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be justified under the clause of the Constitution giving maritime jurisdiction to the federal courts; and, in fact, I think the Supreme Court of the United States has practically settled that question by two decisions. In one decision they hold that the Limited Liability Act cannot authorize a limitation of liability for damages that are not maritime in their nature; for instance, damage caused by fire starting on the ship at a dock and which spreads to the shore. One cannot there take the benefit of the Limited Liability Act, because it is not a case of admiralty jurisdiction. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that one can take the benefit of a limitation of liability for damages resulting in death.

Those two decisions, to my mind, settle the constitutionality of that act. I do not understand how the mere question of the other provision, as to how the money passes, which is a mere detail and incidental to the main legislation, could make it unconstitutional, if it was constitutional otherwise.

As to the bill relating to liens on vessels for repairs, supplies and necessaries, that bill also came from the Maritime Law Association, and is the result of careful consideration by the Association and the committee which prepared it, which committee consisted of Judge Dodge and Mr. FitzHenry Smith, of Boston, and myself, and was threshed out in all its details in the Maritime Law Association. I do not understand that the gentleman from Louisiana questions the policy of the act, but simply its constitutionality; and, until I hear his reasons to the contrary, I do not see why Congress cannot regulate and make uniform a lien relating to repairs, supplies and necessaries furnished to vessels. The only object of the act is to make the law uniform. We know that there, too, as to domestic vessels, rights of lien depend upon state legislation, and we know how conflicting that legislation is. We realize how troublesome questions are when they come close to the border line, and how arbitrary the decision is as to what is domestic and what is foreign. It is unfortunate that legislation should ever have been necessary upon it. As far as the constitutionality of it goes, I do not see

how it can be attacked upon the ground of being unconstitutional. If Congress can pass a law regarding mortgages on vessels-not simply vessels engaged in interstate commerce, but ferryboats plying from one side of a river to another-and requiring that those mortgages shall be recorded, and the Supreme Court of the United States has held such legislation good and valid, I do not see why it could not under the law to regulate commerce, and, in addition to that, under the admiralty clause of the Constitution, confer liens upon domestic vessels. The third act, giving a right of action against United States vessels, I do not understand is questioned at all.

Edgar H. Farrar, of Louisiana :

The Constitution of the United States gives the courts of the United States jurisdiction over all admiralty and maritime cases, but there is no grant of legislative power in the Constitution over admiralty and maritime cases. When the Constitution was framed it was supposed that those cases known as admiralty or maritime were settled. We have been trying to settle them ever since, but have not succeeded. The statutes to which the gentleman has referred can only be justified under that power conferred by the Constitution to regulate commerce among the states and with foreign countries; and all of the shipping laws of the United States, the whole body of them, have to be based upon this power given in the Constitution. It is now definitely settled that there is no relation between the commerce power and the jurisdiction over admiralty and maritime causes. I cannot find in the Constitution any authority whatever for the Congress to legislate as to what is or what is not under the law of a particular state a lien upon a vessel, domestic or foreign. I do not believe there is any such power. In all the numerous discussions that have taken place in the Supreme Court over that question, as far as I recall, there has been no reference made to any supposed power in the Congress to settle the vexed question, and if there had been any such power it would have been settled long ago. So with reference to the right of action. where death occurs. Under the Maritime Law which existed

when the Constitution was framed, a person had a right of action for any injury or damage done to him upon the high seas, but in case of death the survival of that right in his heirs was not acquired under the maritime law. Now, how is Congress to legislate on that subject today? Which heirs is it going to select-the wife, the children, the next of kin? And how long a time is to be given? Where does Congress get the power to fix that right and to fix the limitation of time?

John C. Richberg, of Illinois:

Is it not a fact that the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Act of 1845 did not confer any admiralty jurisdiction; that Congress had neither the power to add to nor to take away from the admiralty jurisdiction; that that was inherent in the court and not by any grant of the Constitution, and therefore Congress cannot legislate with reference to conferring or taking away jurisdiction of the United States Courts in Admiralty.

Robert M. Hughes, of Virginia:

It seems to me that a few recent decisions of the Supreme Court put this question beyond peradventure. There cannot be any question that the grant of admiralty jurisdiction being a constitutional jurisdiction cannot be enlarged by Congress, but if the subject is maritime in its nature and has been so treated by the commercial nations of the world, then Congress can engraft into our jurisprudence subjects maritime in their nature that have been so treated in other countries. The limit of the admiralty jurisdiction was not, as the Supreme Court has decided, the limited English jurisdiction, but the more extensive continental jurisdiction.

Now, coming down to specific instances: The court has expressly decided in the case of Butler vs. Boston and Savannah Steamship Company, 130 U. S. 527, that in a limited liability proceeding you can limit liability for the right of action resulting in death. Previously, in the case of the Phenix Insurance Company, 118 U. S. 610, a vessel caught fire and the fire spread

to the shore, and it was held not to be a subject of admiralty jurisdiction. The Supreme Court decided that the District Court could not limit the liability. But having decided that it could be limited in a case resulting in death, that was necessarily a decision on the part of the Supreme Court that such was a maritime case in its nature and subject to admiralty jurisdiction. Then there is the case of In re Garnett, 141 U. S. 1, which expressly decided that legislation of that nature could be justified by the admiralty clause of the Constitution. So that the older decisions have to that extent at least been modified, and the Supreme Court is now on record as deciding that you can legislate by virtue of the admiralty clause. You could not have any better illustration than the fact that Congress has passed a law requiring mortgages on vessels to be recorded in the custom houses-not simply vessels engaged in interstate commerce, but ferryboats plying backwards and forwards across a river, and never coming at all in contact with interstate commerce. And they have decided the same thing with reference to the Limited Liability Act. You can limit your liability for damages for a loss arising on a vessel that never goes outside the limits of the state. Therefore, the question is no longer an open one.

The President:

The question is upon the adoption of the report of the Committee as far as it relates to the bankruptcy and maritime legislation recommended by the committee.

Edgar H. Farrar:

I ask for a separation of the question; let it be divided.

The President:

We will first take up the recommendation as to bankruptcy. That is the first heading of the report. The question is upon the adoption of the portion of the report relating to bankruptcy legislation.

The portion of the report relating to bankruptcy legislation was adopted.

The President:

The second section will not be taken up at this time; it is deferred for the present. The third section, concerning Congressional legislation as to Admiralty Courts, will be sub-divided again, and the first subject or sub-division of the third sectiona bill entitled An Act to Authorize the Maintenance of Actions for Negligence Causing Death in Maritime Cases-will first be acted upon.

F. M. Burdick, of New York:

I would like to ask the committee whether this part of the act goes any further than changing the rule which was expressed by the Supreme Court in the Harrisburg case?

George Whitelock, of Maryland:

That is practically the effect of it. I would say that this principle of law has been adopted in every state in the union excepting possibly Louisiana; and what we propose to do here is to relieve the maritime court of the necessity of resorting, as they did in La Bourgoyne case, 210 U. S. 95, to the law of France, or as they did in the case of The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398, to the law of the little State of Delaware, for the allowance of damages caused by the death of the supporter of a family. We propose by this bill to put the federal court in the same position of dignity in that respect as the courts of the several states, and on that subject to assimilate the law of the American federal courts to the law of the various continental countries of Europe.

F. M. Burdick:

I judge, then, that there will be no difference of opinion. I think the gentleman from Louisiana has no desire to prevent a change of the rule of law laid down in the Harrisburg case; in other words, had the Supreme Court of the United States declared in the Harrisburg case that the right of action did survive, it would have expressed precisely what is intended to be accomplished by this act. Then it would leave to the state the distri

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