellees to say that the remedy for any case of damage to a fixture is outside the constitutional grant.
The precise scope of admiralty jurisdiction is not a matter of obvious principle or of very accurate history. As to principle, it is clear that if the beacon had been in fault, and had hurt the ship, a libel could have been maintained against a private owner, although not in rem. ”

“ I accept this case as practically overruling the former ones, and as recognizing the principle adopted by the English admiralty court jurisdiction act of 1861 (§ 7) , extending the jurisdiction of the admiralty court to 'any claim for damages by any ship.' This has been held in many cases to include damage done to a structure affixed to the land. The distinction between damage done to fixed and to floating structures is a somewhat artificial one, and, in my view, founded upon no sound principle ”