Maritime law

“ In deciding this question we must realize that however ancient may be the traditions of maritime law, however diverse the sources from which it has been drawn, it derives its whole and only power in this country from its having been accepted and adopted by the United States. There is no mystic over-law to which even the United States must bow. When a case is said to be governed by foreign law or by general maritime law that is only a short way of saying that for this purpose the sovereign power takes up a rule suggested from without and makes it part of its own rules. ”

“ This account of the maritime law, if correct, plainly shows that in particular matters, especially such as approach a merely municipal character, the received maritime law may differ in different countries without affecting the general integrity of the system as a harmonious whole. The government of one country may be willing to give to its citizens, who supply a ship with provisions at her home port where the owner himself resides, a lien on the ship ”

“ Whilst it is true that the great mass of maritime law is the same in all commercial countries, yet, in each country, peculiarities exist either as to some of the rules, or in the mode of enforcing them. ”

“ The maritime law proceeds on equitable principles and endeavors to accomplish substantial justice between litigants, with brevity, celerity and simplicity. It is impatient at technicalities and cunning bargains. Its jurisdiction is not limited by any financial amount or geographical boundaries, so long as the transaction is maritime in its nature. It is quick to redress unfair dealing or oppression. There is no distinction as to the persons who may invoke its aid. ”

“ And thus it happens, that, from the general practice of commercial nations in making the same general law the basis and groundwork of their respective maritime systems, the great mass of maritime law which is thus received by these nations in common, comes to be the common maritime law of the world. ”

“ Although the corpus of admiralty law is federal in the sense that it derives from the implications of Article III evolved by the courts, to claim that all enforced rights pertaining to matters maritime are rooted in federal law is a destructive oversimplification of the highly intricate interplay of the States and the National Government in their regulation of maritime commerce. It is true that state law must yield to the needs of a uniform federal maritime law when this Court finds inroads on a harmonious system. ”

“ A law merely founded on convention, however general the agreement, is a law of nations in an inferior sense only. A fortiori when the agreement is only partial, the term "law of nations" is not applicable at all.
But when a law is both agreed upon by common consent, and is in accordance with the highest natural law, and is so regarded by the great authorities on International Law, then it becomes entitled to the full dignity of a law of nations in the largest acceptation of the term.
The maritime code of the Consolato del Mare constituted the maritime law of nations in this highest sense. ”

“ I freely concede the authority of Congress to modify the rules of maritime law so far as they are administered in the Federal courts, and to make them binding upon the courts of the states so far as they affect interstate or international relations, or regulate 'commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.' What I contend is that the Constitution does not, proprio vigore, impose the maritime law upon the states except to the extent that the admiralty jurisdiction was exclusive of the courts of common law before the Constitution ”

“ The maritime law as generally accepted by maritime nations leaves the matter untouched and in practice each of them has applied the same rule for the sea which it maintains on land. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 204, 213, 7 Sup. ”

“ Unless the principles embodied in the ordinances, treatises, sea laws, digests, and codes adopted by the countries where the civil law prevails, constitute, to the extent that they concur in the rule of decision, the general maritime code as known in judicial investigation, it is difficult even to imagine what does, as it is known to every legal reader of judicial history that those countries never convened, as in a congress of nations, and ordained a system of maritime regulations which can properly be regarded as the standard authority upon that subject. ”

“ The particular grounds on which a conflict with section 2 of article 3 is asserted are that the statute enables a seaman asserting a cause of action essentially maritime to withdraw it from the reach of the maritime law and the admiralty jurisdiction, and to have it determined according to the principles of a different system applicable to a distinct and irrelevant field, and also disregards the restriction in respect of uniformity. For reasons which will be stated we think neither ground can be sustained. ”

“ Maritime law, like our municipal law, has attempted to avoid or resolve conflicts between competing laws by ascertaining and valuing points of contact between the transaction and the states or governments whose competing laws are involved. ”

“ It is true that early in our history maritime law was thought to be an international law merchant which was impartially administered by the several maritime nations of the world. This concept was expressed by Chief Justice Marshall's language in American Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 545-546, 7 L.Ed. 242: 'A case in admiralty does not, in fact, arise under the Constitution or laws of the United States. These cases are as old as navigation itself ”

“ The study of maritime law has the double attraction of historical and practical interest. It deals with the legal affairs of one of the most important phases of modern commercial activity and its problems are solved by precedents from a remote past. It is not a law which is confined within the narrow circle of the present or the limits of particular countries. ”

“ With full authority to bind the vessel, his position is such that it is almost impossible for him to acquaint himself with the laws of each individual state he may visit, and he has a right to suppose that the general maritime law applies to him and his ship, wherever she may go, unhampered by laws which are mainly intended for local application, or for domestic vessels. ”

“ The difference between them in a matter that concerns only their own citizens, in each case, cannot seriously affect the harmony and consistency of the common maritime law which each adopts and observes. ”

“ If the solitary ship is found near any coast, there is generally some claim put forth by the owner of the sea-shore, whether the owner be government or a private individual; but when out in the open sea, far distant from land, international maritime law may have to settle the matter. ”

