Stanley Forman Reed

“ To make the existence of State power depend on such tenuous formalities is to make questions of jurisdiction in matters maritime, as between federal and State courts, turn on distinctions much too frail.
Of course State courts are free to give the relief here sought, if admiralty has not jurisdiction of a libel for partition. State law would then not be encroaching upon the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts. ”

“ Whether admiralty has such jurisdiction, except when the contest over the use of the vessel is between owners whose interest is equally divided, has not been adjudicated by this Court and the learning on the subject is not compelling. ”

“ It is significant that the need for a body of maritime law, applicable throughout the nation and not left to the diversity of the several States, was the one basis for the creation of a system of inferior federal courts, authorized by the Constitution, which was recognized by every shade of opinion at the Philadelphia Convention. ”