“ I certainly can not ascribe to the powers represented in the conference of Paris any but liberal and philanthropic views in the attempt to change the unquestionable rule of maritime law in regard to privateering. Their proposition was doubtless intended to imply approval of the principle that private property upon the ocean, although it might belong to the citizens of a belligerent state, should be exempted from capture; and had that proposition been so framed as to give full effect to the principle, it would have received my ready assent on behalf of the United States. ”

“ The source from which the new rules are drawn contributes nothing to their force in the field to which they are translated. In that field their strength and operation come altogether from their inclusion in the maritime law. ”

“ Any advantages which a British ship has, e.g. the right of claiming protection for her flag, the non-attachment to her of a maritime lien for necessaries supplied in a British port, are not directly connected with the policy under which the Navigation Acts have become obsolete. These advantages are not secured to a British ship until she is registered. United States law agrees with British in this respect. “The United States have imitated the policy of England and other commercial nations in conferring peculiar privileges upon American-built ships and owned by our own citizens. ”

“ It may work injustice in particular cases where the exemptions are accorded to vessels of foreign nations which have no corresponding law, but this is not a matter within the purview of the courts. It is not improbable that similar provisions may ultimately be incorporated in the general law maritime. ”

“ Whereas, in matters affecting the stranger or foreigner, the commonly received law of the whole commercial world is more assiduously observed, in justice, it should be. No one doubts that every nation may adopt its own maritime code. France may adopt one, England another, the United States a third ”

“ All rules of the Law of Nations concerning navigation, fishery, and jurisdiction within the maritime belt apply likewise to navigation, fishery, and jurisdiction within straits. Foreign merchantmen, therefore, [Pg 267] cannot [357] be excluded; foreign men-of-war must be admitted to such straits as form part of the highways for international traffic; [358] the right of fishery may exclusively be reserved for subjects of the littoral State; and the latter can exercise jurisdiction over all foreign merchantmen passing through the straits. ”

“ That by the Law of Nations every State when at war has the right to capture its enemy's property at sea, of whatever nature it be and in whatever vessels it is found. That every State has also a right by the Law of Nations to arm and commission private vessels as an auxiliary to its naval force. ”

“ There is no doubt that, throughout the entire life of the nation under the Constitution, state courts not only have exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the courts of admiralty in actions ex contractu arising out of maritime transactions, and in actions ex delicto arising upon the navigable waters, but that, in exercising such jurisdiction, they have, without challenge until now, adopted as rules of decision their local laws and statutes, recognizing no obligation of a Federal nature to apply the law maritime. ”

“ It is for the interest of merchants and ship owners, whose relations and dealings are international in their character, that the same construction should, so far as possible, be placed upon the law maritime by the courts of all maritime nations ”

“ It is within the competency of a state to create and enforce liens upon vessels for supplies furnished under contracts not maritime in their nature, and it is no valid objection that the state law may obstruct the prosecution of a voyage of an interstate character. ”

“ If found afloat, whether by steam or sail, without one or the other of these, and without the right one with reference to the trade she is engaged in, or the lace where she is found, she is entitled to no protection under the laws of the United States, and is liable to seizure for such violation of the law, and in a foreign jurisdiction, or on the high seas, can claim no rights as an American vessel. ”

“ A great and growing commerce is carried on upon them between different States and a foreign nation, which is subject to all the incidents and hazards that attend commerce on the ocean. Hostile fleets have encountered on them and prizes been made, and every reason which existed for the grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the general government on the Atlantic seas applies with equal force to the lakes. There is an equal necessity for the instance and for the prize power of the admiralty court to administer international law, and if the one cannot be established neither can the other.... ”

“ It seems to be settled in our jurisprudence that, so long as congress does not interpose to regulate the subject, the rights of material men furnishing necessaries to a vessel in her home port may be regulated in each state by state legislation. State laws, it is true, cannot exclude the contract for furnishing such necessaries from the domain of admiralty jurisdiction, for it is a maritime contract, and they cannot alter the limits of that jurisdiction ”

“ It grew up out of the fact that the ocean is not the territorial property of any nation, but the common property of all; that vessels engaged in commerce between the different nations ought, so far as possible, to be subject to a uniform law, and not annoyed by the conflicting local laws and customs of the several nations which they visit. ”

“ Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. [2] The corporation sole — a creature of ecclesiastical law — is an acceptable adversary, and large fortunes ride on its cases. [3] The ordinary corporation is a "person" for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, [p743] whether it represents proprietary, spiritual, aesthetic, or charitable causes. [4]
So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. ”

“ The current opinion is that such rights can only be enforced against foreigners under the comity of nations or by their tacit assent, as a matter of mutual convenience, and in practice they are acquiesced in by other Powers.1102 But it is important to observe that, as will be more apparent when we come to deal with the exclusive right of fishing, maritime nations find it necessary for the protection of their just interests to extend their jurisdiction beyond the somewhat narrow boundary at present ordinarily assigned. ”